Friday Round Up - Art and Life.

Instead of just Friday pages, I thought I would change it up, and do a Friday Round Up, tidbits from our week, more mine than ours I guess, as I am the one behind the camera all the time!
the 6:30 wake ups have been KILLING me!

 

barely awake, but trying hard! I have a goal to reach by Christmas, and maybe just maybe I will make it. 

 

trying to keep up with my daily writing, knowing it is helping me, get ideas out of my mind and onto my paper. and my planner, the brains of life hehe.

working on art for a dear friend of mine, just the base layers so far, soon they will have more on them! little canvas board filled with original art.

a page from a journal swap I am in, where each month I sent a journal page to a woman in the group, this page's theme was 'black and white' I struggled very much with this, till something clicked and before I knew it, I was finishing it up!

working on homework for Jane's class JOYnal, a dancing flower fairy! she is still very much a work in progress, but I am at least liking how she is turning out!

every afternoon, I pick this little man up, and he makes my heart sing, telling me all the things he did that day, asking me way too many questions and generally being adorable.

so how was your friday?
xx Courtney

Inspiration Tuesday - finding it everywhere.

I wanted to blog about finding inspiration everywhere, and that it is everywhere, we just have to look...

my little creature loving soul goes wild over this little lego nook in the side of a broken wall. To give the wall a new life, being adored instead of forgotten.

One-hundred-year-old artist Grandma Moses paints at her farm, 1960. She started painting when she was in her 70s. It took her awhile to find her artistic style. She is an inspiration that it is never too late.

if you never look up...you may miss something amazing.

 

or maybe...you should fall in love with books again...there are worlds ready to burst out of them

 all images found via Pintrest

 You can find inspiration anywhere...if you open your eyes a little more...and let your heart go chasing it down.
have a fantastic time finding it, I know I am
xx Courtney

Watercolour my Heart Day 7 Blogtober!

Big weekend is coming to an end, and I am one tired little lovely, but I know I said I would blog...so here I am! nice short and sweet blog post today, so I can go and have a long relaxing hot shower.

Its a weekend for kissing deer shoes...I heart them so much!

right! onto the reason that you stop by for! The supplies! now my next supply cost me $10AUD..that's right, its the one supply I get asked the most during my videos..ohhh that watercolour set..where did you get it from...I have been asked that more times than I care to count for you..and my reply..a chain store called BIG W. Its a budget set in the art section by a low price art brand called Micador. you can get them in a smaller size than this one..but value for money, this size beats the other 10 or so colours. The colour range is very very good for its price, I give them a good spray with my water bottle let them get juicy and away I go, worked wonderfully with an aqua brush as well. Very bright vivid colour. Just because they are cheap doesn't meant they have crappy pigment.  As you can see, my palette has had some use...and broke in half lol...but doesn't stop them being used and abused on a day to day basis. The following pages have ALL been created with the 10 Dollar wonders.

this page here, the faces in particular were all done using the watercolours, the background green is an acrylic ink...which will be a supply for another day.  But all face colours and the lovely yellow hue..is all the watercolours I speak of.

using the colours not so wet and juice, using just a damp brush this girl below was created. This girl is just on normal fabriano 300GSM paper, no watercolour papers are used in my journals (too pricey lol) you can see that you can get varying shades of the same colour just by going over them a few times, the colours blend well aswell.

 this girl was painted with no pencil drawing, all done with watercolour then outlined later with a black pitt pen. You can do bright and vivid..or soft and subtle. This set is a fantastic set for people who want to play with watercolours but dont like the pricetag of the fancy ones ( I lust after the fancy ones..but on my mumma budget, out of my league)

 

The below image is my traveling watercolour set...yes you heard right this is my Peerless watercolour. They are my expensive ones, that were a gift from my boyfriend. They watercolour comes on a card and each card is a different colour, so I followed the video by the lovely Jane if these watercolours intrigue you do click on the link in Jane's name..it will take you to a video she created to highlight the wonderfulness of these watercolours. My palette slots into the back of my journal ready to be accessed at anytime while I'm out and about!

If you have any questions about any of my supplies please do ask

of if there is something I haven't covered yet and you are dying to know...do ask me! I'm always happy to give readers what they like, But don't get me wrong, if you ask about something and I don't use it...I will tell the truth. There are a lot of supplies I just don't use...I am a budget artist for sure. 

xx have a lovely night

Courtney

My Days are cluttered with colour!

I know I know, I've had emails and messages..where am I! I've been off making notes and pulling myself together before a huge blog overhaul. A little revamp is always needed before spring. A more creative lifestyle is my intended goal...

whilst working out my layouts..I've started making notes for daily posts, what would you like to see on the blog? Reader input is very highly valued over here in the nook, so if there is something you want to see covered..or talked about daily...do tell. There will be a few tweaks to the nook..a little plus size fashion, some DIY home stuff, more art than you can poke a stick at, and more videos.

stayed tuned.

I have a dear friend who just had a birthday, and whist I went shopping several times to buy her a bunch of cute one of a kind things that I thought she would love..I came up short...very short. So I started making her a journal, we are both avid journal keepers, me more the messy kind lol, but lovers to the full of the paper collecting experience...so I started putting the pages together for a journal that will be nothing like what she has in her collection...a real one of a kind book for her to carry around. I sewed...

and I created artworks to be scattered through out the journal...and much more..I can't show too much as she reads my blog! (or at least I think she does lol) 

While I was on the journal making kick, I also started one for myself, just to get the practice in, trying out different ways of binding, different types of signatures, this one is an old book I've had for a while, starting to collage things to the cover, a photograph I love, a post it note from a letter, stickers...small parts of my life. I also used a cute fabric from my quilting stash to wrap the spine in, to give it a little colour pop. I have one signature left to put into the book, and then she will be finished...underneath the book is me practicing my smiles in the new addition Ink week to Supplies Me workshop with Jane, It's been a while since I'd opened my art journal, so I let jane put me to work in it again...

another colour love of mine at the moment..is bright coloured tights!!! I went on a search for tights for big girls, being an artist, I like to dress with a certain BOOM of colour...and these tights well they certainly make a girl feel happy. Over at We Love Colors they have a big girls tight range in a rainbow of colours... I have the teal and the BRIGHT yellow..I cant get enough of them, I hope to purchase many more colours in the future.

I hope I've brought you up to speed with whats been going on..there will be changes coming! I just have to work on the design features of the blog, which takes time while running a family! 

do  comment below if there are things you'd like me to talk about, or ideas for regular post features! I do love hearing what you do and don't want to read from me!

x Courtney

Face Three - 29faces in May Blue Bella.

 

Afternoon my dears, it's another day, and that means another face, I've done more than one since my last post, but this girl, was a happy accident, one of my ink bottles spurng a leak, and got all over my page, where I was working on a sketch, so I ran with it, I used two shades of blue Spray inks, applying them like watercolour and then using gesso to give them the painterly look.

 

I used a graphite pencils to do all her detailing, haphazard kind of sketching, I wasn't too precious with her, it seems the more careful lines u put in the more...forced a face is.

a little bit of white paint pen, and white prismacolour pencil and she was done, very simple, very accidental, but there you have it, my face for today!

welcome to my crazy messy desk, its getting more crazy as I paint more faces, you can see the opposite page where the ink spilled.

have a lovely afternoon my dear friends, and please pop back tomorrow for whatever face appears within the pages of my little art journal.

xx Courtney

goddess and the poet!

a new world awaits me.