Life's Little Ups and Downs..

Life is full of these - or so it seems to me, anyway. I have always thought that you actually need the lows in life in order to fully appreciate the highs.Some low points are obviously worse than others and take longer to recover from than others, but all the same it's nice when you get a high point after a low - this is what happened to me last weekend.

I'd done another event - part of a Family Fun Day - and not sold very much plus received some odd, rather thoughtless remarks about my work. Looking back, it was nothing, really, but at the time I felt quite upset about it. Therefore I was delighted to receive notification the next day that one of my painted wooden photo frames was featured in a blog all about sequins. The lovely Vixxie, who saw the frame on my Etsy site, wrote the blog, which you can read for yourself by clicking on the link Matin Lapin. It may only be a small thing, but somehow when another artisan selflessly promotes your work for you, it means so much. Thanks Vixxie, I really appreciate it!

Here's my painting of "Life's Little Ups and Downs" which was inspired by a series of such last year!

Forthcoming fairs/exhibitions etc.

I've just updated my website with dates of all the fairs and exhibitions I'm currently booked into over the summer (?) months. I also plan to enter the Summer Open Exhibition at Wolds Village, but have not yet filled in my entry form.

I'm currently working on some more wooden trinket boxes, mini paintings and new cup-cake mini trinket boxes - in between getting props and costumes sorted for the Junior & Youth Sections productions at the end of July!



Here's the list:

Upcoming and current exhibition details:
16th & 17th June 2012:
Holderness Art Show
Burton Pidsea

Saturday 30th June
GRANDADSHOUSES "HANDMADE" CRAFT FAIR,
Victoria Dock Village Hall,
Southbridge road,
Hull,
HU9 1TS.
11.30am - 3pm
Admission £1 includes entry into raffle,the prize is a HANDMADE DOLLS HOUSE!

Sat 7th July:
Made and Sold in Hull Event
11am - 3pm
Marist Church Hall
Cottingham Road
Hull

Saturday 14th July:
Summer Fayre - Endsleigh Mercy Centre, Hull

Sunday 29th July:
Real Aid Summer Fayre and Teddy Bears Picnic,
Tickton Village Hall and Field,
Main Street
Tickton
HU17 9RZ
11am -4pm

Saturday 4th August:
Costello Hull, Family fun day
(details to be confirmed)

Sunday 19th August:
Beverley Rugby Club
(details to be confirmed)

Sat 22nd September:
Newland Craft Fair
(details to be confirmed)

Sketch book drawings....

Thought I'd share a couple of pencil sketches I did whilst on holiday in Lanzarote a year or so ago. I love palm trees and would like to paint a detailed close-up of one at some point.

Recent sales

One of my mini paintings on canvas and a painted notebook have both been sold recently - also, I had a commission from my friend for two painted photo frames, so these were completed and handed over on Friday.

WIP - Kay

I've decided to upload an image of this work in progress that I've been working on for so long now that the intended recipients have probably forgotten about it. It is at the stage now where I just need a big motivational push to complete it, as I was getting frustrated with it at one point and just put it to one side - never a good idea, really!

I need to do a lot more work on the face then do the shading on the tee-shirt, define the hair and tidy the whole thing up a bit, but I thought that if I posted it "to the world"  (or at least, to the 3 people who regularly read this blog) it may spur me onto finishing it at long last.

Kay is a friend who I've known since she was 8 or 9 years old - she's now 23 and her parents commissioned the painting a while ago now. I hope they still want it when it's finished!

Latest Painting - "In Plane View"

I've just finished another painting, one that has been in my mind for a while now. "In Plane View" is based on the view you sometimes get when in an Aeroplane and the clouds are below the sky view, which I think is such a beautiful sight. I remember on one flight we took to Lanzarote once, and in the seat behind us was a boy aged about 4. When he looked out of the window and saw nothing but clouds, he said to his mum with such amazement in his voice "Oh, look, there's heaven out there". So cute.

I was rather pleased with the way this turned out, as it is just as I remember the view we had on our recent flight back from a holiday, so I decided to also paint a similar one on one of my mini canvases too!

Here's the end result of the large painting. It's for sale on the Rogue Gene Gallery Website here.

Here's the mini painting I also completed this morning, not yet for sale on any of my web-sites, but will probably be coming along with me to my next Craft Fair.

