The Zombies are coming to get you!!

A little while back I decided I wanted to start painting wooden dolls! I got the idea after looking on line at custom painted dolls (vinyl and wooden)! Some of my faves are from Zombuki.  I just love the colours and designs! To be honest I haven't got the faintest idea where or how to start :-S

Well anyway I purchased some wooden dolls (which turned out to be smaller than I wanted, but I can't seem to find any bigger ones!), paint and paint brushes and gave it a go!!

The design I picked is that of a Zombie! It was my good Friend Carmen (from Whoopidooings) birthday so I decided to paint it for her! The hair turned out really well actually :-P And the greeny skin colour, I'm not too sure about the patches......it was supposed to look like skin coming off :-S

This is the little guy without a face! I put off the face for as long as was humanly possible as I am no good at all with eyes and things! I did it inn the end although I wasn't hugely happy with it!! What do you all think? I think he does look like a zombie, sort of!! If anyone knows where i can get bigger wooden dolls from please let me know :-)

That is all the arty stuff for today! I still have a few projects up my sleeve though ;-)

Sweet like Sugar Skulls.

Hello everyone :-)

I have been away far too long (I know I've said that before!), I am now playing catch up and its no fun :-P Its been a long hard slog in my "real" job for the last couple of weeks but I thunk things are settling down a bit now!! I've not been able to keep up with any of the drawing I started from Cameron's Blog :-( I do hope I can catch up a little bit!! The lesson's are such fun, I just need to set aside some time to really give them a go!!

I did manage to get some drawing done though, ok that's not strictly true! I drew the picture ages a go but I decided to take the plunge and colour it in!!

I have to say I'm quite pleased with this so far!  I love Sugar Skulls, I really find the colours and styles so interesting!! I'm hoping to draw more, maybe themed ones! If anyone has any ideas on themes i could do please let me know!!

It kind of looks like he has a moustache, maybe I'm subconsciously channelling Poirot here haha!! I think i need to take a step back and come back to it later and see if it needs any tweaking! Bit as the first thing I've drawn AND coloured myself in a long time I think it's gone quite well!!

That's it on the art front at the moment though :-( I must do better!!

And this photo is just because I love the necklace I'm wearing in it :-P Oh and the top!! Both were bargains! The necklace is from www.punkypins.co.uk and the top was in the Henry Holland sale! I literally LOVE Henry Holland clothes :-D

Hope you all have a lovely week!!

About meeeeeeee!

My friend Carmen from Crafty whoopidooings was tagged in a MEME thingy a while a go and invited her followers to answer the questions so i thought why not!! So here we go........

 1.If you could describe your life in colour, what would it be and why?Red......I love the colour red! It makes me happy and is nice and warm. I like to think that my personality suits the colour red :-)

2. Do you have any pets? If so, what are they/their names and why do they fit your personality?I have a black cat named Lupin after Professor Lupin in Harry Potter......and no I'm not a Harry Potter fan AT ALL but professor Lupin was my fave character!! She is slightly OCD (actually ocd...she grooms too much and gives herself bald patches!!), but the friendliest cat you will ever meet!!

3. Where did you fit in in high school...jock, band geek, popular crowd...etc?
I was shy and quiet and hated being he centre of attention.  I made it my mission in life not to draw attention to myself.  I spent quite a lot of time on my own, no one wanted to sit next to me unless they wanted to copy my work! I was pushed over, had things thrown at me, drawn on.....I could go on! I am not one of those people who would go back and live there high school lives again......i was happy to be gone and still am :-P

4.How do you react in an emergency...fight or flight, go get help, the calm one???
I don't think I've ever been in a proper emergency but I'd like to think I would do my best to help!! In my head id be panicking like mad but sometimes you just have to do something you don't want to!!

5. If they were making a movie of your life, who would you chose to play you... why?
I literally have no idea at all......maybe you should ask my friends and family?? ;-P


6. Why is your best friend your best friend, what makes them so special?
My best friends are my best friends because they like me for who I am :-P I don't have to pretend with them!


7. If money was no object, and you were going to buy yourself something completely frivolous, what would it be, and why?
Oh don't ask me that, I am a total shopaholic!! I have a list as long as my arm of things I would like to buy!! haha!!

7. Three words that describe your personality?
shy, fun, creative

8. Who was your favourite teacher and how did they influence you?
I didn't really have any teachers that influenced me! I had teachers that I liked but they were just nice and kind to me! I did have an art teacher who was fresh out of uni and she was so cool! She made me see that art didn't mean I had to draw like the masters.....sadly I'd already applied to uni to do Psychology!!

9. What do you consider true strength?
To carry on through the tough times in life even though you just want to curl up and cry!

10. What is your favourite game? (video, board, card...any kind)
My fave board game is Disney Trivia because I nearly always win! My fave computer game is too hard! I love the Sims, but I also love Final Fantasy, Mass effect, Dragon age, Disgea.  My all time fave computer game is probably Fallout 3!

11.What season do you love the most, why?
Spring or autumn, when its warm and sunny but not so hot that my skin frazzles and I feel like I'm melting haha!!

So there you go! Feel free to answer the questions yourself :-)

Drawing Lab lessons 4 and 5!

So lets be honest, I've not drawn for like a million years :-P I really meant to draw every day but I guess drawing a little bit is better than not drawing at all!! I finally, FINALLY got around to following the next lesson on Paint Myself Pretty. You're supposed to go to the zoo which would have been soooooo good as one of my fave things to do in the summer is go to the zoo!! BUT I haven't really had time and up until today the weather hasn't been that great round here! Cameron (from paint myself pretty) used video footage but this just didn't work for me :-P I'm not very good at sketching and moving animals present waaaaaaaay too much of a challenge for me right now!! So I used photos of animals I've seen in the zoo in the past!!

