A Brief Update and Some Art

Hello Friends!

I'm still taking my prolonged break from social media.  Thank you for your kind messages and support.  Your lovely letters, cards and phone messages bring me such joy and lift my spirits.  In the meantime, June 1st saw the start of the annual ICAD art challenge.  Most of you know what this is, if not you can read about it HERE.  I believe this is my tenth year taking part.  This year I am using Silvine plain white, unruled 6x4 inch record cards.  If you don't want to see the art, just hop along to the end, I won't be offended!  

In no particular order the first two weeks:

Portal or Doorway.  Graphite

Zinnia.  Graphite and Coloured Pencil

Gradient.  Watercolour Pencil

Tree.  Watercolour Pencil

Owl.  Graphite

Off Prompt. Bonus Card. Mixed Media

Patisserie.  Mixed Media

Lavender.  Watercolour pencils

Waves.  Watercolour pencil

Potpourri mini challenge Maze.  Watercolour pencil

Ferris Wheel mixed media

Off prompt

Orange watercolour and micron pen

I

Recipe Watercolour

Ellipse  Graphite

Terrazzo  Gel Pens

I appreciate your messages of support and concern but I think there is a general underlying misconception over Parkinson's, as so many are very kindly sending me wishes for a speedy recovery.  Unfortunately, Parkinson's does not get better, it is a progressive degenerative disease of the nervous system and will only worsen over time.  So until a cure is found there is no getting better, just good days and bad days.  In the meantime, I am attending two days a week at a local hospice, which I enjoy, especially the time I can enjoy the warm jacuzzi which helps alleviate my painful legs.  Social Services has also arranged for eleven hours of help for me.  

In the meantime, we all now have the added worry that we are about to lose our GP Surgery and may have to face being dispersed to the nearest facilities, some 16 miles away.  This is not good news for those, like myself, without transport.  I don't know what is happening to our world.

Until next time

Stay well and stay safe

Debbie xx

Extended Time Off

Hello Friends

Just to say I'm taking an extended break from all social media platforms.  I may, or may not, return, at this point I don't really know.  I have enough problems of my own to deal with and simply cannot cope with my own deteriorating health and the endless barrage of bad news, falseness, and negativity that permeates Facebook and the like.  

I could use any good thoughts you can spare to send my way.

In the meantime, I shall leave you will the latest photo of mine to be published in the local rag.

 Here are a few more, for good measure

Dandelions in the rain make beautiful subjects!

Until next time

Stay safe, stay well

Debbie xx

The Flight of the Dolphins

Hello Friends!

The Merry Month of Mermaid May {Mermay} continues.  No mermaids today, but some of the underwater friends of mermaids by way of a trio of common dolphins in a galactic ocean.  Inspired by Ida Andersen Lang at Drawing Magic Circle.  

I can't pretend otherwise that I'm chuffed to bits with this one, and I'm even thinking I might push the boat out and frame it.

I hope you like it.

Until next time

Stay safe and stay well

Debbie xx

Successes and Failures

Hello Friends!

Life is full of opposites, and no matter how much I enjoy creating art, i feel that my failures outweigh my successes.  Typing is tricksy  for me at the moment, so today I'll not mince about and I shall get straight into the pictures. 

I'll begin with the failures.  This is my reference photo for everything shown today.  It was an app on Facebook, I think I wrote about it a few months back, whereby your photo is turned into how you would look as a Viking, a fairy, a princess, a Celtic warrior, and more, including a mermaid. This is me as a mermaid.  She has become my muse for Mermay.

I have to admit I am less than pleased with my first two attempts in various types of watercolour mediums.  They are whimsical in appearance.

Attempt one

Attempt two

Then I decided to swap out my medium of watercolour paint and pencils for graphite.  Here's what happened next.  It's quite a difference.

Finally resulting in this

I don't think she's too shabby at all, even if I do say so myself.  It's the first time I think that I've attempted an open mouth smile showing teeth.  I'm not disappointed with my efforts at all.  Every time I do a drawing or sketch in graphite I find myself thinking I've found my best media.  What do you think?

I have to say I really do enjoy working in graphite and mostly use a mechanical pencil with a graphite refill, along with a paper blending stump {tortillon}, a kneadable putty eraser, and a Tombow retractable fine point eraser.  I also use various graphite pencils and graphite blocks {useful for shading in big areas quickly}.  It can be messy work because the sign of good graphite is how dirty your hands get when using it!  

Until next time

Stay safe and stay well

Debbie x

MerMay part 1

Hello friends,

Thank you so much for those of you who have commented on my art. Your support means so much to me. It's amazing what a difference a few kind words can make when somebody's feeling down.

This is what I've been working on this past few days for MerMay. I've pulled a few pieces of work that I've done from other projects as well, because they're relevant. One of our prompts, for example, was pearls and some of my earlier index card art seems to fit in quite well with it.

Seahorse, in this case highly stylised by way of a Dendritic print

or this interpretation of Atlantis 

This is one of the mermaids, I am rather pleased with this one

and finally for now, an image of cetaceans swimming across the Universe.  The colour reproduction is poor, it's not as slime lime green in reality but my new phone does not seem to do well on colour reproduction.

It still persists in raining most of the time here in the west, so this watery theme of mermaids for May, or Mermay, seems somewhat appropriate still!

Until next time

Stay safe, stay well

Debbie xx

What is MerMay?

Hello friends!

I haven't been around very much. This Parkinson's is getting me down.  I've been dipping in and out occasionally reading your goings on.  Need to see how you all are doing.  Most days it's a struggle to type.

The weather is nothing short of depressing isn't it? How much more rain can we take?  It's the end of April and I've still got the heating on and I'm still wearing my winter weight clothes. It has gone beyond a joke now.

I can't remember offhand what I last shared with you with my painting. However, with the end of April approaching, I am now getting ready to take part in a month of art called MerMay.  I'm taking part in an online group. hosted by Ida Andersen Lang. It's only 10 days, but the whole month of May is going to be dedicated to creating art with a theme of mermaids. I am really looking forward to this.

I found these two boxes of Jane Davenport colour sticks in my stash.  Jane Davenport is an Australian artist who does her own range of stencils, stamps, colouring products and other art materials. These colour sticks are like a chunky wax crayon in lipstick form and they react with water and behave a lot like watercolour paints.

A few days ago, I got these mica powder pallets. I like the colours, and I think they will be very useful for the MerMay project.

Anyway I've been itching and twitching to get going on the project and I reached the stage where I couldn't wait any longer with impatience. So over this past weekend I started dabbling and dipping my toe into creating mermaid art.

A while back, I used one of those Facebook apps that converted a picture of me into various things such as a Viking, a Celtic warrior, a fairy. One of the options was a mermaid. so I took one of the images and used that as my reference image to give me inspiration for the first piece I did.

Then I decided to draw a tail. Think of a mermaid that is just dived. It started out more as a doodle, so I haven't invested a lot of time and work in this piece. However, it's left me with a lot of inspiration and ideas for things I would like to explore during the coming months.

I obviously added scales on one half of it, and I painted it using metallic paints to try and give it a shimmery oceanic effect.  I also added a sort of seaweed border.

There'll be quite a few more pieces of artwork coming in the following month, I think. I hope so anyway.

until next time.

Stay well stay safe.

Debbie.