Endless Blue and White...

My blue and white obsession has continued this week

 when I've not been working on a couple of illustration jobs 

 that have been keeping me a little too much on my toes if truth be told

  and some lame arsed attempts to get my paperwork in order 

  I have been continuing to obsessively paint all things blue and white

 there is something about the freshness of the colours that just makes me happy

 so I am running with it until I get sick of it

 though scarily it really doesn't feel close to running its course yet

Part of the problem is that I had this idea of having some blue and white lino prints of vases above the bed in the main bedroom

the room is all blues and whites and soft white furniture so it feels pretty perfect

but then I had the idea of maybe doing a gallery wall of all different prints and paintings

in blue and whites and can't decide which to go with

the roof is really high and the room is huge so it can take some colour but for the life of me I can't commit one way or the other so I am creating both options and will decide later

I figure that at the very least the online store and etsy shop will both get an influx of new work so no time is wasted, and quite frankly I am having a blast so am having no trouble justifying all my spare time going to creating them

I also know myself well enough to know I just need to go with it until I am done with the idea

or else it will just nag away at the back of my brain

and I have enough things nagging away back there

things like whether it is worth trying to desensitising Barry the cat so he doesn't freak out at the sight of cauliflower... and carrots

turns out he's not keen on carrots either

I also have this nagging doubt that I had an appointment that I was due to go to next week but for the life of me can't think what it is

plus deciding what taps we should choose, and light fixtures, and when to book the arborist and where the lid to my hand cream has disappeared to and the fifty million other random things that sail through my brain all day

it is like a news ticker on speed in there... 

so I shall retire to some more blue and white and try to ignore it

happy painting all...xx

PS here is the next two videos for the questions and answers series

of course after last week's posting of the first two I got a flood of more questions... ok not a flood but certainly more than a trickle so I will do one last video answering your questions

so if you have anything you wanted to ask now's your chance

pop it in the comments below or contact me via email etc... 

Blue and White China and Ninjas...

 It has been a glorious week creatively speaking

 full of blue and white lino prints and paintings

 several more are already started after this tester watercolour was such a pleasure

 and my lino print of the huge blue and white vase/urn made it through the test print stage

 which was a relief after so long carving the sucker

but all was well and even the block looked beautiful inked up

Yet another blue chair was drawn up and painted

I am starting to think I have a problem and maybe should just buy a blue chair 

and be done with it

Barry the cat gained a new quirk and has decided to only sleep 

if a human is also lying down with him

he also discovered the vegetable crisper in the fridge and just likes to touch everything in it

except cauliflower... he is still deathly scared of a whole head of cauliflower

In amongst all of that fun and wonderfulness 

I also had the thrill of watching an actual ninja doing their thing

after going out walking with my great friend and partner in crime, Rach

we arrived home to find me locked out... no clue why I removed the fence key from my keyring, but I did... so while I am busy calling Sinus to get his late butt home to let me in

 Rach scaled our six foot fence like she was a ninja crossed with a mountain goat

Poor Sinus got a very garbled message which consisted of me loudly asking him where his mildly late butt was, interrupted by me suddenly 

yelling at Rach to get down off the bloody fence as she isn't 40 anymore then more panicked yelling and name calling as she scaled the 6 foot structure like it was about a foot high, happily dropping over the fence, nailing the landing and unlocking the gate for me... bloody legend

plus in amongst my panicked name calling  and voicemailing  Sinus I even managed to snap a pic so we have evidence of this madness... talk about multi- tasking

Rach has unparalleled talents it turns out and I feel this now necessitates a change in alias for her... for years she has been Astrid Tagliatelli to my Kiki Von Stroganoff, but in light of these new skills I feel we need a more scaling great heights type name

my suggestions of Heidi was shot down and countered by her suggesting Xena

but that is just silly... who is going to believe someone is called Xena Tagliatelli...

the search for a new name will continue

of course any suggestions will be welcomed...

 so this afternoon the block will be shaped and the final adjustments made 

 so I can print an edition very soon which is crazy exciting

just seeing the palette is enough to make me swoon...

 I also got some youtube videos up which I will attach below for you if you want a squizz

I am answering some of the questions left after last week's post  and on social media

 and the lino class is finally finally moving in the right direction 

 it is all go really

happy painting all...xx

A return and a request...

I am celebrating my return to my blog with a champagne glass as two weeks away has felt like an eternity, maybe longer than an eternity.... an eon perhaps

 especially as those weeks have been a mad flurry of old furniture needing new  homes, new furniture needing to be delivered, placed and in some cases constructed

 not to mention making about five squillion decisions every hour of that time

 some of which are great fun like paint colours

 well fun until I change my mind every five minutes 

 and then go through the whole process again looking at 50 swatches and checking them all  in different lights, and against furniture and me asking Sinus to go out and hold branches  away from windows so I can check what the light will be like when the trees are pruned...  and then removing spiders from Sinus's mop of hair while reassuring him that the noise he had produced on walking into said spider's web was in actual fact a masculine growl rather than a girly squeal...

only to land back at my original colour choices... yep I am that annoying person

and don't get me started on kitchen appliances, door handles and everything in between

too much choice, too many ideas, and pinterest fuelling it all like petrol on a fire... a scary scary combination

 Of course as the next few months will have all sorts of construction like a new kitchen and new bathrooms, not to mention removal of walls etc 

and yes I am the total madwoman who does it all the wrong way round and gets furniture before the construction... crazy I know, but sometimes being visual necessitates things in the wrong order 

to top it all off it has all also necessitated pre emptive decluttering on an epic scale

we are talking clearing the decks and empty shelves decluttering

I did the research on decluttering... thank you pinterest for making me feel horribly inadequate, yet oddly fascinated as they show all those perfectly organised and coordinated shelves and cupboards

and can I say only keeping things that bring you joy concept is a stupid idea

because there is no way known the iron, mop, vacuum or pretty much any other cleaning,  type appliance would still be still be around... no joy in those suckers so the house would be empty but still look like a home for lost dust bunnies if I listened to that one

Plus in one article I read about just keeping a page or two of a book you love... seriously that person is a monster... who tears out a page from a book to keep and hurls the rest... dear god it is enough to drive a sane person to consume vats of chocolate I don't know what is... when I told Phants about it she went the colour of a washed out albino and looked like she was going to throw up... there are evil evil people in the de cluttering movement

But happily we all survived and things are moving forward and I have managed to get some time back so here are a few of the sketches of late... plus I am doing a huge lino block

it turns out that carving the bejeezus out of something is quite therapeutic at the end of a very long day of decision making and decluttering

construction doesn't begin in earnest for a few weeks so i am going to make the most of the quiet and paint like crazy... and finish and get the lino class up and running

and get some new youtube videos up

 which brings me to the request part of the title of this post

In fact I am recording some next Tuesday after a few people suggested I do some question and answer type ones and so I will answer any question you want to ask me

except physics questions... bloody hopeless at physics

so if there is something you have always wanted to ask then pop it in the comments below or drop me an email, or message me or on any of the social media platforms which we all live by now

in the meantime happy painting all...xx