Slings and arrows

The last few nights I've been drawing some repetitive stylised feathers and playing round with colour combinations, painting them with watercolours.  Tonight's feathers are going to be pastel icecream colours I think!  

Mitre Peak

 

When we were on tour in the South Island in February we were lucky enough to play in Milford Sound, be taken out into the sound on a boat and visit the very magical underwater fish observatory.  When we arrived there in the early evening the light was very magical and I snapped a fuzzy picture of Mitre Peak on my phone, to capture the colours.  I knew I wanted to turn it into a painting so the last couple of months I've been working on it, with half my bedroom floor covered in a drop cloth and strewn with paints.  And here it is hanging in our lounge:

You can see how very full of granny squares our couch is...at one stage we had so many granny square rugs we had to keep some of them in the car!

I'm having fun doing some landscape painting...I think next up will be one of the Manukau Heads!

Manukau Heads

 I'm working on a giant painting of Mitre Peak at the moment, from when we went to Milford Sound on tour back in February.  And I've got another giant canvas sitting in my room, which made me think I should also do a giant painting of the Manukau heads.  So a couple of Sundays ago we took a drive out to the Otuataua stonefields to take a few reference photos and watch the sun go down.

 Such a beautiful and slightly eerie place.

There is an avocado orchard there that is part of the regional park and you can take five avocados per person.  Note to self to go back in avocado season!

Green ribbons, tall mountains

 I've been experimenting with some new ribbons for my huia brooches and thought I'd try out some in my favourite colour, a mossy green (I have an embarrassing number of cardigans that colour).

 And I've been planning a painting of Mitre Peak, probably one of the most painted places in New Zealand, but after I visited Fiordland earlier in the year I thought I'd love to have a giant painting of it in my lounge.  I'm having a (legitimate) sick day off work with a cold, so I thought it was a good chance to steal some time and get started on it!

Yellow leaves and a spot of mudlarking

 

Yesterday Mr. Millicent Crow and I were standing in the rain at Pt Chev beach cackling like a couple of hyenas.  We'd walked to the beach to gather seaweed for me to draw and as I was pouncing on new exciting bits to add to my collection I realised my hands were already full of rosehips I'd picked up on the way (also for drawing).  Too many treasures!  Pretty much alone on the beach, getting soaked through, it suddenly seemed to be a pretty eccentric way to spend a Sunday afternoon!  My slightly obsessive treasure collecting has led me to come home with pockets full of yellow leaves lately and I've finally painted them into a yellow leaf sampler to go with this one and this one.  Maybe a seaweed painting will be next on the agenda?

Notions

 I love old packaging for sewing notions and haberdashery...the fonts, the colours, the slogans! 

 This dome packaging's from my nana's sewing box, which I've used before for painting inspiration.  I've just had some proofs made up prints of this painting, which was part of my My Magpie Eye zine:

It's exciting seeing it in multiples...it's like having an enormous button collection!

Swiss cheese and yellow leaves

 Most winters I seem to get around to doing some knitting just as it's starting to get warm again, and this week I've been making a swiss cheese scarf.  It's a bit wonky, but it's going to be turned into a cowl, so hopefully some of the wonkiness will be hidden in folds.  Very importantly, it's helping me stay awake through TV shows and movies; I have a bad habit of getting too relaxed and falling asleep halfway through, no matter how suspenseful the show!  And it matches these yellow leaves I've been hoarding - they're going to become a painting like this one and this one. 

Hopefully I'll get the scarf and the leaf painting finished before Spring gets here!

My Creative Space: stealing time for bits and pieces

Today my creative space is about stealing time.  Stealing a bit of time to jot down some "Things I didn't buy from the op shop" ideas.  The only paper I had in my bag was a scrappy old envelope.

 I'm hoping to turn that series of drawings into a zine full of things I didn't buy from the op shop (and maybe some that I did).

I've also been stealing some time to work on a blanket label painting.  This is my second version of this particular label in progress...the cross hatching has been taking aaages.  

And stealing time for a coffee, because, as they say, a day without coffee is like something without something...

Joining in with "My Creative Space" over here today. 

Happy Thursday!

