Mandy in Oz

I want to.... Float on Clouds of Whimsy. Grab a hold of those sparks of inspiration, then allow them to carry me away. Stop.  Make time for the things I want to do, at the time I feel inspired to do them. Play.  Dance.  Laugh.  Sing. Embrace the light. Embrace the good. Embrace the beautiful.

                          Day 6 (Miss B) - yep, more portraits :P  watercolour this time. Day 7 (Miss Lily) - a sabre-toothed tiger cub, not a scary one (acrylic) I think little J must have missed a turn...oh well, his go tomorrow!

Miss Lily requested a Clouded Leopard in crayons....after some discussion, it was decided that oil pastels and Slick Stix count as crayons ;)

Earlier this year, I arted along with 'One Drawing a Day', it's a great book of daily drawing prompts, which you can find out more about here .  Well, even though I completed the book some time ago, I've continued with my daily drawing (which is really the whole point ;)  ).   Anyway, it's school holidays here at present, so I decided to do my daily drawing with a twist - my darling children are taking turns choosing both my subject *and* medium for the day.  The choices - and results - have been both predictable and somewhat surprising! (I don't know how that's actually possible, nevertheless it's true).   The children have thrown themselves into this game with great gusto and I've found it both challenging and refreshing to meet the briefs of my little dictators :P   Here are our first four days:   Day 1 - (Little J) - Dino-rex in gouache (have you ever heard a 4 year old say gouache?  It's adorable.) Day 2 - (Miss Lily) - A R...

A charcoal sketch of a fave character, in my One Drawing a Day journal.   Looking forward to the return of TVD......mmmm, Damon :P

What do you get if you take some blank paper, a 'reference' picture (lol), acrylic paints, a trusty pencil and me?  Some excited and hovering children, and a Dr Seuss themed painting for their room :P  Whipped this up using the kids Ikea easel, on some of that Ikea butchers paper, in an afternoon and evening.  They seem impressed, though it's probably just a matter of time until little J destroys it!

Shalom.....it was thrown into the naughty corner for a while, but I frogged most of it and am having another go... I'm spinning cotton..that I grew in the garden, from seed.  Spinning from the boll is wonderful.  The portrait of my grandfather....completed at last.  Lily's bed, with her mummy-made, insanity inspiring *all knit materials* quilt. Jackson's crazy making *also all knit materials* quilt (easier than the previous one though, being MM fleece backed rather than cuddlefleece lol). And that is it, for now.

Yes, yes, I know - it's been a really long time since my last post :S  Ah well, no point making excuses, it's been a bit of a dry time, creatively speaking.  Though, that's not to say that I haven't done anything crafty, because I have!  I just haven't felt that it was terribly blogworthy ;)  However, the urge to *make stuff* has reemerged, (yay!) and I finally have something that seems to warrant a picture, at the very least. Presenting - the portrait that I've been working on for a very long time....  this is actually my grandfather, back when he was very young.  I'm the keeper of most of the family pictures from my dad's side of the family, so I used an old photograph as a reference picture.  It's not 100% finished yet, but pretty close.  And here is the sum total of equipment used to do this picture.  Yep, that's right - a pacer and a piece of blu-tack :P  That's all that you need ;)  And maybe some fixative, once y...