ArtyFartyAnnie

 Inspired by a class with Angela Kennedy as part of PYHaS 2020, though my take on it isn't a patch on Angela's beautiful painting and my girls have turned out looking a bit sad and grumpy as always :o) I learned a lot though, and enjoyed the process - especially loved doing the hair, and enjoyed using salt to create a pattern in the fabric of their dresses, definitely adding that to my repertoire of techniques. 

 Rediscovered whilst tidying my craft room - this watercolour painting I did as a practice years ago. It was shot down in flames by the teacher at the evening class I was going to at the time ("nice" but not proper watercolour technique and too controlled she said), so I shoved it back in my sketchbook out of sight at the time - but I quite like it now, though I'm sure I'd have the patience to do this now :o) Years later, I have come back to watercolours. I love them because they're relatively inexpensive, portable and really fun to play with, now that I've learned to let them do their thing and enjoy the process. They're also great to combine with other media and these days I'm happy to break all the "rules" if the mood takes me!

 Hello Fellow Deskers,  I've missed several weeks - Life seems to keep swallowing my Wednesdays recently - but I was determined not to miss another one, so I'm posting now and will be back later to have a snout around. Pop over to Julia's Stamping Ground if  you would like to join in, we're a very friendly lot :) Here's my desk this week, in the throes of finishing up my Christmas cards - yes FINISHING my Christmas  cards, can you believe it?!  I've made 120, enough to sell a few and leave plenty for us to last for a couple of years I reckon! I've also been playing with origami this week ... The shirts open up to hold sweeties or small gifts - a friend suggested they would make a great gift bag for a tie and you could give socks or tights in the shoes. The shirt uses one sheet of A4 and the shoes use two squares of whatever size you like - the smallest I've done used 3" squares and the ones in the picture were 8" squares.  Anyway, I'm off ...

 Hello Fellow Deskers,  Wednesday has come around again, and so it's time to show everyone What's On Your Workdesk Wednesday. I'll show you mine if you'll show me yours, just pop over to Julia's Stamping Ground to join in the fun.  I've missed a couple of weeks due to being busy with Other Stuff, but I have been able to squeeze in some crafting - and inspired by other Deskers I've made a start on Christmas cards woohoo, get me!!  Never have so many Christmas cards been made so early in my craft room  - possibly it's something to do with being retired now :o) I pulled out all of my hoarded Christmas-themed stamp sets, dies and papers and promised myself to use the whole lot. Mostly they're front-of-magazine "free" gifts.  Here's a peek at the results so far ... The second photo shows some experiments with a technique I saw on You Tube, where you ink up embossing folders before running them through your machine, to add colour to the non-...

 After a class with Jerney Marisha as part of PYHaS 2020, starting with a charcoal underdrawing, adding a wash of colour and then building up layers of paint. I went with gouache instead of acrylic paints and finished with coloured pencils.  It was a bit of a battle, the likeness came and went many times and one eye was stubbornly wonky for a while, but in the end I was happy with it.  Still wonder if the original quick charcoal sketch was better though ... Learning so much from all the amazing artists on PYHaS 2020 - I've signed up for 2021 AND for Wanderlust 2021 ... well, now I'm retired I have all this time to play :o)

 Good Morning Fellow Deskers,  It's What's On Your Workdesk Wednesday, time to show the world what we've been up to in our crafty spaces this week. Check out Julia's Stamping Ground to find out all about it.  Here's mine as I left it last night, after finishing the electric lighting in the book nook I showed you a couple of weeks ago ... The lighting gubbins is all contained within the ceiling, which fits on like the lid of a shoebox and has a dinky switch at the front and a miniature "loft hatch" to allow access to the innards to replace batteries and so on ... I'm ridiculously proud of myself for having faced the Demon of Electrickery so that I was able to design and wire it up by myself. Here it is on my bookshelf all lit up ... I thought it might be nice to create a label for the front with my old typewriter, but not sure what words to use, maybe "A Stitch in Time" ... hmmm ... any suggestions? Ok, enough waffle, time to head over to Jul...

 Good morning to all my fellow Deskers, Can it really What's On Your Workdesk Wednesday again already?! Mine looks a bit different this week, and no, I haven't grown a beard (yet!) ... This is my son, Tom, who kindly came over to show me how to wire up my Book Nook - I really need to face my demons and learn how to do this from scratch myself. So, at this point, we had shovelled all the artsy stuff to one side and laid out lots of scary electronics stuff ... Tom is a wizard with electronics and computery stuff. Fortunately for me, he is also an excellent and patient teacher, so after half an hour or so, here I am, switching on my tiny lamp to light up my miniature sewing room ... I'm fairly confident that I now have enough of a grasp on how circuits and switches work and how to connect everything, so that I can design the lighting for future miniature endeavours - which is very satisfying :o) So, that's me for this week, time to pop over to Julia's to have a snout ...