Blush...

There are times that I totally get away with being haphazard on the organisation front

 but I am starting to realise that it isn't always the best approach 

 when you have a million things on the go, and this week has been epic on that front

and as a consequence things have become a touch unravelled.

I am someone who likes to have plenty going on

I like to think it feeds my creativity but to be honest it is more likely that

 I get bored in about two minutes flat and need variety of my head explodes

but this week I have totally NOT gotten away with it

The house has ventured beyond mild bomb site into full on disaster zone

it turns out embarking on the epic declutter of 2016 and pulling every item out of every cupboard and then getting distracted and spending the week on illustrations and painting various loveliness like the new Daisy Dream Blush perfume, and this nail polish doesn't mix.

I have managed to trip over, stub my toes and bang my shins about 58 times

I am a mass of band aids and bruise cream and have no clue where anything is

Walking anywhere in the house must be taken on with a spirit of adventure and a fearless lust for danger and a delicious frisson of fear is stalking our every move

the earth moves under our feet constantly... and not in that good way

and our dismounts from various rooms have become the thing of family legend

Barry the cat is in heaven and sees it all as a personal quest to discover more and more unlikely places to hide and burrow and it is a small miracle he hasn't been squished

On the plus side, illustrations have been completed

some painting done to restore sanity

the postcard packs are up and available in the print shop

a new video went up on youtube outlining my favourite materials... at the moment

I am almost ready to have the Delicious Paint Class go live

and I got the print orders out in a timely fashion... so not a write off

it turns out that being practically walled into the studio due to the studio avoidance of dealing with declutter debris is quite conducive to getting work done

the list however, is still huge, and the clutter is not magically walking itself outside so the time has come to leave the relative safety of the studio and venture into the fray

wish me luck and happy painting all...xx

Holiday wrap up... and a new car

Meet my new car

 which actually looks rather a lot better than this sketch

 but cars are bloody hard to draw

 like weirdly difficult and challenging

 made harder by the fact that I really missed my paynes grey paint while I was away

  so I launched in happily using my favourite colour with abandon and it is way to dark

  my car is a lovely charcoal grey and this is much darker and bluer, though considering I  also drew a flat tyre and a wonky front end the colour is probably not that bad

 it was kind of fun though so I will probably give it another shot at some stage

 after all I am seriously in love with this car

 which is a surprise as I haven't really ever called myself a car person, but it is pretty  fabulous I have to say

We got to take the new car to the beach

where it behaved itself beautifully and delivered us everywhere in comfort and style

It was an amazing two weeks

like seriously awesome

walks and swims were the order of the day

closely followed by copious amounts of reading and catching up and lazing around

some gallery visits, some gazing at our navels and contemplating the world

Plus Sinus climbed a mountain

and a real one, not some glorified hill

well it is a small mountain but hey he did it

 and was only overtaken by about 50 retirees on the climb 

so huge kudos to my mountain man

the rest of the time was a haze of laughter, haphazard meals, playing chicken with the late summer rain, and trying to solve the mysteries of the resilience of sand and its ability to magically inhabit every orifice and space known to man. 

Coming home has been a whole other animal though

mildly depressing to face the mountain of work and even bigger mountain of washing

but being greeted by Barry the cat was quite lovely

he was wonderfully looked after by very special friends

but on arriving home he launched himself at Phantom like she was the messiah

then greeted Sinus and I with mild enthusiasm

and has been doing a great impression of velcro ever since

So I am finding my feet with these quick sketches

and getting excited about all that is ahead in the next month of two

I just can't wait for it all to get started

happy painting all...xx

PS here is the link to last week's post  which included a link to my latest painting demo

in case you missed it

turns out me trying to post via an ipad is beyond my tech abilities lol

Thank you...

this is a scheduled half scheduled, half bodgied post as I am off at the beach

no doubt sunburnt slightly

drunk on afternoon naps and the smell of salt water

But I wanted to try to keep up with the whole youtube thing so I filmed while I was painting this bottle up, and I even remembered to film all parts of it. so it is done from start to finish with no gaps... getting the hang of it all now. 

I have to say I aml obsessed with this hand soap... It smells so insanely awesome and is just about the best thing I have come across recently. Lime and coriander are two of my favourite smells in the whole world, plus no nasties, awesome company, and fab packaging... And the smell... Did I mention the smell...Dear god it is amazing...

Of course their hand sanitiser is also a new obsession as it smells like a gin and bitter lemon which is my all time favourite drink, so the company is obviously very tuned into my smell loves

So I decided to combine the inspiration of the divine smell and packaging with my desire to actually get better at the filming thing so here we have it...

This improvement with the filming process was helped no doubt by the fact that this one was painted without Barry the cat on my lap

Mushu the wonder mutt liked sitting on the table, slowly inching across closer and closer until his snout edged onto the palette so he could steal my tea when I got engrossed in what I was doing, But Barry is a whole other thing. Barry has to be right on top of you.

He has to be in everything, watching and swatting the brush at odd moments. It is taking quite a bit of getting used to as Mushu didn't notice much, or if he did he couldn't be arsed getting excited about much other than chicken, or you coming home. He would always act as though you had been gone for years rather than minutes. In fact hanging the clothes on the line and coming back in the house was met with rapturous welcomes from Mushu. Barry however wants to help hang out the washing, then supervise all else you do for a time after, and it isn't until he is sure there is nothing interesting happening that he decides to nap. 

So pet tales aside here is the demo if you are interested...

I have no clue how to get the embed code via the iPad so a link will have to do you

http://youtu.be/jDV5qp_7ABw

happy painting all...xx