2015 Ambitions.

2014 has not been a great year. It started well. I was back into mosaic art, started drawing again and made an attempt to get back into my writing. Then disaster stuck, when my step grandfather passed away suddenly in July, a couple of days before my birthday.

Things have pretty much ground to a halt for me since. Mosaics, art and writing have been non-existent. The renovations I wanted to start back up in spring never happened and emotionally I have been a bit of a mess. All I have to say is, thank goodness for family support, or I would not have coped at all.

I can't solely blame new family commitments on my lack of creativity either. This last year has seen me go through new stages of health changes, as I grow older, and my concentration seems to be going down the gurgler with it.

I am angry at myself for not spending more time on exercise and watching what I eat. I have gained weight, which has not helped my overall health either.

And to cap off a not stellar year, our rainwater tank sprung a leak. Good news,we think we have fixed it. Bad news, the rain pretty much stopped once we had.

We are surviving with just 7 rungs in the big tank now and have been getting just enough rain to keep us going. Shower rationing and not being able to do the washing at home is the pits, though. Thank goodness once again for family.

There is no veggie garden this year but the fruit is doing fine, despite the lack of water. In short, we are managing because there is not much more we can do.

So, 2015?

I have so much I want to do, but realistically I don't think I can manage them all. 

Renovations are at the top of the list. I have painting to do and floors to lay. Hall, office, lounge, bathroom, toilet and laundry. Blah!

I need to get back into mosaics, I have commitments there and have promised people my help and I have projects I want to compete.

Writing and drawing. God, I so want to get back to these, but I create on an emotional level and if I can't feel, then I can't create. Writing wise, what I used to do in a continual flow of words is now just a trickle and very disjointed at best.

One of the solutions I am thinking of is getting away from the internet, I really don't have the time and it does me no good emotionally and uses up most of my mental energy for nothing. The problem is, I don't want to loose contact with friends I have made over the years, so it might be a case of rationing and set times only. Which should also help stop my arse from spreading any more than it already has. I hope. :P

I would love to get to know a few people on a different level, start using Skype more. I am finding trying to communicate with writing and just a few lines here and there to be more and more frustrating.

Sims. Yes I play sims. I want to get this back on my computer and get back into world building, but in all honesty it wont be a priority, there are too many other things sucking time already. I did have the idea of getting back into sim story writing, to kick start my writing again, but after my game computer died and needed fixing, the appeal has left me. Maybe when I get a few more of my more practical goals cleared I can get back into it. Will just have to wait and see.

The garden. This is the one thing that is going okay at the moment. The front yard needs a good tidy up, but apart from that I have kept on top of things, with main thanks to Winnie and his garden maintenance, without him it would be a disaster.

The house. The house is clean! Got this done just before Christmas. This was getting a bid depressing. I hadn't done a proper clean in a while because of renovations but it should be easier to keep on top of now. 

Okay so the list is already long and that's not with all the other commitments that go along with life. I think if I apply myself and try and build some routines, it just might be doable. My main ambition this year is to at least get some of this done. I am not going to push too hard and over tax things. If I can make good headway into at least the renovations and health, I will be happy, the rest might just have to fall into place as they happen.

Completed Another Picture.

This one was to learn how to do cross hatching to a face. I used a picture of one of my sims for this.

Thomas.

Finally Finished The Fish

It took a long time but it's finally done.
The black grout made all the difference to this piece, really made it pop.

Face Anatomy

This is just an exercise I did last night to lean the shape of the face and the different planes of the face. Both are very rough sketches, as they are more for the purpose of learning than for the purpose of looking nice.
They were very interesting to do and I really like the raw look of them and I did learn a lot, I am eager to apply what I have learned to my next project.


This one was done with the help of a tutorial by 87tors

This one was by Paul Abrams and there was a part 2 to it HERE.

Trying out different things on one drawn face.

Basically what I am doing with my drawing at the moment is playing, trying out new things and having some fun. Not everything works out the way I want but I am not to disappointed with the results because I am leaning new stuff all the time.

We did an exercise in measuring a face and drawing it in my drawing class, so I took that and applied it to a picture to see how I would do.

This is a sim character from a friend of mine, Nellas. He has an interesting face with an anime look to him, so I thought I would make him my subject.

I got a picture of Aoi.

The next step was to measure him up and get a pencil sketch going.

Not totally accurate but I was pleased with the result. The next thing I thought I would do is ink in the drawing and see what that would look like.

 

He turned out quite nice but very stark without shading. I was going to do some graphite pencil shading, but I found a tutorial on colored pencils and thought this would be a great picture to practice on. 

 

I found the pencils less dificult than I thought and really had fun with the blending and shading, the face has about five to six different colors in it to make up the skin tones. I was really pleased with the final result. The final picture look a little different because it was scanned and not photographed.

 

So thanks again to Nellas for her lovely character, Aoi, he was a lot of fun to draw.

Drawings that I have been doing.

Here are just some of the drawings that I have done in the last few weeks. Nothing special, just practicing and getting my eye in, trying different things and having some fun.

A Mark Crilley tutorial, which you can find here HERE.

One of the characters from my sim game, Jay Condiment.

A Mark Crilley tutorial, which you can find HERE.

