Painting Project No. 35 from “Ways to Learn Acrylics” - Balloon dog

Project 35 in “Little Ways to Learn Acrylics: 50 small painting projects...” by Mark Daniel Nelson is ‘Rendering a transparent object: Balloon dog’. This exercise is now my favourite; from the first step the image was pretty remarkable. My only regret is that I painted it on mixed media canvas and not a canvas board. The book suggests trying this exercise again with different balloon animals and colours… will do it after finishing the book :).

Painting Project No. 34 from “Ways to Learn Acrylics” - Bulb

The final 16 projects in “Little Ways to Learn Acrylics: 50 small painting projects...” by Mark Daniel Nelson is Chapter 4, ‘rendering surface and form'.

Project 34 ‘Painting simple highlights: Light bulb’ was an example in rendering focus on glass and metal.  In my opinion, the painting was uninspiring but the lesson was a good one.

Watercolour Duck & White Swans in Wendy’s class

In one of Wendy’s classes we painted a white duck in watercolour; I painted the same duck Wendy demonstrated. Watercolour is still a difficult medium for me to use, so it was easier to follow by instruction. Even though much more time was spent on it, mine didn’t come out half as nice as the tutor’s or the original.

The next week we were to select an image of a white bird to paint in acrylics. Painting in acrylics is much easier and I drew an image from Paint My Photo. I was happy with the final painting and even signed it :).

Oil Pastels with The Seasons Art Class - Pear & Cow

In my Monday The Seasons Art Class we spent the first three weeks learning to draw with pencil then the next two weeks learning to use oil pastels.

The fourth week was about the different marks you can make with oil pastels and then a tutorial on drawing a simple object. With a pear in front of me for inspiration, I drew in oil pastel on A3 mixed media paper. The pear came out looking pretty nice and I enhanced it a little in photo shop to make it look even better.

The next week was about drawing simple shapes to form animals. For my subject, I drew a cow from a photo onto A3 mixed media paper. My cow came out really nice with minimal effort. Oil pastels are pretty awesome and I want to experiment with them some more :).

Painting Project No. 32 & 33 from “Ways to Learn Acrylics” - Landscapes

These two projects are the last in Chapter 3 - 'beyond the basics'.  Can't believe it, but my first painting in “Little Ways to Learn Acrylics: 50 small painting projects...” by Mark Daniel Nelson was back in November. Looking forward to moving onto Chapter 4 and probably for the first time in a long time finishing what I started.

Project number 32 ‘Accenting with a complementary colour: Birch trees’ came out better than I thought it would. At first, the steps to finishing the painting seemed odd but the final result was pretty nice and despite my prejudice...I liked it.

Project number 33 ‘Using exaggerated colour: Expressionist landscape’ was all about various colours as well as shapes; in my opinion it didn’t look so great. Probably should have tried to do my own thing and make some alterations to the instructions, but really I’m just ready to move on to the next chapter.

Craft Show Farnborough - Greeting Cards

My addiction to making cards was intensified by the Farnborough Make It craft fair. Even though it was £9.50 to get in I couldn’t stay away. After some research and one awesome blog post  it looked like it was worth going. My friend Snezana very graciously gave me a Cuttlebug and I needed more dies, embossing folders, stamps, paper, and ink pads. A previous trip to Hobbycraft wasn’t enough and I just needed more!

Spent £53 on products at Farnborough and couldn’t believe it. The money just flew out of my wallet and into the stallholder’s hands. It’s a good thing I didn’t have more cash on me; only charged the entry fee and one heart die at the end.  It’s amazing how much time it takes to put together just one card. Although, I do have ideas and pieces of things to use for future cards.

The balloon card is created with stamps and layout ideas from Issue 29 of Creative Stamping magazine. The flower card is from a Sizzix die cut and paper purchased at Hobbycraft.

The cake card is partly from a stamp that came from the Creative Stamping magazine and blue ink stamps from the show. The circle card is from a circle cutter and paper purchased from the craft show.

Painting Project No. 31 from “Ways to Learn Acrylics” - Sunflowers

Project 31 in "Little Ways to Learn Acrylics: 50 small painting projects..." by Mark Daniel Nelson was 'Creating contrast with temperature: Sunflowers’. I’m not experienced with painting sunflowers but all in all they came out pretty nice. I probably should have stopped sooner because with too many layers of yellow, the flowers don’t pop as much as they did. I prefer the poppy painting.