It must be a bright and beautiful kind of weekend. I’m currently featured in three Treasuries, one of which I made featuring sellers from Handmade Spark.
Do you notice anything they have in common?
Tag: art
I’m a writer!!
I’m excited to announce that I’ve been invited to write for Handmade Spark.
The site is designed for sellers and buyers to connect. Through the blog sellers wil learn about marketing, blogging, how tos, and much more. Buyers will find new shops and items through the handmade features posted by me and a group of writers. Handmade Spark is also a directory where sellers can submit their links, like Twitter, Facebook , and blogs.
I’m really excited to be involved, and I hope I can bring a little something different to the website as I’m so far the only Aussie writer.
My first post is about ACEOs. I was inspired by the fact that I made my own first batch of ACEOs this weekend. I love the way they look on the little easel! If you’d like to find out more about ACEOs, you can read my post on Handmade Spark.
In other news, my painting Two Hearts, One Love has been featured on a Valentine’s Day post at Calico & Co., the Indie & Handmade Blog. There are lots of other pretty things there too! 🙂
Saturday Selections
Many thanks to Trina for thinking of a nice alliterative title for my weekly choice of favourite items from Etsy. It’s much easier to find the time to write this post on a Saturday!
For this week’s theme, I’ve decided to go for the ever-classy black and white.
First up: This gorgeous pair of handpainted leather heels by Mitsui.jing shoes. I LOVE this idea of handpainted shoes – they are completely unique, and just beautiful.
Now for something completely different (and really cool). I love all of Morphologica‘s science inspired jewellery, so it was hard to pick just one thing to feature today. I’ve decided to go for this Pyramidial Neuron necklace. I love the idea of wearing a funky, cool piece of jewellery that proudly displays your science nerdiness – although only to those who know enough to work out what it is 😀 This necklace is also available in white. Why not pair it with some DNA Double-helix inspired earrings?
Inspired by Australian snow gum trees, this Snow Gum series of glass platters by Jens Studio would make a perfect addition to any home – black and white goes with everything! I think these would look great with little appetisers on (like little sushi rolls!) or just displayed in the home. I love functional art like this!
Finally, I just love this set of 6 elegant black and white fabric coasters by Odds & Blobs. I’ve used fabric coasters and love them because you never get that annoying thing where the glass sticks to the coaster and gets picked up with it. Also, if someone spills a drink on them you can throw them in the wash! They’re a wonderful idea and this set in black & white is just beautiful.
Thanks for checking out my “Saturday Selections” this week! Be sure to have a look at all these sellers Etsy stores, as they have lots of other goodies on offer!
I’m hoping to get some painting done this weekend, so will post later on with an update on what I’ve done 🙂
Works in Progress…
It’s been a productive weekend!
I’ve done lot’s of work on my lastest commission, a painting for a friend:
There is a lot of detail in this one, and it is HUGE (I can only fit one panel at a time on my easel), so it’s taking me a really long time to finish, but I hope the result will be worth it in the end.
I completed another painting this weekend, and thought I’d show you the stages it went through:
At this point, I left the painting to dry before removing the tape. I painted a tree branch going across the top of the painting. Here’s the result:
I also made some more art pendants this week, but that’s a post for another day!
Saturday Favourites?
It’s been a hectic week with school starting again. That’s my excuse, anyway. Not sure what my excuse was last week.
When I came up with the idea of listing my favourite Etsy items once a week on my blog (an idea I’m sure I stole from someone), I chose Friday because I liked the alliterative quality of the title “Friday Favourites”. I didn’t really think about how busy Fridays are for me! It’s a shame that Saturday Favourites doesn’t have the same ring to it.
Anyway, rather than doing what I did last week and just completely forgetting about it, this week I’m thinking it’s better late than never.
And since I struggled through the first week of school this week (it was very hot in our classrooms!), I’m doing a back to school theme for this week’s Saturday Favourites.
This first item is a button I’ve featured before in a treasury, because I think it’s just awesome 🙂 Made by beanforest, this ‘Teachers Are Hot’ button has a double meaning this week – it was 36 degrees celcius in my classroom for the last few days so the teachers (and the students) were literally hot.
Isn’t this Robot Children’s Tote Bag cute! Who doesn’t love robots? This would make an awesome library bag. All students at the school I work at are required to have a library bag if they want to borrow books – so why not have one as cool as this? It’s from Tiges and Weince, where you’ll find lots of other cool stuff for kids.
All children need a pencilcase for school. This Woodland Animals Pencilcase is so cute! It’s handmade so you know it’s going to be better quality than a lot of other pencilcases (then the children will stop coming to me with broken zips to fix!). I just love it because I think the picture on the front is super-cute. It’s made by Pocket Carnival, where you can also find prints and originals of artwork like you can see on this pencilcase.
Of course, once you have a cool pencilcase, you need some cool pencils to go in it! I just LOVE this idea of personalised greeting pencils by Right Brainy. You can choose the paper and the message. Would make a great gift to suck up to the teacher on the first day (hint hint!) but would also be lovely for your children – they will never have to worry about losing their pencils when they are so unique.