WIP - Little Bit of Red

Here's an image of my latest Work-in-progress, a small canvas which will come complete with an easel, slightly larger than my "mini" paintings, but still not as large as the other paintings in this series that I've done ("A Bit of Orange/Blue/Purple/Brown"). The canvas itself measures 16cm x 12cm. Painted using varying hues of red acrylic paint, this is the second stage of the painting. I am currently trying to get back into painting the rest of it after having a bad week of suffering with two migraine attacks. My blog has been neglected for a while, but I plan to carry on as normal from now on, and hopefully post more frequently!

Once finished, you will be able to purchase this painting from my personal website at  www.helendavison.co.uk or on the Rogue Gene Gallery website.

Colour chart - artistic or anal retentiveness?

I know I can be quite anal in my behaviour at times - I have always liked making lists, keeping notebooks for various things etc. Some people would find it odd, I just think it's perfectly normal to make and keep lists of things. For instance, I have a comprehensive list of every birthday and Christmas present that anyone has ever bought me since I was about 16. So, if you ever wondered what it was - I'm sure I could dig it out for you! This seems to help my memory - I can, for example, remember that a friend (who was my boyfriend at the time) bought me a red covered A4 sketchbook for my 19th birthday. I can even remember some of the sketches I first did in there - of him (Paul Leonard, in case you're wondering), my brother Daniel, and one of Sherry, our German Shepherd dog at that time.

I therefore wonder if this colour chart I've made (along with others that I have but don't happen to have photographed for fear of over stretching your patience every so slightly) is a sign of my well-organised artistic mind or just another symptom of my anal retentiveness. I don't really care either way - just thought I'd share it in case anyone else can relate to it!

I've utilised a cut-off from a piece of mountboard to paint a sample of every brand and type of yellow and green paint that I have in my possession. The only trouble now, is that I need to update this list, as I've since bought more for my different craft works!  I think I shall probably need a larger piece of mount card. I've temporarily misplaced the blue swatch card that I created, but if I find it you may yet see it on here!

Handy reference card, without a doubt. Absolutely necessary for my work? Not really.

Half Term Crafts with "the girls"

For some reason, the Hull area have had their half term a week later than the rest of the country this time. Therefore we spent yesterday looking after our two grand-daughters, Matheea and Evie. We will also have them tomorrow, along with our niece, Charlotte - which I'm looking forward to.

Yesterday was spent with the girls playing on the computer to begin with. I never have any strict pattern as to what we do, just let things happen or not, depending on their moods, but they seem to enjoy the time spent here, so it must work for them. They are really into a site called "MovieStarPlanet" which is specifically designed to encourage children to create a virtual world with different characters. They can also network with their friends and create cartoons or films for their creations. From what I saw of it, you dressed up a cartoon girl (or boy, I guess) in whatever "Movie Star" costume you preferred, gave her/him a name and then proceeded to tell a story with that character . I was laughed at for wanting to dress Evie's character in a red dress and baseball boots, so I decided to leave them to it. They love the fact that they can each use a PC rather than having to share, since Evie uses mine and Matheea uses Keith's.  After about an hour of that (during which time I kept hearing snippets of conversation in typical American dialect from them both) they decided that they wanted to join me in my creativity. I love it when they are being creative - we all enjoy the time together!  They wanted to make one of the mini notebooks I've started creating, so I duly cut them both some card for the cover, stitched together the paper for the inside and let them decorate their covers ready for attaching to the paper. Here are their finished results - they had also planned what they were going to use them for (Evie's was going to be for a secret group at school - girls only, except Josh, apparently. Matheea said she would probably be jotting down ideas for stories she is going to write.)

No prizes for guessing whose notebook this one is!

I like the way Evie continued her design on the back cover, how cute!

Matheea likes her work to be private, obviously!

Just a simple smiley face on the back of Matheea's notebook!

Once we'd finished the books, we all had pancakes for our lunch - perfectly made by Keith, they were probably the nicest pancakes I remember eating. Matheea had three, Evie had one (which is a minor miracle considering she doesn't like golden syrup, honey and only just relented on the lemon juice with sugar idea!). They both then played with some cornflour and water mix - Matheea has been learning about thixotropic materials in school - that is, materials exhibiting a stable form at rest but becoming fluid when agitated. Evie then went on to decorate a wooden yo-yo so that she can hone her skills on the toy (not that she's really tall enough to hold the yo-yo fully let down, in my opinon, but it's cute to watch her trying) at home.