My Creative Space: a Valentine's Day giveaway

Happy Valentine's Day!  I'm having a bit of a giveaway today, but first up, some blankets.  I've been working on some paintings of old blanket labels and finished this Onehunga Woollen Mills one this morning.  Then in a nice bit of synchronicity I found another Onehunga Woollen Mills blanket at the op shop this afternoon.  For the princely, or should I say princessly sum of $7! It is very gaudy in real life, with almost fluro pink stripes, but it looks much more tasteful in photos!  I think this "Princess" label will be one of my next paintings. 

And now for the giveaway!  I was hoping to have some Valentine's Day cards printed from this fox picture I drew, but I haven't had time to print them.  This gocco print is probably the most romantic thing I have in stock, what with an anatomical heart and a sacred heart dripping blood!  So if you would like to win a copy of this print, just leave me a comment telling me what you're up to for Valentine's Day.  I'll draw a winner from a hat next Wednesday night, and I'm happy to post it anywhere in the world.  

 Oh and what am I up to for Valentine's Day?  I'm hanging out at home with my cat.  That's cool, she's pretty cute!

 Joining in with "My Creative Space" over here today.

Happy Thursday to you!

Daylesford

I finished off my first blanket label painting late last night, it's gouache on watercolour paper. 

I wonder if one of these ladies made the blanket, they're workers from the Petone Woollen Mills, wearing beautiful coats that were made at the mills.  You can click on the image for the source. 

The next blanket label I'm painting is from an Onehunga Woollen Mills blanket...a bit closer to home! 

My creative space: green leaves

 

I've been working on painting my green leaf collection today, to go with these red ones I painted last week.  I've had a few clumsy art accidents lately and I managed to smudge blue paint all over the background, but I managed to hide it with some super thick white gouache.  In the weekend I spilt indian ink all over the drawing I was working on...might be time to clean up the workspace methinks. 

Here's a little peek at the other drawing I'm working on

And I had to stop and take a photo of this lovely bunting in a pohutukawa tree I found on my morning run. 

Joining in with "My Creative Space" over here today.  And now it might be time to go to bed with a cup of tea and an episode of Nurse Jackie. 

Happy Thursday to you!

My creative space: red leaves

 

In my creative space today I've got my second attempt at this watercolour and gouache painting of some of the red leaves I've been collecting.  You can see my first attempt in the background here:

I'm hoping to do a version with green leaves too, so that I can have something vaguely christmassy for my Millicent Crow stall.  Although hearing "All I want for Christmas is yooooou" in a shop the other day made my skin crawl!

 I like all the reddish splotches on the envelopes I've been using as palattes.

 My next project involves these - guinea fowl feathers.  Much as I wish I had a flock of guinea fowl I bought these beauties off Trade Me, from someone in Nelson.  Crazy the things you can buy on the internet! 

How about you, what have you been making?  Got any christmassy projects on the go?

Joining in with "My Creative Space" over here.

Happy Thursday to you!

Commemorative

More teaspoon drawing...they still need a bit of tweaking.  I'll have to resist the urge to add to my collection when I'm gallivanting around the North Island this weekend! 

My creative space: a bird in the hand

 This week I've been making a tiny bird painting, small enough to fit in the palm of my hand:

 It's a kind of prototype - one day I want to make a giant painting like this.  The background is acrylic on a tiny canvas that a friend gave me and the bird is ink and gouache on a piece of brown parcel wrap.  I glued it on and varnished over the top to keep the bird secure. 

And I've been tracing the pattern for this dress:

 from this book:

It's called the "too cute tunic dress."  Sounds promising! 

To see more creative spaces take a look at the "our creative spaces" blog. 

Happy Thursday!

My creative space

In my creative space this week I've been working on some more of these paintings that I've had sitting around for months:

This one, my archives tell me, I started back in April last year...oh dear! It features flowers from the banana passionfruit plant that is threatening to take over my garden. I'd get rid of it if it wasn't so fun to draw.

I'm building up a gang of these paintings and I'm finding it really handy to take photos of them as I'm going, to help me work out which parts to change. 'Scuse the gloomy light, it is grey, grey, grey out there today!

Hope you're having a good Thursday!

To see other people's creative spaces take a look at the "our creative spaces" blog here.