Linen and lace

I enjoyed doing this piece.

I'd watched the video on You Tube, and I thought I'd give it a go. It was explained in Spanish, and of course I didn't understand a word (except maybe when she said, "... uno, dos, tres...." - at least I think that is what I heard! Hahahaha!!!

But she worked slowly, and step-by-step, I figured out what she was doing, and I tried it on my own. If you do go to the link, you'll see how perfectly accurate hers is - and in comparison, mine has lots of room for improvement. I guess that's why she's a 'Profesora de pintura decorativa' and I'm ...errr ... me! Hahahahah!!

The 'round' is a cake-board, of mdf, and after gesso-ing and a coat of paint, it was still rough to the touch, so I sanded it. One more coat later, it was perfect.

I love doing this, and I'm planning to work a bottle with a lacy design like this as well. I am always about: I did it once, but the real test is doing it again; and doing it better :)

Four sides of roses

This is a little Jack Daniel's bottle - that I think is very pretty. It also has a good screw-top cover that closes the bottle perfectly, so that it can be re-used.

I painted a background of metallic pearl - and that was done weeks ago - and I wondered what I'd paint on the four sides.

This is what I decided, and I show you all four sides:
 

Re-worked: Bottle of olives

Black olives are one of my favourite things - and this bottle contained a lovely batch of them!

I outlined the squares in black - and then painted them in with Folkart Metallics paint: christmas green, garnet red, periwinkle (blue), inca gold (yellow), plum, and peridot (a funky yellowy-green). Then, I outlined it all over again, and painted in the comma-strokes in sequin black.

Despite the many images, it is only one bottle:

Note: Because of the flash, these colours appear lighter than they actually are. They are all deep, vibrant colours, and quite shiningly lovely ;)

Celtic knots

I love these things, and I've done them in crosses, and in long strips, and coloured them in different shades - but I can't find the book I did all that in :(

SO: with my new watercolour pencils handy, I did this. Even if you don't look too closely, you can see how HOPELESS I am with these watercolour pencils. They're all blotchy and patchy, and not smooth and lovely like the ones the great artists do. Guess who's not a great watercolour-pencil-user yet! Sigh.

This is my favourite one to do whenever I am bored. You'll find it
all over my exercise books!

I especially like this one, because it is one, continuous
loop of thread or whatever. I try to do lonnnnnng ones, like a
border, and find them fascinating. They're also the ones that
can be made into crosses - which I'll do sometime soon,
and post here :)

A complicated one, of many strands. Fun to do,
but I really need to concentrate!

And here they are altogether in my spanking new
sketch book. And, yeah, my scribble with
my manuscript sharpie :)

Like my roses

This guy does a pretty good demo of how I paint my roses. It's a mixture of Donna Dewberry's and a few of the other artists that I watch: first I plot in the background with my darkest shade; then I do the back petals, and curve them into the bowl; then the sides; then the bottom petals, and finally the little ones that are half-curls, that make up all the intermittent petals.



(As usual, I have no idea what he's saying, but it never matters to me. I just watch and watch, and I hope it makes sense eventually.)