And The Winner Is...

Queen Elizabeth as a child-ACEO-Acrylic-©Anita Davies

Kathryn Estelle

Thank you to everyone who left their kind comments.
Kathryn please email me your home address so I can pop Princess Lizzie in the post to you.

Royal Giveaway

Sunday was rather hectic, as always, made more so by the fact that I was trying to get everything finished by early evening so I could plonk myself in front of the TV and indulge in a whole night of Rolf Harris on BBC4.

It all started at 7pm with one of his 'Star Portraits' programmes, followed by 30 minutes of 'Rolf on Art' where he spotlighted Lowry and attempted to paint 'Going to the Match' using Lowry's techniques and palette.

The next hour was a programme entitled 'My Family at War' and since it wasn't really art related and started at 8pm, I generously handed over the TV remote so the boys could watch 'Top Gear'.

At 9pm 'The Queen' began, a whole hour of Rolf's experience including his live sessions with Her Majesty and all of the nerves, apprehensions and sleep depravation he suffered throughout this amazing honour. It was wonderful to see such emotions from someone so accomplished and experienced, this is what I love most about Rolf...he's very grounded.

The evening drew to a close with an interview by Mark Lawson and an episode of 'The Rolf Harris Show'.

What a night!

Queen Elizabeth as a child-ACEO-Acrylic-©Anita Davies

My tiny ACEO (2.5x3.5") version of the Queen as a young girl can be yours...FREE! All you have to do is leave a comment in this post, it's that simple!

You can comment as often as you wish but you must have at least one other persons comment between your own.

The winner will be announced on Friday.

ACEO Adventure

Back in October I had an evening where I sketched some ACEO’s from imagination. A most relaxing time was spent allowing the mind to drift and the hand to draw what ever it so wished. The set above is the result of that wonderful evening.

I've been contemplating whether to colour them or not ever since. I'm excited at how they could look and yet content with their monochromatic state. Each time I get my watercolours out, I hesitate before packing them back away.

Perhaps they were meant to be left in the spontaneous state in which they arrived, a subconscious journey, a moment...an adventure of the mind.

All four originals are available to purchase through my Etsy shop.

Lucky Number Seven

The winner of the Guardian Angel ACEO and the 7th person to leave a comment on this post is

Elaine Magliacane

Please forward your land mail address to me via my email address which you can find a link to on the right hand side panel of this blog.

Thank you all for taking part, Alan and Elaine made me smile with their bantering.

Gifts, Awards, Prizes and Thanks

This is the bracelet my Mum treated me to while we were browsing around the Rose Fair. It's scanned up much more yellow than green here but it's actually a beautiful mix of limes, olives and sap greens. It jangles loudly and I love it!




I am priviledged to have been given this award another two times since Laurel awarded it to me, once by Mark Hill and once by Lisa Reed.
Thank you both!
You can view my seven nominations here.

I feel so spoilt I felt I should do something selfless, so...I am giving away my 'Guardian Angel' ACEO/ATC (size 2.5x3.5") by way of a thank you to all those who make this blog so much fun for me to update every day, your comments and kind words inspire and energise me.
I painted this ACEO from my imagination, this feathered vision just 'came to me' making it a very relaxed process, I hope he has the same soothing effect on the winner.

I have a number all picked out ready, so all you have to do to secure this Guardian Angel is leave a comment. You can comment more than once but you MUST ensure someone else has commented after your last comment before doing so...If that makes sense! LOL!
Good luck!

Guardian Angel

ACEO size 2.5x3.5 inches, gouache & ink. Painted from imagination.

Impressionistic Pause

Yesterday afternoon I got comfy on the sofa, sketchbook in hand and cuppa steaming by my side, I pressed play on one of my favourite DVD's; The Impressionists. I reviewed this 3 part drama a while back, you can read it HERE.
I've watched it a gazillion times...well almost...this time I decided to press PAUSE and sketch a little using the TV screen as my reference.

The results are displayed here, a journal page dedicated to Bazille and an ACEO card produced from one of the models. Each painting is completed in gouache with the exception of the top right sketch of Bazille, which was painted using watercolour and all paintings were produced under a short time limit, using a flat brush and a carefree attitude.

Great fun!


'Auburn Impression' available to purchase in my Etsy shop

While I'm on the subject of DVD and TV, I watched 'Sportrait' last night, a fantastic programme on BBC1 at 10.35 following 6 artists who paint celebrity sports stars to raise money for Sports Relief. The programme concludes tonight at the same time.
Read more here - Sportrait

Gifts

I decided to stick with the 'Spring' theme for all my PIF gifts.


Leslie Brasher
I'm sending Leslie this 5x7" 'daily painting' of tulips in ink and watercolour.

