now... not so busy!

So on Sunday I was preparing for the busiest week ever, wondering how I would get it all done before Christmas. 

Now... not so much!

I had this wall to paint and signwrite for my daughters dancing studio. My friend, Linda, graciously offered to help me with, which I really appreciated, coz it was a whole lot more enjoyable having someone to help out.

As you can see, we painted it, but the teachers decided that some of the boards need patching and nailing down before signwriting it... so now it's not an urgent, before-christmas deadline.

Yay! (it's sweltering hot and I get head aches in the sun)

*********************

Job 2. I had to do a creative project for this years church Christmas Experience. I was worried it was a bit too rough, but it'll be one of many projects so it may be ok. (That bottom rip will be cut off).

I find the flustered mum and the naughty/crying kids funny, and I just realised I get my sense of humour from all the Giles cartoon books I read as a kid.

***************************************

And this is Catherine on Saturday dancing at the end of year School competition

Shed grown out of her dress a bit, but it  was alright... and she ended coming out 3rd in the beginners section! which I was not expecting at all!! Maybe I should give her some credit sometimes.

PS> Me and Catherine have designed her next years dress already! I'd put the sketches up but I don't want to give too much away... or maybe I will later on. We'll see.

family tree

So... I have a new friend! Linda, from my church.

And she's arty too. She also married into a large family who have big family events and they asked her to make a family tree, and look what she's come up with.

I asked her if I could put this on my blog... coz it's in our garage, and I'm helping her paint in the black swirls, so there's a little bit of me in there too.

There's still a bit to go. The main black branches are the 19 kids of the grandparents, who had kids... who had kids! So there's gonna be branches off branches off branches. (Well, shes thinking the Grand and great grandchildren may be leaves and berries for claritys  sake)

My happy place

THIS

is where I create

this...

My favourite place to be. My Dad's garage, which is pretty much mine now.

I think my Dad liked it here too

I remember him making us Dinghies in here. You can see the frame of a kayak there hanging from the ceiling. I've left it there because I don't know what to do with it, and also it's just a part of the place now.

And now I hole myself up in there, my lastest interest being tiedyed fabric bags. If it doesnt work, at least I spent some time in my happy place.

Church Garage Sale this Saturday. I got busy :) Painting and making cupcakes!

Church is wanting to rotate my drawings, so I ended up taking the spares back home. I'm not really sposed to put holes in the wall, but noticed there were allready a few holes, and anyway, they said "but if you do, fill in the holes when you leave." Which left me confused. Am I allowed to or not??
Anyhow, my flat looks alot less sparse now, with two hanging drawings.

I thought it was cool...

But I don't think picture no. 1 thought so! It was funny when I realised it looked like she was staring disapprovingly at the others.

Might have to shift her somewhere else!

Felt like this...

chopping wood with an axe yesterday.

Yeah baby, I'm Bronson.

----------------------------------------------------------

Also framed a picture I did for church. They wanted a Joseph for christmas to go with Mary and Jesus. I'm a bit embarrassed about what came out of my psyche. Is this my dream guy or something?? He ended up looking like a bit of a rock star.

eagle

Another charcoal drawing for a friend. She loves eagles, so this is the second eagle drawing I have done for her.

Garage Sale art!

 We are having an art sale in 2 weeks to fundraise for kids going to camp at our church, so I've been busy creating! I'm not too sure about the cow... it's quite hard to piant a cow it turns out, but the bird... cute!

I aim to do a few more before next Saturday.

Catherines art!

I got out the white laquer undercoat, a paint brush and some masking tape. What was I doing? My nails of course!! Still trying to perfect that french manicure. This one lasted about 3 days. Not that long but still the longest so far. And cutting little bits of masking tape to mask the edges made a real difference.

And we went to a school art show yesterday. Catherine's art got selected for a local schools art show.
Hers is the blue face and long hair.

Then we had a look around and there was some AMAZING art... so I ended up taking pictures. Here are a few. They are all done by kids from around 5 to 12 years of age.