A Mark Crilley tutorial. Which you can find  HERE.

A perspective exercise from my drawing class.

 A fish I drew from a photograph.

Another character from my sim game, Pepper Condiment.

Wolf Finished

Well as finished as he will be. I am pleased with the final result of this and it was a lot of fun and really encouraging as a first project, which worked way better than I could have hoped for.

Mine looks more like a malamute I think.
If you want to see the original tutorial by Mark Crilley, you can find it HERE.

Fishy!

Okay it's been a while since I started my glass mosaic class and we have been learning a lot.
I drew my fish design trying to keep things simple and fun and to degree it has been, but there have been challenges on the way too.
I had know clear picture in my head how I was going to tackle the original design, apart from that I wanted it to be colourful and fun, and not orange. Choosing the colours was more difficult than I thought, I wanted I wanted them different but to still compliment each other and bring life to the piece. I am happy with the results so far.
Here is how things have progressed.

I thought the smaller pieces would be the hardest, but it turned out to be the fins, because of the variation of color in them caused the glass to be more fragile.
Hopefully next week I will be filling the background and then it's just a matter of grouting!

Back In The Drawing Saddle.

Okay, this is nowhere near finished, still a lot of shading to do and since I am doing most of it in pen I am being very careful, and have called it quits for the night.
I haven't tried anything remotely like this for about 20 years and it's thanks to, Mark Crilley's ,wonderful tutorial on, how to draw a wolf, that has help me get into back into the mechanics of drawing.

In the next few weeks I am hoping to start a drawing course with, Bruce Long, at The Studio Of Mosaic Art but I wanted to see if this was still something that grabbed me and that I could actually do.
One of the things I am looking forward to learn is angle and perspective, something I have always struggled with in art.
I am also looking forward to trying more of Mark's tutorials, now that I have gotten back on the bike, so to speak.
I think my wolf looks okay, kind of wistful and happy. Possibly he is on drugs. >.<  Lets hope he improve as I finish off the project.

Plinth Progress

I did promise myself that I would not start too many mosaic projects at once this time and try to keep things simple. So far so good. My plinths had gone on hold over Christmas and the last month because of the heat and time, but I am hoping to start up on them again in the coming weeks.
I did start on the filling work before the break, it's the most tedious part of the project but I am hoping it runs smooth and I will have them finished in good time.

Glass Mosaic

I started a glass mosaic course last night. I did one a few years back but never went on with it.
Glass is a beautiful medium to play with and can give some very stunning results.
I have been a good girl this time and am firstly, making something for myself and also, something fairly small.
Another first for me is working on the back of a large floor tile. This gives a very solid base to work on and very straight and accurate angles.
Last night was spent practicing cutting/breaking a lot of glass and getting a feel for it. Most importantly learning how to handle it safely.
I have gone with a fishy theme, always wanted to make fish mosaics. I came up with this little guy and am really pleased with the design I came up with.

 

Next week I will be choosing colors, cutting them out and starting to bet them glued.

An afternoon of mosaics

Spent the afternoon finishing off the bases and line work of my mosaics. All I have to do now is fill in all the white on the sides and I will be ready to grout.

Studio Of Mosaic Art

Thought I had better do a plug for this on my own Blog, seeing I am running this one as well.
I am doing a blog for my mosaics teacher Bruce Long. He is an extremely busy man and also is not really into computers, so I have put this together for him. There is not much there at the moment but I am hoping to bet more going soon. You can see more of my work under Artist and student work and also under events there is an article that I just did on the Dalek that Bruce and his team put together.
Hope you enjoy.

The Studio Of Mosaic Art

Latest Mosaics Project.

I have been working on this on and off for the last few months, as time allows.
I have had two old cement plinths in my garden for years. They come from the farm where I grew up and are possibly older than I am. On was broken in half, the other intact and I had plans to mosaic them for a long time now and finally I am getting them done.

I cleaned both of them up with the high pressure water sprayer we have and I glued together the broken one with tile glue.
These things were turned out from molds on mass and are about as square as a dogs hind leg, so I have had to fiddle around with the design quite a bit.
I wanted something that was art deco in look, using very few colours and a simple design. I sketched out some ideas but putting the design together has been a very organic proses. Basically I have been making it up as I went along. 
I used mainly floor tiles for this and they are an absolute pain to cut, so I have to thank Bruce, my teacher, for doing the cutting for me. Also Lynda for getting the idea juices flowing for the side designs.
Anyway this is where I am up to now.

 

I still have to place the side pattern on one and then finish the line work. The filling in will be done in the same white that I have at the top.

Back To Mosaics

It has been a number of years now since I did mosaics and I think the time and mood is right for me to get back into them.
I started a very simple project the end of last year and yesterday when in and grouted it and brought it home. You cant really see the colors in this shot, the green and red are quite bright.

It is nothing spectacular, just a very simple pattern using tiles that I had around the place. The table itself needs a good revamping, cleaning, painting. This will then sit on my front veranda and be my coffee table.
I am not sure what I will tackle next. I have a large concrete cylinder that has a cactus growing in it that really needs sprucing up. I also have a bird bath that is starting to look really tired and I think it would look good with mosaic.