I love Paris in the Sringtime.......

Ink line sketch

Watercolour line wash

 Oh I wish I was in Paris....but sadly not :(
As I mentioned in my Tulip post, whilst I waited for the washes to dry..... I set about another little project. I've noticed quite a few Eiffel tower inspired arty pieces about, so I decided to attempt a couple of ideas. Firstly I sketched one using a cut off straw and black ink,then I worked another up on wet paper, using a rigger brush(those long thin ones)and watercolour. I quite liked the different results.
The next part was scanning them into photoshop and bringing in some elements I had created a while back, to create Valentine ideas.

Re Jigged in photoshop

 I enjoyed playing about with all the hearts and roses, and a few little french words for LOVE. Hope you like them?

 I also managed to finish the letter 'C' with my stamped Christmas foliage.....

and created a 'Merry Christmas' with the 2 letters at the head. I am really just starting out on the digital art journey, I can't profess to being able to do wonderous things as yet. But I do like playing about with it, and I LOVE the possibilities it offers. I could not have painted those roses/ hearts in situ around the Eiffel Tower, without making a total mess! I think they look quite pretty and fit the sort of valentine theme, what with the French being great romantics. I just need someone else to like them now, they will be winging their way to various folks soon.
Meanwhile I am carrying on with my books, I managed 10 more sketches this week, and I'm waiting on a response, or to be given the go ahead hopefully. I will post a couple of my artworks for the last book next. So see you all again soon.

Patience.....is a virtue.

Finished Tulip painting

At Last I return, thank you for your patience! The finished Tulip painting is above and our patient and protracted wait for Spring to Sprung has been rewarded. It is such a joy to feel the warm sun, and suddenly everything is firing up out of the ground. I waited for those button flowers all the dark deep winter, well worth the wait.

such a colourful burst!

Snakeshead Fritillary peeping up at the back.

Just out today.

Little gem of a garden.

We have had a couple of walks out this past week, as it's been the last week of the Easter hols. The first 2 photos are the Peak District, the second 2 are the North York Moors.

My intrepid exploring companions, snow still up here.

Little lambs out, it's still quite cold.

Sun at last.

Good views as we climbed up.

I will be back with some new bits of artwork soon. I do hope you have some spring sunshine and warmth wherever you are in the world.

Tulips, a lesson in backruns and patience.

 Today I hope I am bringing you a bright and colourful posting, full of the joys of Spring! It has been a lovely sunny week here, still very cold, although that did change a little today. As I mentioned in my last post, on seeing those tiny bright flowers, I felt inspired to paint them, see above. I'm hoping to make these into a little pattern. making the flowers very tiny. I have really had a week off this last week, as I was waiting on decisions with some sketches, so with my mind buzzing with flowery inspiration, I finally decided to paint some tulips. I love these flowers, they are just so cheerful, in whatever colour. I do have some in the garden, but they are not out yet, and don't last too long, so I found my subject matter in a brochure, and did a sketch of the flowers in a bag, as they were presented.
 I had to think about my process to paint, and decided to mask out the body of the flowers, whilst painting the leaves. I have to tell you, this painting has taken all week to do! It has been a matter of painting one part, wet in wet, adding more paint, letting that swoosh in and settle, waiting to dry, then onto the next part.

Flowers masked out still, leaves all painted.

 I then started to paint in the flower heads, each petal painted separately, waiting for just the right moment in the paint drying stage, to add clean water to whichever edge I wanted to be the lightest, this created a backrun, which I felt captured the feel of these flowers, I also added the stems in at this stage, allowing those to develop backruns too. Hopefully you can see the backruns where the paint has sort of feathered and fuzzed out, I liked this effect. But it is so painstaking, carefully working up each petal, holding the paper at all angles, waiting and watching each stage progress.

The centre pink flower is still wet here.

I added the stem, whilst the flower was still wet, allowing the paint to run back into the  flower.

 It's quite difficult to capture what is happening in a photo. I wanted to show the intensity of the colour I put down, as this dries quite a bit paler. It's hard enough for me to get this right, I end up holding the paper up to the light by the window, so that I can see how the wet stage is drying, as it's quite crucial the point at which to add water or paint!! All in all, it's been a really satisfying exercise, but I had to be so patient, it was like watching paint dry, Ha Ha, funny, not :) I wasn't very patient however, and started another project, which I hope to show soon, whilst waiting for the paint to dry. I managed to finish the tulips, but I've yet to show you that, you will have to be patient....like me, and hopefully you'll come back to see it.
As a little aside this week, which has been a holiday week over here, I've had 2 delightful encounters with some rather beautiful birds. I stepped out of the house the other day, to walk the dog, and heard some unusual bird noises, it sounded rather like tiny baby birds all chirping at once?? It was a sunny day, but I knew there hadn't been a sudden surge of baby birds around! The trees at the end of our avenue held the mysterious noise, a large flock of beautiful waxwings, whoooweeee, they were lovely. When you are tuned in to the birds, these sounds alert you straight away, I'm glad my brain works this way.