One last thing…
With Valentines Day coming up soon (are you reading this Matt?), I created an Etsy treasury featuring romantic artworks. Art makes a lovely Valentine’s gift! Check it out:
Have a great weekend!
Mini-Exhibition at the Coffee Club
Tonight I’ll be hanging a selection of my paintings at the Coffee Club, Springfield. So if you’re in the area, why not pop in for a great coffee, some delicious food, and take a look at some of my paintings in person?
Sorry the picture isn’t great – my camera has a habit of running out of batteries at inconvenient times. You’ll just have to visit the Coffee Club and check out the paintings in person!
Art Meets Science
Those who know me know that I have an interest in science. I believe it’s the most under-taught subject in the primary school curriculum, and I think that’s because a lot of people (and teachers) either don’t understand it and therefore are not confident teaching it, or they simply think it’s boring.
One of my favourite things to do is paint science-inspired art. I think if people can see that science is interesting and beautiful, it’s got to be a step in the right direction.
With that in mind, I painted this yesterday:
Painted on two sheets of watercolour paper (each one measures 25cm x 35cm), it is inspired by the planets of our solar system. Poor Pluto isn’t included because it’s no longer a planet.
I really enjoyed painting this – it reminded me of looking through my neighbour’s telescope when I was a kid and seeing jupiter for the first time.
A Belated Friday Favourites – Merry Christmas!
You would think that now I’m on school holidays I would have gotten my act together and had my Friday Favourites published on time… but you would be wrong. So this is more like Saturday Favourites (but that doesn’t have the same ring to it!).
I’ve been busy working on a commissioned piece so that’s my excuse 🙂
Next Friday as you know is Christmas day, and I will be busy cooking up a storm (or setting things on fire) in the kitchen – so I won’t be posting a Friday Favourites. So this week I’ve decided to do a Christmas themed set of red and green items.
First up this week are these beautiful Christmas Cards by Moonmum (who is a fellow Aussie!). I love the fact that these are something a little different to what you normally see on Christmas cards. The birds are cute and the stitching really adds another dimension.
I know it’s probably a bit late to be thinking about Christmas cards now, but Moonmum has lots of other cards in her shop for all occasions which are just beautiful, so make sure you check it out!
Next up are these cool Amoeba Kelly Green earrings by Under Glass. These unique earrings would be lovely for any time of year, not just Christmas!
Time for another red item – This wonderful bracelet titled “Blooming Garden” by Blue Dove Studio. I think this bracelet would go perfectly with my red Christmas dress – but like the earrings it’s not Christmas themed so would be pretty at any time of year. I just love the antiqued brass branch charm in this bracelet.
Next up in my little red and green pattern (did you notice?) are these lovely Green Holiday Earrings by AZ Bead Girl. I just love the little diamantes!
Finally, I have to break my red-green-red pattern because I just couldn’t resist including this beautiful soap by Aniselle Bath & Body.
Isn’t it just gorgeous!? Would be wonderful to have in the bathroom as a handsoap around Christmas time when guests come around. The soap is Sage and Pomegranate with Olive oil and Goats milk, so it sounds like it would smell and feel as lovely as it looks.
Well that’s it! My last Friday Favourites for 2009! I should be back with another blog post before Xmas though – I’m hoping to do a painting for Monday Artday if I get to it in time.
Have a lovely weekend!
Friday Favourites – Silver White Winter
I know it’s not quite Friday yet, but I thought I’d post my Friday Favourites now as I don’t know if I’ll get a chance tomorrow.
This week’s selection is inspired by this painting:
It’s actually stinking hot here right now, so I’m a little envious of my northern-hemisphere friends and their white winters 🙂 To get me into a cooler frame of mind, I’m featuring beautiful items in blue, white and silver.
First up this week is this sterling silver necklace with interchangeable amazonite and pearl pendants, by Emily Wiser Jewellery. I love that you can wear just the white or just the blue pendant, but I think they look great together.
You may have noticed that I am very taken with swirls, and they feature heavily in my artwork. Bearing that in mind, I’m sure it isn’t difficult to guess what caught my eye about this beautiful necklace, titled “Romantic Getaway” by Beach Glass Gone Wild!
The next blue and white beauty on my list is this gorgeous vintage vanity fair robe in periwinkle blue, from Fine Vintage Apparel. It’s just too pretty for words!
This Silver Snowflake necklace from Inbal Jewelry and Design is just lovely. It would make a lovely addition to a winter outfit, but I think it is so pretty I’d wear it all year round.
Last, but most definitely not least, is this stunning card featuring artwork titled “Buckwheat Branches” by IsabellaFlora. The card is blank inside so it could be given for any occasion – it’s just beautiful!
Inspire Me Thursday – Handmade Holidays
Christmas is sneaking up on us once again!
We put our Christmas tree up this weekend, and I’ve started thinking about Christmas cards.
Last year I painted a Christmas picture and used the image to make my cards:
I’ve finally gotten around to painting something for this year’s cards. Its a bit different to last years, but I hope people will like it all the same. I’m going to get the prints made up sometime tomorrow and I’ll post a picture of the cards when I’ve made them.
Don’t forget to enter my giveaway if you haven’t already done so!