Here she is proudly demonstrating her artistic creation:

I spent the day sniffing and sneezing, so have obviously started with a cold, and left them to it for a couple of hours  on the Wii. They played on "Just Dance", which was quite hilarious to watch as Matheea was putting so much into it whilst Evie just casually made the merest hint of motion yet seemed to score higher more often than not!

Here they are strutting their stuff:

Evie looked positively bored at times, yet played for quite a long time before wanting to change the game. They moved onto the Wii Music game, which Matheea loved particularly as they could watch old videos of their previous attempts, which made her laugh immensely. Some of the saved videos were ones her parents had done - which reminded me of the time when Evie was about 3 and she was talking about her Dad using the Wii Fit. "Apparently", she told us, "Dad's not obeast any more". How cute is it when they say words incorrectly like that?

No doubt tomorrow we will be watching The Wizard of Oz and/or Heidi on DVD at some point, those being favourites for Charlotte as well as Matheea and Evie. Having never had experience of looking after boys, I wonder if they would be as interested in creative work as these 3 all seem to be? I feel very lucky to be part of their lives and I'm always happy when they are around - it must be such a blessing to be a Mother.Now, where's my hankie, my cold is getting a tad troublesome!

Colours to Cheer

Without wishing to sound like a moaning old woman, I've been feeling a bit crap lately. I try to stay positive as much as possible and generally do achieve this, but this lead up to winter and the prospect of cold, dark days and even colder, darker nights for months on end really do depress me. On top of that, I've been feeling pretty fed up of the cold I developed last week, which is making me ache and has given me a sore throat which in turn prevented me from going out to sing last night as usual.  Not really something to complain about, I know, but I thought I'd cheer myself up a bit in a creative way and spread some of that cheer to others by curating a Treasury on Etsy. Entitled "Seasonal "Cheer", I included items that I liked the colour of and that appealed to me for various reasons. I simply had to have a cat in there, for instance, and some knitted/crocheted items - that is something that I don't think I will ever be able to do with any success so I always admire those that can!

You can view the Treasury in detail by clicking on the link to it here.

Please feel free to click on the individual items in the Treasury and check out the rest of each member's shop - also, you can share this treasury on your web-site if you wish, or on your FB page, twitter etc - just use the link I've provided above!

More wooden trinket boxes

I've been checking my stock and trying to get more items ready in preparation for the coming weeks of craft fairs, so here are a couple more new items for you to have a sneaky preview of before I upload them to Etsy or sell them locally!

Two interesting shapes this time, a heart and a star. The star was definitely the most intricate to decorate, and I am pleased with the end result. The heart has my finger-prints in paint all around the edges, so I've really put a bit of myself into it this time! I decided not to try and line the star-shaped box, as I think it would've been beyond my capabilities! Furthermore, If I had lined it, the amount of space available for storing things inside would have been reduced, so I took the sensible option (well, that's my story and I'm sticking to it!).

"Twinkle, Twinkle" - the lid.

"Twinkle, Twinkle" - the lid lifts off and has magnetic catches.

"Midnight Love" as viewed from above

"Midnight Love" showing the funky foam lining.

As you can see, I have given both the boxes a funky foam protective bottom, so they will not scratch any surfaces. They are both approximately 2 to 3 inches high, and 5 inches across the widest point.  I will be uploading them to my Etsy shop soon, and if not sold by 5th November, they will be coming with me to the first craft show of this season.

My studio - before and after!

I spent some time recently having a good tidy up, sort out, throw out etc of my studio. I say studio, when it is really a small conservatory-cum-cat room, that I just took over!

I had taken a few photos of the mess it had got into which I'd forgotten about, so I can show you a sort of before and after style selection. There's something quite satisfying about re-organising your work space, especially when you have brand spanking new units in which to store things! The excitement was full on once we'd assembled the new units - I even enjoyed throwing things away to make more room.

I'm ashamed to say that this is the state my worktop was in before I began my big clean up - somehow I just kept on working amongst all the items I'd used and the longer I carried on like that, the harder it was to stop myself from doing so! Here it is before:

See how small my actual work area had become?

Above my worktop area and to the left are some bookshelves, which were again beginning to look cluttered:

The difference between the above images and the same areas now is vast, as you can see:

I have kept the plastic drawer units under the worktop, just re-organised the contents.

