Wednesday Catch Up

I woke up this morning to see bidding has begun on my "Alice and Absolem (the Caterpillar)" original painting! I popped it up for auction yesterday starting at just $1, so that hopefully everyone has a chance to bid. 

 
CLICK HERE TO SEE THE AUCTION FOR THE "ALICE & ABSOLEM" ORIGINAL PAINTING! 

 I've been busy working on commissioned paintings this month, but I did get the chance to do a little eye study the other day - it's only 4" x 4" - and would look interesting on a bookshelf or among a bunch of other art work. I've popped it up in my shop HERE. {UPDATE - It's SOLD already!}




I really enjoyed working on such a small scale, and looking at the details in the eye. I think I might make a little series of these paintings, so having the first one may be a real collector's item someday!

I've just sent out my "June" colouring in calendar to my mailing list - so if you're not already on it, jump on here:

Subscribe to my mailing list:

* indicates required

First Name

Email Address *

New beginnings.

Exciting times!

A few months ago, we bought a house! It's in the perfect location for us, but it does need some work. Luckily, we were staying at my parents place in between houses, so we had time to paint it before we moved in. For the lounge, I wanted a dark grey colour, with thick white molded trims. And after carefully considering literally more than 50 shades of grey, I chose "Afternoon Storm" by British Paints, paired with Antique White U.S.A. by Dulux for the rest of the house.

Testing paint colours

Work in progress

The nearly finished wall, except for the molding along the bottom.

The finished wall and molding.

If you look closely you will see the molding along the bottom is thicker than before. I found this awesome trick to make your baseboards bigger by simply leaving the existing ones there, and leaving about an inch of wall space before adding another trim of your choice.

Once it was on there, we painted the entire thing in glossy Antique White U.S.A. and we had the thick molding I was lusting after! Hooray!

We finally were able to move in on the weekend, so I'm currently surrounded by boxes and thank goodness my wonderful Husband has finally got the internet up and running on my computer. (Hallelujah!!) Between Easter and moving, there may be a slight delay in art orders, but I'm trying my best to keep them as up to date as possible. :) There's still FREE Worldwide shipping on all Original Paintings and Art Prints at ArtByJaz.com, so there's been plenty of orders to fill today. My studio is all over the place, but I'm having fun sorting through things and beginning to set up the studio of my dreams here in our new place. All in good time.

I also have a really crappy kitchen that is going to be ripped out in the next few weeks, and a new one is being put in - but more on that one later! Time to get back to work.

This week I've been working on a lighthearted pretty little pink painting - full of flowers, butterflies and anything else that flows naturally on to the canvas.

It started out like this, adding pinks and yellows to the canvas and blush on her cheeks!

Being school holidays, it's been a struggle to find time to sit down and paint each day, but I've managed to get most of it done when the kids are asleep at night.

Adding in 'underpainting' - reds, pinks, purples...working out where I want things to go in the painting.

I'll probably put this pink painting up for auction.

Yesterday I took Miss 6 to the movies to see "Big Hero 6". I had no idea what to expect, and I was surprisingly impressed! It was a great movie for the school holidays, because it suits any gender and any age.

"Big Hero 6"

Today I've been sketching all day for a commissioned piece, and haven't yet picked up a paint brush, but I'm really enjoying it! I really need to sketch and draw more often. I don't have prices for drawings on my website, but if you have an idea, let me know roughly what size and detail you're thinking of and I'll happily give you an idea of the price I can do it for. Mermaids...fairies...girls...angels...whatever you can think of!

"Easter Fairy Princess"

It's rather late Sunday night (ok 10:24pm, but it feels late!), and I thought I would check in with a quick blog post while the babies are asleep and the house is unusually quiet...

We've been busily working away on getting our house ready for sale. As you can see in the photo below, I got plenty of painting done today. Just white walls though - not the interesting canvas paintings that I would like to be doing! It seems like the longer I spend away from the canvas, the more ideas go swirling around in my head until I just can't take it anymore and need to pick up a brush. Or a pencil at the very least! But for today - it's been boring white walls. I even had to paint over my favourite pink striped wall :(

Boring white wall paint everywhere.

I finished off the fun Easter themed painting I was working on last week. She is aptly called "Easter Fairy Princess" - which is a rather obvious name it may seem - but the painting itself is a bit, well, obvious. She is a beautiful Easter princess - with a love for everything commercially 'Easter'. As I walk around the shops at the moment, I'm loving the fluffy bunnies, coloured eggs and pastels everywhere! This one has definitely inspired me to play with more pastel coloured palettes in the future.

"Easter Fairy Princess"

 

The original painting has already sold, however there are 8x10" prints available HERE.

Tonight I spotted a rainbow moon! It really was magical - and I hope to incorporate it into a painting sometime soon. It looked something like this:

Image © Masahiro Iizuka

It really is now time for bed, 

so I wish you all an exciting and productive week ahead!

Goodnight!

"Mystical Garden Fairy"

Today it has just been the kids and I at home while Hubby is at Soundwave, so I've been able to potter around and get some tidying up done, as well as a little bit of painting too. Thank goodness the weather has been cooler today than the heatwave of the last 2 days!

Last night I listed a new painting called "Mystical Garden Fairy". It features a fairy with big purple eyes and pinky purple wings. She's in a mystical garden of flowers, and has a crysanthemum, hippie inspired headband.

"Mystical Garden Fairy"

The original painting sold within an hour! Before I even had time to blog about it. If you want to be the first to know about any new paintings that I have, be sure to follow my Facebook page or Twitter account, as I update those as soon as I have one for sale.

If you love it, but missed out on the original painting, there are still prints available HERE in my Etsy store. (or HERE in my eBay store).

My eyes are a bit blurry and I've got a headache (probably from flicking between looking at the computer, my painting and the kids), so I think it's time to take a break. Hope you're having a nice weekend!