Cards Recieved For My Birthday

Time just escapes me at this time of the year more than at any other time.My own Birthday was on the 14th and the next two days I was at stamp camp.Then I have lots of Christmas cards and November birthdays to make cards for friends...hhhmmm wonder what my parents and theirs did on Valentines day nine months before *grin*.After camp I got sick again with another viral illness sheesh,,,NO MORE!.It's back to work this week but this evening I finally got dh off the computer to photograph the gorgeous hand made cards that folks sent me for my birthday.
This first one was a beautiful green and gold/brown microscope card made by Louise Magetti.

Barb Porritt made me this large very pretty callander page in blue,tan and black.Gosh I love the crowned birdie on this.

Irena Kozakiewicz made an intricate woven card for me.Love the string bits

Linda Aldred sent me this pretty Asian themed acetate window card in soft purples.

My dear Mum who is 76 made me this floral creation.She thought it wasn't done well but I love it

Rikki Showell made me a pretty sewn and beaded card.

Veronica Hodges made this textural "tree of life" delight when we were at stamp camp.She used Jo Sonja texture paste and paints,I really need to pick this ladies brain next camp :o)

Sue Gregory made me a lovely sunny lemon,red and orange floral card.It was the first card that came in the mail for me and it is just so elegant I think

THANK YOU everyone for the cards and wishes.I'm looking forward to my days off next Mon-Wednesday.I hope to finish a few half done projects on my desk and get some more Christmas cards made.

hugs

Annette

Drawings Made into Simple Cards

I'm off to stampcamp in the morning and had two family birthdays to make cards for today before I left.As I had already put most of my supplies in the car I decided to turn some of my recent drawings into cards.They are plain and simple yet I felt really odd sending folks my own art work LOL.This lady is called whimsy and I made her for my niece Caitlyn who is turning 16.She has shimmery twinkling H2O's on her wings

and this one you saw before but is a boat I drew using the number 4 as the base.It is for my brother in law Steve

I'm taking my sketch book with me to camp so who knows what I'll draw next :o)

Be back on Monday folks

The Way It Was

Thru my basic on line drawing class that is almost wrapped up now, I have started to draw again.It will take a long time to be able to draw as I used too but that small child who drew for pleasure in my Simple Pleasure post is still with me some place.Hopefully I will draw well again one day and with my new skills I hope I will draw the right way this time.I dug out my old sketches from well over 20yrs ago and for the first time ever I am showing them to others.They were done in pen,ink or charcoal by me with limited knowledge of the correct way to draw or the correct implements to use.As such I used cheap sketch books and inks that have not stood up well to time and bad storage probably too...hence there is allot of marks on them and the ink drawings are faded.
Now folks be kind here I had no formal art training when I did these.The technical aspects will be wrong and things like perspective etc will not be right either.All are larger then A4 in size...close to A3 I think and if I remember correctly all are done form newspaper clips,magazine images or real photos.I can't believe I am sharing these but here goes.The man below is a pencil sketch from a magazine image and some blue acrylic paint wash added around it.

Mother and Child is another pencil sketch from a magazine image...got the Mum and child's feet wrong here for sure LOL

Three Wise Guys was a pencil and ink drawing from a newspaper clip...man that ink has faded over time

This next one is my nephew Chris and was a pencil sketch done from a photo my sister sent me.He is 25 now and is the man in the music video who looses his lover to the lead singer for Something With Numbers song "Stay With Me Bright Eye's".The Video clip is here on my blog .I think he was a cute child

Wind swept Child was a pencil sketch from a newspaper I think....the nose is wrong and I remember trying to fix it for many hours and then just gave up LOL

The floral trio was done in charcoal...I had no idea how to preserve a charcoal drawing back then and sprayed it with hair spray!!

Baby below was another pencil drawing....sorry if it offends anyone.I went thru a stage of drawing babies..curled up sleeping,feeding and bathing etc

So there you go...a glimpse of me the shy young woman from 20 yrs ago who grew up from that small child who loved to draw all those many many years ago *Grin*

Collaborative book swap pages part two

Here are the remaining pages from the Arty-Oz "Woman" themed Collaborative book swap.
Sarah Faucett made the vintage looking "Lady Of The House" page at top and Niki Glover the blue and brown window lady at the bottom.The window opens to a picture of Niki's Nana aged 19yrs old

Micky Tandiono Choo made the Cuttlebug embossed metal window one at top and Rachel Greig the lovely brown and black butterfly lady at the bottom.Love that gorgeous brown lace at the side

Teresa Abajo made the vintage nurses "sisterhood" page at top and Nikki Blowers the red,gold and purple vintage bather by the sea page below it

Joanne Hughes did the 3D shoe page at top and Jane Norrish the green and pink toned butterfly lady page below it...ooohh yummy more tiny black German scrap trim on that one...I adore that stuff :o)

Lorri Lennox did the unique and a bit scary "Raven" page at top and Kathy Thompson the vintage nude in flowers page at bottom.The nude is elevated and flowers placed under and over her for a 3D look

Sue Gore made the inspiring artist Frida Khalo page at top and Sue Thiel the inchies page below it

Phillipa Barr made the tag and vellum lady page with lots of little sewn areas at the top and Kylie Mell the "beauty is not in the face" page below it

Debbie Larcombe made the glowing textured bg with reclining vintage lady page at the top and Kaeren Sutherland the textural "bathing beauties" page at the bottom

Every time I look in this book I see and feel more things I missed the other times.It is a true treasure and I shall take it to stamp camp next week with me to proudly show off to one and all.On a side note I dug out my old drawings today that I spoke of in my Simple Pleasure post recently.They have not fared too good and have lots of foxing(brown age spots) but I will take some photos and upload them soon.

Collaborative book swap part one

My on line drawing class has almost finished and I have had some time today to take photos of the pages done by other folks in the Arty-Oz 2008 Collaborative book swap.As there were 32 of us I think I shall upload the piccies in two separate posts.They wont be in any particular order except I'll show you the front cover first which was done by our hostess Teresa Abajo with some help of some other friends.The theme for the book was "Woman"

Ruth Spitzer did the textural green and blue one at the top and Debra Murray the dream alcohol ink page below it.

Julian Buttonshaw did this glowing digital collage sheer heaven transfer onto acrylic paint and crackle paste bg at top and Venessa Henry the sisters of the moon page below it complete with a hand made broom stick LOL

Rhonda Clayton made the touchy feely purple gold page at top and Joyce Hewton the textured one below it

Liz Aitkin made the Cuttlebug red and black "suburban queen" page at top and Margaret Byrne the Cuttlebug diamond embossed silver,black and red Marilyn page below it

Jen Crossley did the vintage lady,collage clock and black tree image page at top and Gail Smith the blue and gold vintage lady page below it...love that trim Gail has used!!!

Elaine Hannam made the corseted Femme page at top and Greta Young the pretty tan and pink vintage lady with key at the bottom

Christina made "window to a woman's soul" page at the top and Genevieve Payne the "girls just want to have fun" page at the bottom

TThat is about half the pages and I will try to get the other half up tomorrow.Everyone has done awesome pages and there are many with yummy textures and colours that the camera just doesn't pick up well.I think it has been the best and most rewarding swap I have so far done and I am glad to be apart of it with these other arty inspiring folks :o)

Arty Oz Collaborative book for 2008

OH MY GoSHIE...in the mail last week there was a little collaborative book from arty heaven filled with the art of over 30 other Woman in Oz.I was sssooo honoured to be in this book.We all had to make Woman themed pages and media and content was left up to us.I chose to do mine like the ones below.Vilene and tissue base.Sprayed that with colour wash sprays and then stamped in white gesso over that.I'm not sure why but I then painted each page with Golden soft gel medium and to my utter surprise the spray wash colours came to the surface and mingled over the gesso stamped areas to create a gorgeous flowing colourful background.

Cuttlebug die cut negative used as a stencil to add texture paste element scroll at top.Vintage image transfers were done using water slide decals or fabric treated with Inkjetset that I printed direct to material on using my inkjet printer.Gold highlights were done with Jo Sonja Pale Gold paint and ironed on bits of gold foil.Halo around image was done using metallic water soluble crayons.Lastly I hand sewed on some red seed beads around the images and added some words.I shall try to scan the other folks works soon for you all....such a rewarding swap!!

A Simple Pleasure

A long long time ago there was a young child.She was the daughter of a kind,creative Mum and a hard working Dad but she was the second youngest of seven kids and the family was fairly poor.Materialistic toys were never in great abundance but love and encouragement were.Her Mum would often doodle and the little girl would look on in awe.One day her Mum gave her a drawing pad and some pencils and she began to draw and colour to her hearts content.This led to other creative past times like making people from pegs,making hand sewn clothes for them and carving coconuts etc but drawing was her favourite thing to do.
The child continued to draw and create as she grew up into a shy young woman.There was no spare money for art products or formal training so she learned by LOOKING and PRACTICING with what she had...she looked for shapes and colours in everything and her drawings reflected this.When she met and married time to create dwindled and then with the birth of her three children it totally disappeared.One day she wanted to make Christmas cards and even though she drew OK in the past she wanted to make alot of them quickly so bought some stamps and inks and made cards by hand.The busy young Mum enjoyed this and when ever she had time she made hand made cards.When her birthday came around her husband would buy her some new products to use....her creativity was rekindled.
One year she used the tax return to go to a stamping convention and did some classes with amazing tutors.One of those was with Cathy Daulman of My Stamps and she was totally amazed at the things she was taught and could now do.She cried that night because she felt she had been looking for a door and Cathy had opened that for her,to the lost place she had been looking for.Being creative and kind was what made her feel like a whole person.Stamping and Papercrafts were her medicine if you will.It has sustained her for 15 odd years.Now her kids are nearly all grown up she has found she has more time to herself to be creative but still money to be too self indulgent and buy products,is sparse.She remembered being that small child and loving drawing and bought a sketch book to try to draw again.The pages where so white and so it remained closed for two years.She believed she could no longer draw after not doing so for 20yrs and also that she could not paint or colour well.
In magazines and blogs of her friends some were now using drawn elements in their work...could she find the child who drew for pleasure from her past again and do that too?....maybe.Where would she learn to do this here as the only classes available were thru the Uni ,the Craft Council or privately and they were all expensive.Then one night while blog surfing to some of her favourite inspiring blogs she had an answer.
SSSooo she signed up for an on line art class with Jessica Wesolek from Cre8it and another door is opening for her...she has started to draw again,add colours and to see shapes and symbols and glorious colour schemes everywhere.At first she thought she would never show anyone her humble first childlike sketches but to day she looked at them as a learning exercise and she knew it may help someone some place to believe again that they can do something they thought they could not,if she shared what she has so far done.So no they are no major work of art but they are the beginning of yet another creative path for this woman.She feels happy in this simple pleasure...drawing