I have since re-located these units and the contents are safely stored in my shiny new units!

I made use of large cardboard boxes and kept everything on the floor previously...

The shelf you see in the photo above has now been relocated to the far end of the conservatory, and only my CD player and CDs are on it now. All "dust gathering" items are hidden away from view.

IKEA, I love you!

I was particularly pleased with my two new purchases from IKEA - the large, square cupboard unit and the A2 sized drawer unit (which is on castors, even better!). You can get an idea of how much they both hold by looking at the stuff I've stored away:

There are two shelves in each quarter of the big white unit, with the option of adding more if necessary. I found the drawer unit useful for my stock of wallpaper, brown paper and shiny blue textured paper on a roll! I am a huge stationery geek and just love anything to do with paper, card, pens, folders, notepads etc! I recently got given a pile of blank notebooks that were going to be thrown away and I actually got quite emotional when I saw them! I think it's the prospect of filling them up that I've always liked so much.

I've also started to label just about every container and drawer (thought not the new ones) I've got so that I can instantly tell what I've got stored away. I've accumulated so many card-making bits and pieces that my original grey A4 sized drawer unit is still in use with those items alone - I have only hand-written the labels at the moment, but I will be making smart new ones on the PC soon!

The smaller plastic drawer unit is home to all the paints I need for creating my hard-backed notebooks. Very handy. I was actually quite miffed when I recently bought the 3 new paints you can see to the side of that unit and discovered when they arrived that they would not fit in the drawers!

The window-shelf above my worktop. Note the labels everywhere!

View of my easel from my worktop.

Even more room to store things temporarily on top of the new unit!

My companion when I'm working - well, one of them!

You would usually find one or more cat here!

The Sunflowers tapestry I started for Keith a long time ago. I really must finish it!

I am currently working on a trinket box and mini painting combination set - "A Bit Of Purple", similar style to my "Geometric Green" series of the same. I will post some pics when I've finished it. You'll have noticed there are a few paintings that need finishing in my work area - I've deliberately left them on display so to speak in order to spur me on to finishing them! The painting on the easel is one that I will be painting over soon. It was painted for the last production at the Bilton Theatre.

Feel free to comment, or ask me any questions about my new-look studio! 

Pet cat, Mavis

Just found this photo of one of our cats, Mavis, on the PC. It was taken 4 years ago when she was 11. Just thought I'd randomly share it on here as I like the image so much!

New small acrylic painting

I have recently painted a couple of small acrylic and ink paintings - one on canvas board and this one on a canvas sized 7 x 5 inches.

The idea came about when I was looking through some old photographs I'd taken of flowers, gardens, walks etc. I really liked the shape of the sunflowers that are past their best - I took a photo at Burton Agnes Hall a few years ago, always intending to create a painting or sketch of some description based on my image. Here is the end result - I will probably do a few more with different numbers of flower heads on and on different supports/in different media.

Burton Agnes Sunflower

You can purchase this directly from my website at www.helendavison.co.uk.

New logo/label/banner

After much deliberation and playing around with ideas, I have finally come up with a new logo for my Facebook Page, based on some of my most popular creations. This will be something I intend to print onto labels and stick to the plain paper carrier bags I use at craft fairs when people buy anything from me, and therefore needed to show off my wares as well as have a link to my personal website. I didn't want a bold coloured image like the previous one I had (which was the "3 Wise Men and an Interloper" painting) as I think a softer colour is more attractive to potential customers. Here is the finished design:

I have customised the design slightly to use it on my Etsy shop front too, as a banner. I have tried to incorporate the image into my blog, but obviously need more lessons on how to do such a thing first as I have not yet managed it!

My twitter account will hopefully also be displaying this new design at some point soon. I think that, due to the upturn of sales in the smaller items that I create, this "re-branding" is something that I've needed to do.

Masks completed.

I've finally completed painting the masks that will act as the 2nd animal for the children who are playing them in the production of Noah's Ark  this coming weekend at Bilton Amateur Dramatic Society. Each child will be dressed in a face/head mask and will also carry their 2nd animal on these sticks we have attached to the masks.

Before they get wrecked (as tends to happen when children and props are put together!) I thought I'd take some photos of them to show you.

I shouldn't really have to explain what animals they all are, so I will leave that up to you: