Graffiti Bracelet

I've just finished watching the Eurovision Song Contest and oh dear! We came last!  I've had a fun evening though on MSE discussing the contest, having a laugh.  The German girl that won had a very strange voice, it seemed to be a mix of Cockney/Australian and American, most odd, and I must admit I was surprised she won.  I liked the Ireland song most but that didn't get many points either.

For my craft I had a go at making a bracelet out of that acrylic abstract painting I made a couple of days ago.

(Apologies for the strange coloured shadow)

I bought an elasticated wooden bracelet from a charity shop (for 50p!) that had eight wooden panels all the way around it.  I drew around each of  the panels onto my painting and cut them out.

I just used the red, yellow and black parts of the picture and stuck them onto the panels. I particularly focussed on the dry brushed bits.

Can't decide whether I should keep it or not.  If I do, I will need to varnish it  (Just wondering whether it might be a bit young for me?)

See you tomorrow,

qwiksave

Inspired Painting!

I had fun tonight!  I haven't painted with acrylic paints in...oh, ever such a long time!  And tonight I didn't paint with acrylic paints at first...

The black lettering isn't acrylic paint...

...it's black shoe polish!

As you can probably tell, I've been reading and trying some of the experimental painting suggested by Alisa Burke in the book I got in the post this morning (See yesterday's post).

At first, the scuff cover wouldn't come out and gave this lovely dry brush effect (on the 'e'):

and then after being shaken up it went nice and black and solid.

When I'd done the lettering, I loved the spaces the letters left behind so filled them in with red and purple.  ...And then came the yellow with reckless abandon!:

Sorry if this post isn't to everyone's taste but I have a feeling that I will be doing quite a bit more painting now that I've got the taste for it!  ;-)

See you tomorrow,

qwiksave

Crafts in my House

Bah! Another rotten day weatherwise outside so what better excuse than to show you some artistic bits and pieces I have around the inside of my house?  These pieces haven't been created by me but I have used some artistic licence and altered the pics I have taken of them today using my favourite photo editing programme, Picnik.

First up we have this painting:

This is an acrylic painting on canvas painted by a very talented previous lodger.

This is a framed photo of an enormous wave crashing against a coastal village - no idea where it was taken.  I got this from a junk shop ages ago for £1!

This is lovely. Not sure quite how it was made - a tiled mirror with painted shell decoration.  We got it from a craft shop in Ireland whilst on Honeymoon 14 years ago!

This is a detail of a painting  - love the way you can see the  texture of the brushstrokes. Origin of this one unknown.

This is so texture rich too. Made of handmade paper. Signed WaterfieldYoung, an american artist. Can't believe I got this for just £1 from a Salvation Army shop!

This sea creature mural in my son's bedroom was painted by me when 8 months pregnant with my first child.  It's still there as my son doesn't want me to paint over it! (10 years later!)

And finally, we have this.  It's left over from our 'hippy days'. It is a large bicycle wheel with the spokes wrapped around with coloured material and giant feathers tied on. It also has a metallic golden sun with a face attatched to the middle.  It was made by a friend of ours and hangs on a wooden area above the stairs.

This is just a selection of some of the pieces we have in our house, do you have hand crafted or painted items in your house?

See you tomorrow,

qwiksave

I can draw!

I can actually..as these pictures I made (admitedly a long while ago) show:

I can draw, but I don't any more, and that's a bit sad in a way.  I'm one of these crafty people that is dabbling in all sorts of crafts (as you can see!) but not focusing on any one.  There was an athelete who was famous in 'I'm a Celebrity, get me out of here!' for repeatedly saying 'Focus!' (sorry, can't remember his name!) but, should I?  Should I be focusing, working towards a specific target or is it OK to jump from one thing to another?   This is the question I am asking myself today....

My boys don't do a lot of crafting/painting, except what they are 'made to do' at school.  So today I got them something to fire up their creativity:

It's a large piece of canvas that is treated so you can put it in the washing machine - but you must remember to only use washable paints.   I thought it would be fun in the garden in the Summer to just free them from their 'I can't draw/paint' mindset. 

We had a little play today just randomly making marks and taking a print from it:

Hopefully we will have some more fun with it as the weather gets better!

See you tomorrow,

qwiksave