A moment to Himself

This is a drawing I did of the Trinity. I believe God laughs... I mean He invented ducks and bananas. He could have just given us gravel to eat, but He designed this food with a funny shape, that you get to peel and then there's this soft moon shape stuff inside that you eat. And He made it bright yellow! And ducks... I bet He cracked up when He decided to make them waddle.

Well, to get a bit more theological... they say the Trinity, God the Father, God the Son and God the Holy Spirit has perfect unity within Himself. He never gets lonely because He has perfect fellowship within the Godhead.

And I believe He laughs. I mean the bible says, does the God who made ears not hear and the God who made eyes not see? Well then... wouldn't it also follow that the God who made laughter not have a sense of humour?

So this is a picture of God having a moment with Himself, cracking himself up. That's why I gave God the Father a bald spot. I think He would find it funny.

Eagle drawing and some sewing

A friend at church asked me to do an eagle drawing, so this is what I came up with. I also found a good verse to go with it.

And check out the pants I made yesterday! News paper pattern $0. Material from Clearance Outlet... $1.50.

Garage Sale Art. 2 .

Here is drawing no. 2.

I did this straight after going to the dentist, so I have a bit of a speech impediment right now.(Not that it affects the art, I'm just saying). And man, I wanted to save money, so I went to the dentist down the road. He's cheap, but painful, but I thought it would be worth it, but man... I'm sure I'm biting to the side now! Maybe I've taken penny pinching a bit too far this time! Well, I'll know for sure when the numbing wears off.

Note: false alarm. It was the anesthetic. My bite is fine.... phew!

Garage Sale Art.

Well, we had another church garage sale last week, and I didn't do any drawings, and apparently someone came asking if we had any more drawings!

So I'm gonna do 2 more. (We have another garage sale this weekend to sell the rest of the stuff).

Here's drawing 1. I'll do the second either today or tomorrow.
And look what my friend Myra let me borrow. A bread maker! I've been wanting one for years! And man... it makes YUMMY bread.... Look at those angelic rays just shining off the thing!

Drawing of Granny

Here's another charcoal drawing I have done for a friend. It's her Grandmother back in America, and shes getting on a bit apparently, so they would really like a picture of her. And here it is :)

Super heroes!

A friend of mine asked me to paint her some super heroes for her 4 year old son. I agreed although I was worried it was going to take a looong time. I managed to finish it over 3 days. Up close theyre not amazing, but stand back a bit they look quite effective.

portrait

Here's a drawing I did for a friend at church. It's of her sister and baby. I always get a bit iffy doing portraits coz they never look just like the photo... but then again, I'm usually the one who offers to do them, so can't really complain. Good practice. I didn't quite get the absolutely INCREDULOUS look of the baby, but it's ok I guess.

Also, even though it's summer, my contribution to the rising baby population (or so it seems right now!!) is booties!! A pair for a girl at church, and a pair for Catherine's Aunty (who I never see, but Catherine announced one day "I'm going to have another cousin!!" - so I thought I would be "big" and make her some booties).

Chip off the old block

How cute is this? Just came home from bible study and found this on my computer screen... and look, she even wrote her name with the mouse. Pretty impressive if you ask me :)

Painting

This the finished painting for my friend, Myra. It's her birthday next month, so I've just left it long enough for the paint to dry so I can varnish it.

And this is my latest practice. I think my script needs a bit of work... but my block letters are doing ok. I also need to practice twisting the brush to get nice points at the corners.

No. 2

Something came back up in mind today. Something from Steven Covey's "7 habbits of highly effective people".

Our time is divided into 4 catagories.

1. Important and urgent

2. Important but not urgent

3. Not importand but urgent

4. Not importand and not urgent.

Try your best to stay within 1 and 2 as best you can. Alot of our time is often spent on no. 3.
.

(By the way... the bird picture is for my friend Myra's birthday. ).

Well it's finally here

Well, I went to the art show not really expecting to see my work, as I thought they were rotating them, but I saw them both! and took photos next to both of them... hee hee.

Wow... there were some amazing pieces of art, and I feel in the mood to get painting again now I have something to aspire to...