As I say EVERY time I post a photo......I really need to get a scanner ha ha!! So there you have my attempts! I only managed two but I plan to do some more later on (after me tea ha ha)!! I picked the fish because I've never drawn a fish in my life.  On the photo its a lovely blue colour! It was going quite well until I had to draw the scale pattern on the fins etc......I kind of lost heart then :-P

I picked the frog because I love poison arrow frogs! They are so small and cute and the colours are amazing! As with the fish, I've never drawn a frog before and I have to say I'm quite pleased with this!! I wish I could get more detail with shadows etc but for someone who really finds this sort of thing SO hard its not gone too badly!! My fave animals are monkeys so I'm hoping to attempt one of them next!

I'm hoping the lovely weather we are having here will stay as I always feel way more motivated when there is a nice blue sky :-)

Just for fun I have a funny photo of my cat Lupin! We are having to mind some Roberovski hamsters for a bit and as I suspected my cat is VERY happy about this! She sits watching them pretty much all day! I have to say I'm a little worried she will attack them but so far nothing too bad has happened!!

Ha ha so there you go!! I hope you have all had a lovely weekend :-) I will be back soon!!

Sugar Skulls and other delights!

OK so I have to be honest, I haven't been very arty or even very crafty recently :-( I'm just in one of THOSE moods where everything seems like its not going well but you can't think why.......does that make sense?? I haven't even done the next couple of lessons on Cameron's Blog Paint Myself Pretty yet :-( I WILL get around to that at some point!

So why the Blog post you ask? Well I have some older drawings I thought I would share with you for now!! The first are some little Whimsies I drew whilst following the Art, Heart and Healing over on Willowing's site! She also has a Blog here!! I had fun doing these, they came out way better than I was expecting! I can't decide if I should colour them in or not....what do you think??



I hope you can see them OK......I really should get a scanner! I actually have a scanner but it's A3 size so doesn't seem to scan smaller things in that well :-S Don't ask haha!!

The second thing I wanted to show you was my Sugar Skull! I absolutely love these! They come from the Tradition of Dia De Los Muetos or Day of The Dead.  Some of them can be a little odd looking but some of them are amazing! So colourful and interesting!! You can find out more about them online, you only have to google to find tons of stuff!

Here are some examples.....

And here is my effort!

I thought he was quite good until I looked at those examples I put on here :-S :-P oh well maybe he will look better with a bit of colour on him?? And maybe some more pattern? Eek!

And before I go here is a picture of my Craft room wall, it's a blank white wall that I plan to fill up with paintings etc.......

The calendars are a vintage travel posters from 1930's one and a Year of The Dragon Chinese scroll thingy! The painting is by my good Friend Carmen over at whoopidoo.....ings :-) He is taking pride of place up there!!

Anyway that is all for now, see you all soon!

What I wore today......

hello lovely people of Blog land :-)

I totally intended to do lots of blogging and lots of arty stuff this week but well you know how it goes.....life happens!! I was called in to work on one of my days off and work has been quite busy with various beginning of the year things!! Anywho I have to get myself back on track soon!!

I'm hoping to do the next lesson on Cameron's Blog tomorrow so I will be able to Blog about that soon! I'm quite intrigued as to what that will all be about!! It's been fun so far and completely different than anything I've ever tried before!

My lovely and amazing friend Carmen sent me a surprise gift the other day (thank you thank you thank you!!)! I was well chuffed, and slightly confused at first as my Mum txt me to tell me I had a parcel from Amazon......I thought to myself "But I haven't ordered anything from Amazon, god I hope no one is using my account....." DUUUUUURRRR! Anyway my surprise was a lovely art journal book called 'What I wore Today' by Gemma Correll.

It's such a sweet little book! I didn't realise it is actually like an art journal that you can draw in!! I wasn't going to draw in it at first but now I'm thinking why not!! You can follow Gemma on Facebook (Just search for Gemma Correll Artist) and she has a website (Here)! So if you want to learn more about her and her adorable drawings check those out!! I love her style, its fairly simple but so cute!!

Anyway that is all for tonight! Take care and I shall see you all soon, Hopefully with some new drawings to show you!!

Blind Contour Drawing!

The idea behind blind contour drawing (from what I could gather) is to find a picture/photo that you like and you copy it, the difference being that you don't look down at your paper and you're not supposed to lift your pencil off the paper!! In all honesty I really thought I was going to HATE this! I can barely stand my drawings as it is so to do something that is going to so obviously (in my head) not be great was not what I wanted to be doing!

But I gave it a go and you know what, it wasn't that bad!! The lessons I'm following on Paint Myself Pretty say to do this particular lesson with Giraffes so that's what I did! I do like Giraffes and it was fun trying to find cute pictures to use!



I honestly can't believe they came out so well! I know I haven't put any detail on them but I thought that was a step too far haha! Also I did take my pencil off the page to do the eyes etc of some of them which I know was cheating a little but we can keep it our little secret right?? ;-) I'm glad I gave it a go! I suppose it just goes to show that you just don't know how something will work until you try it for yourself and i should stop being so scared :-P

I enjoyed it so much that I plan to use the technique on some other animals I like......I'm thinking Panda's next! Who doesn't love panda's?!?

See you all again soon :-)