WOYWW rainy days and Mondays ...

Well, it's Wednesday, but you get the picture, right? Relentless summer heat, now followed by (too much) rain every day. Which means blocked down pipes and unscheduled visits from the plumber. Oh well, the grass is growing nicely!

Anyway, this is what you came for ... and it will need to be a "2 pic panorama" to get the full effect :)

Working on last week's Wanderlust lesson by Alena Hennessey which was mainly using acrylic inks. Luckily, I just happened to have some :)  The background canvas (standing up) is waiting for some of those circle thingies to complete it. As yet, I am not satisfied with any arrangement of them :(  Alena just cut her circles with scissors. Fair enough, but I have these new CCDs just waiting to be used! And I felt like making perfect circles. So ... perfect! Anyway, I await further inspiration! Hopefully soon.

And if you'd like some inspiration, you can check out lots of arty/crafty desks courtesy of Julia's Stamping Ground a wonderful, worldwide, work desk wound round-up!

CCDs = cheap Chinese dies. SO cheap, I can't be bothered looking up how much they were for you. 

                 Just a couple of dollars. Really!

WOYWW - wheels keep turning

faster and faster, or so it seems!  And Wanderlust is my main creative distraction. There is so much happening there, not just fabulous guest teachers but all sorts of interesting art challenges, etc. You can check it out right here. (It's not too late to join and the videos are all downloadable!)

So, if I've been MIA, it's because I've been making art type stuff and it leaves little time for blogging. But, today I am making time to visit the lovely woywwers! The best world-wide desk round-up for the nosey curious :)  You can join in too! Just pop over and visit Julia at her Stamping Ground.

Early this morning ...

there was "nothing" to show, because I had tidied up!! Amazing, right? But you don't mind having a look at my latest purchases, do you? When the only nearby bricks and mortar craft shop is closing and everything is 40% off, well ... what can I say?

(That "designer" paper, the pale pink, red, etc, sells for about $3 a piece at a well known art shop! Here it was $1!) The Somerset Studios are old, but one is the Premier Edition and another features Australian arts and crafts! I've always wanted to get hold of this one :) (About $1.60 each!)

It's not just going to be stashed away. I have opened most of the packaging, and gessoed an "R"!  And then tidied up ... again! So, now I have a "real" desk to show you ...

I won some lovely stamps and matching dies a few weeks ago. See previous post for pretty pics!  (BTW, my Stampmaster is a winner!)
Over at Wanderlust, a recent challenge actually got me doing some "real" painting ... sort of :)

Oh, and here's something you've never seen before! My real, genuine, proper work desk ...

I was only inspired to show you, cos someone brought me some pretty flowers back from lunch, on account of it's "International Women's Day"! Fancy that!

Lovely new stamps and matching dies!

I think I've mentioned this before, but the new stamping trend to have matching stamps and dies, definitely meets with my approval! (And I only have just a couple so far.) Imagine my surprise when I won some, from the The Stencil Specialist, a nice blog that I came across recently. Aren't they gorgeous ...

The stamps and dies, from Stampendous, are a pleasure to use! So, I've made a few cards (so far), and I'm quite happy with them. I know, they're all sort of similar, but when I have an idea, I just need to run with it! There will be other ideas :)

Some close-ups :)

For what it's worth, here's a design tip - don't leave your vase floating in mid air, and don't cover the pretty flowers with the sentiment.

Wanderlust January Challenge

I thought I would take part in the January Challenge over at Wanderlust. (See side bar). The challenge was to look out your window and pick three colours (plus B & W), and use them to creatively describe January. Naturally, most of the entries, from the northern hemisphere involve Winter cold and snow and longing for Spring. Not so here down under! January (and now February), have brought nothing but extreme heat and humidity. Ah well, it is Summer, so it's to be expected, right? Yes, it is, but the heat has been of genuine heatwave proportions, with many days up around 47 C (118 F) and the major topic of conversation. Bring on Autumn.

So, my colours were bright blue, green and yellow. The sky really is that colour, and there's plenty of trees everywhere I look, but they are all a drab olive green at the moment. Ok, I don't actually see anything that's yellow, except sand at the beach (and I was there very recently), but there is something in the atmosphere which just feels yellow, (maybe it's the idea of the sun being portrayed as such, I don't know), but I just felt compelled to go with this feeling. Over everything though, is a "heat haze" phenomenon, which is actually visible. (It's most obvious where the horizon meets the sea and I've seen this quite often recently.) 

I slipped in a tiny bit of pink representing the only tree nearby (crepe myrtle), that I can see that's in flower at the moment. Very pretty! There's the odd wisp of clouds but they don't amount to much, (No rain, that is ... unfortunately.)

More info : acrylic paints on 300gsm watercolour paper, water soluble graphite pencil. 

Oh, and BTW, I'd rather draw faces than trees, and I'm not much good at faces, so these trees, or suggestions of trees, I should say, really stretched my artistic ability :)

WOYWW No. 400 a sneaky peeky desk

so called, because today you will only see peeks of stuff, which had to be ever so slightly arranged for this 400th occasion, or you would have seen nothing much of any interest ...

On the left, some super gorgeous Penny Black landscape stamps. On the right, some journal pages from the Wanderlust course (see side bar) and in the centre just the beginning of a challenge (also for Wanderlust).

Catch you over at Julia's to celebrate 400 weeks of WOYWW!

If you visited last week and I didn't manage to return your visit, it's because we are having a heatwave here and I barely have the energy to even press the "on" button for the computer. The weather is more acceptable today but there are predictions for more heatwave conditions in a few days time. Someone, please book me a flight to the northern hemisphere!

WOYWW it's time for a workdesk round-up

Any recent creativity has been directed via paints, inks and brushes, not words, hence the lack of a catchy title above. (I read a post on someone's blog recently, where they said they planned and wrote out their blog post, long hand, before actually going to the computer! Seriously, who has time for that?) So, short and sweet. I've been greatly enjoying Wanderlust 2017 (see side bar), and I expect any blog time I find will probably be mentioning said course.

Journal page on right is Week 3, from Wilna Furstenberg, at Wanderlust. It's not finished. It's waiting for some sort of text, but, as I mentioned above, I have nothing riveting to impart, at the moment. I have three art journals on the go, so there are many backgrounds waiting for inspiration, hence the pages on the left are also having something done to them :)

And, as promised, there is the January page from Sandra's calendar too. I think all the overhead lighting (eight strong down lights), has washed out the colour a bit. Hmm. 

Oh, and here's Week 2 (Wanderlust). A lesson from Mary Wangerin ...

There are a few layers here. Without going into the details, I'll just say that this was an exercise in not over thinking. It caused a degree of angst.

To join in with this worldwide desk sharing phenomena, pop over to Julia's Stamping Ground.  I'll catch you soon, but probably not tomorrow, because it's Australia Day and in the traditional Australian manner, I shall be seriously relaxing :)

Wanderlust 2017 "Focus"

The first lesson for Wanderlust 2017 (see side bar), was about "making a statement", something to keep in mind for our creative (and other?) endeavours for the year. Many have chosen themes such as "be brave" and "adventure" and similar. This doesn't quite work for me. Being brave suggests facing hazards or dangers or the unknown. I suppose a year long course could be considered an adventure. It just seems a bit vague and that could be the problem. Some serious ideas, which seemed appropriate, came to mind ... much concentration, patience and perseverance is required (on my part). However, I think this can all be distilled into one simple word ... focus.

Using just a few supplies, acrylics, gesso, stencil and images (my photos) ...

It was suggested that the images could be your favourite places. And they are. (From the coast to the mountains.)