Clueless First Blog Post!

After having put this off for a very long time due to being extremely un-techy, I’ve decided to bite the bullet and delve into the world of blogging, so please bear with me!

So, a very warm welcome to you 😊 I created this site to have somewhere to show the work that I do and to try to promote sustainability and being environmentally aware in art making. I also find this is not always that easy so I’m hoping it will motivate me to keep trying harder to find new ways to satisfy my creative urges and do as little harm as possible to the planet.

My main passions are mixed media painting and jewellery making, although I love all sorts of crafts. Over the festive season I’ve been working on burning a mandala design onto the lid of a box as a gift for my best friend (upcycling, of course!) and I’ve made a couple of tree ornaments out of old beaded jewellery and some wire leftover from making the bouquets for my brother’s wedding in the summer.

Now it’s the beginning of a new year and I’m full of hopes of finally getting my life organised- as I am every new year, somehow having what looks suspiciously like ADHD and a life full of resulting chaos always seems to scupper these, but hey-ho, what better time than to kick off a new blog and give myself something to work towards?! I’d love to be able to complete at least one painting a week, somehow this hasn’t previously been very achievable but I think it’s time to prioritise the thing I love doing the most a little more and hopefully I can inspire a few people along the way.

I think I’ll start by showing you the recently finished painting that I’ve just given to my youngest son Jesse, as he said he loved it.

‘Sonrise’

This frame was rescued from being put in the bin during some time I spent volunteering at a local charity shop. I wasn’t much of a fan of the print it had on it but thought the oval frame was unusual, if a little old fashioned, and as I can’t bear to see perfectly good things get sent to landfill, I rescued it and decided to paint over it. It didn’t have any glass and the print was already on a board nailed to the back with a hanging ring already in place so it was just a case of painting straight over it and it was ready to go.

The salvaged piece, which says ‘after dinner’ on the back.
First step was to paint over everything, I went with black, for quick coverage more than anything else.
Then added a strip of paper mache made from blended up egg boxes.
Whilst that was still wet I found an old string of pearly beads that had seen better days and squished them in.
I gave that all a coat of paint once it was dry to seal it all in and then added some experimental crackle medium*.
This attempt at cracks didn’t really work very well but I still liked the texture.
Then another coat of paint to seal everything in once that had dried and get an idea of how deep the cracks might be.
Starting to think about what colours I wanted to use and adding a base layer (which also helps to seal the texture)
Playing with colour and thinking about what other colours might work well.
Building up more colours, adding in a little metallic gold.
More building up of colours and adding gems, then starting on the background.
I often seem to return to an ocean-like scheme, so began by starting off a watery ombre look.
I decided this wasn’t quite what I wanted so tinkered around with the top section, which became like sky above a landscape, then blocked out the lower area with bright turquoise.
I still wanted a watery feel with a sense of some depth so I added different shades of blue over the turquoise and blended around the edges of my ‘rocky’ area.
I added lots more gems of varying sizes and different types of glitter glue to make sure they were well sealed in and give a crystalline look.
A little more work on blending the top section and then Jesse insisted it was done. I still felt I could have worked on it for ages at this point but that seems to be a recurring issue of mine!
Then all that was left was to add my signature!

I’m not sure what I think of this piece, really, I don’t very often like what I’ve done, at least not for a good while after it’s finished and I’ve had a chance to forget it! I wonder if other abstract artists feel this way about their work?! I often struggle to know when something is actually finished!

*I’m going to have to do a post about home made crackle medium at some point, I’ve had very little success with tutorials I’ve found online and have been working on developing my own method but I need to do a bit more experimenting.

I hope this has been somewhat interesting and informative, please get in touch if there’s anything you’d like to know about what I do. Hopefully I’ll be back soon!

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