 Then later that day, we were walking(the dog) again, up on some local heathland, and I had my first sighting of a green woodpecker. We flushed it up from the ground, where I presume it was ant hunting? It flew ahead into some trees, and we managed to see it again, it was trying to hide and was flat to a tree trunk, quite hard to spot, but then it swooped along to another tree, whoooweee again. This is quite a large bird, and its flashes of yellow and green and red are just delightful. It makes a crazy 'yaffle' laughing sound too, which it did as we walked away, laughing at us (but we did get a good sighting of it, ha ha,).

So I hope I've brightened your day, with all these colourful splashes, it's certainly perked up my week! See you again soon, with my finished painting and some more, hopefully.

Stamping update and some sunshine jewels

 So here are my little stamped images of foliage all combined together in Photoshop, to create, firstly a Christmas wreath, and then below, the letter M for Merry, I have still to do the letter C for Christmas, but it's on it's way. I quite enjoyed sitting and putting all this together, moving leaves around, trying to get just the right feel and balance. I hope you like them. I took a photo of the screen, so I know it's not too clear, but I hope you can see it sort of?

 Today is 'Good Friday' and it's been good indeed, with the sun shining most of the day. It's still absolutely freezing though, but it has been so lovely to see blue sky and feel the warmth of the sun, in a sheltered spot. I just wanted to show some of the little gems coming through in the garden. I planted these late last year, I just love those little bellis perrenis,( not sure my spelling is right). They look so bright and cheery, like sweets in the garden, along with the tiny pansies, and the tete a tete daffodils.

Buried under the snow, they survived, hooray.

 The colours of these tiny flowers is so rich, It's inspiring me to paint something floral??

I hope you have sunshine wherever you are, and enjoy the Easter weekend. See you soon :)

Elly MacKay

http://youtu.be/XvPqxFhKyE0
I am hoping this link will work, I just watched this and wanted to share it with you, I think Elly creates some lovely scenes.

The Beast from the East and other offerings....?

Flowers buried under the snow!

I just wanted to share with you my spring flowers that had braved the cold and peeped out. Unfortunately the snow had other ideas and I woke to find them buried, I do hope they are keeping warm in there? But I have the feeling they may be a little crushed. We are experiencing the 'Beast from the East' apparently, as cold winds blow in from the East, Siberia, and meet warm wet weather from the south west, giving us more snow.I'm pretty sure I've shown you snowy pics before, and so now I would like to move on into spring please?

Back Garden birdies.

The birdies in my back garden are getting extra food at the moment, as I have the feeling they have started nesting and may have chicks. The Blackbirds are carrying away beaks full of soaked raisins, so I hope I am helping to keep little baby birds alive??

 I had wanted to show you folks out there, some of the work I've been doing recently. I took a photo of my latest book illustrations along with some pages of sketches, there are 29 little illustrations, a book of 'Blessings' for little girls. But I'm afraid that I could be sharing something I shouldn't just yet. There is the possibility that images could be copied and it wouldn't be right for me to risk that. So as I'm currently working on several book projects, another 'Prayers' book on similar lines, a set of 4 covers on fairies, a 'Dance' book for children, and a book about a 'Puppy' I probably won't be sharing much artwork.
 However, in-between waiting for feedback on sketches/artwork etc, I've been playing around with some stamping. I just love doing this. I seem to like all print processes, I've yet to get my screen that I bought into action too. These little stamps are all sort of Christmas foliage, I'm hoping to get time to format these in photoshop next week, after I've carved them all out.

I like this bit of freedom to experiment and play with different techniques. My time is totally taken up when I get involved with the book illustrations. Sometimes I get frustrated at how little time I'm given to illustrate a book? I panic somewhat after agreeing to do something in such a short space of time, I really cannot fathom why there should be such a rush. I obviously don't know all the inner workings of what book publishers get up to, but they should understand it is time consuming doing A3 size illustrations? If anyone can explain I'd love to know??
So I've actually had this weekend off with this time to play at stamping, snowed in practically, freezing winds blowing outside. More snow to come by Good Friday apparently, when will the winter end?? I hope to bring some sunshine when I next write, my posts may be infrequent as I work my way slowly or quickly through my books. It will be an absolute joy to see them when they are done though, I know! Then I can share some images. :)

Birthday Boogie

Hi folks,

My Birthday today, had a lovely day, sun shone, lots of cards, choccies and a bit of a twirl to one of my favourite songs, turned up nice and loud, and dancing with the dog!! :) He looks at me bemused, but knows it's HAPPY time. Hope you like the tune, I think it will have your toes tapping too. Go on, it feels good. I will be back with something arty soon.