Jeanne Grant

I know that Jeanne collects ACEO's so I decided to send her this set of watercolour daffodil cards painted on watercolour paper.

Margaret Storer-Roche

I sent Margaret a TAB full of spring daffodils and tulips which you can read about HERE.

I posted Margaret's last week and will be taking the other two gifts into the post office in the morning, hope you like them!

I also donated my second TAB containing Benwick village scenes to the webmaster of the Lilyholt Road website. Adam kindly created a page to display my artwork and links on the website last year and has worked very hard to make the website an important part of Benwick village life.

He plans to create some kind of competition around my donation to raise funds to benefit the people of Benwick.

TAB 2 - Village Scenes

My second TAB (Tiny Art Book) is full of location sketches of a local village, Benwick. I set out for a drive earlier in the week and spent a while sitting in the truck, sketching and painting.

The book measures just 2.5x3.5 inches and the pages are 8.5x6 centimetres. Four pages, four local watercolour and ink scenes and the two pages at the back display my name and a few paint splashes.

The book fastens with a cream satin ribbon tied into a pretty bow. The covers are painted in French green acrylic decorated with a small hand painted flower design.

I also dug out my ACEO (collectable art cards) box from the studio today and came across this oil painting I made last year entitled 'Purple Iris', which can now be found listed on eBay here.

We experienced an earthquake here last night which registered 5.2 on the Richter Scale. It was very short lived and absolutely terrifying.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/2008/02/27/nquake927.xml

Floral Miniatures

Floral Urn
ACEO - 2.5 x 3.5 inches
Watercolour on watercolour paper

I have the Mother of all viruses at the moment. I dosed myself with pain killers to get through yesterday but last night it hit with a vengeance and disturbed what little sleep I usually manage to get. I felt too pathetic to fight it physically so I grabbed my large watercolour moleskin and conquered the germs by being productive with the early hours of the morning from my sofa.

These are the same flowers I sketched in the post 'Florals and their Roots'


Floral Urn 2
ACEO - 2.5 x 3.5 inches
Watercolour on watercolour paper

Both are available for purchase through my shop.

Portrait of a Princess

HRH Princess Elizabeth 1928
ACEO size 2.5 x 3.5 inches
Acrylic on watercolour paper

Had another bash at the Princess Elizabeth portrait, this time in better lighting, in the studio rather than on the sofa and in acrylic instead of ink.
Oh and in miniature, ACEO size 2.5 x3.5 inches, the image size I have uploaded is larger than the original.

The reference was black & white with very high contrast, making the eyes almost completely black, so it was quite the challenge breathing life colours into her.

I should be auctioning her on eBay later this week, you can keep updated by visiting my online shop.


Work in progress

Weekend Noodler's

Princess Elizabeth 1928, aged 2.

Saturday night found me lounging on the sofa, flicking through an old magazine my good friend Joan had saved for me. I came across a Royal page with some old photographs and Princess Elizabeth just stood out a mile, such a sweet, pretty little girl. Luckily my sketchbook was close by, so I began to work. Unfortunately, everyone had long since gone to bed and the only light left on was the dining room. I am ashamed to admit being too lazy to move and switch on a lounge light, so I worked with the small donation from the light next door...Thank God for open planning!
It turned out to be an interesting exercise, working with value and form rather than detail but it plays havoc with your eyes, especially when your glasses are also in the room next door...a newly prescribed accessory that I keep forgetting to wear!
TUT!


Antique chair, my lounge.

I made the chair sketch earlier in the evening when the light was still workable. Believe or not, this antique beauty was also used as a commode at some point, although I am happy to say there is no visible signs of such usage. The chair base used to be wooden and flipped up on hinges so I removed the wood, used it as a template, made a new piece slightly smaller and covered it in foam and cream damask. Although it is quite safe and reasonably comfortable to sit on should the need occur, it mostly serves to display my beautiful Laura Ashley cushions, creating a cosy corner to the room.

Sunday morning found me on my doorstep creating sketches to upload into my Location Sketchbook.

Studio Life - ACEO's - 2.5 x 3.5 inches

I then moved into the studio and began a possible ACEO series entitled 'Studio Life'. The idea being that the title be enhanced by the addition of coloured pencil just to the plants in both sketches...hence, studio 'life'.

All of this weekend's sketches were created using a Lamy Safari fountain pen filled with Noodler's red/black ink.

HomeGrown

'HomeGrown' - Acrylic ACEO
(ACEO are collectable cards sized 2.5x3.5 inches)

MY SHOP

Decided to leave it loose and just added the greenery.

HomeGrown

'Homegrown' - Acrylic ACEO - Work in progress
(ACEO are collectable art Cards sized 2.5 x 3.5 inches)

My Mum brought some of her home grown tomatoes over at the weekend so I took three into the studio and started a new ACEO. I'm posting it now in this stage, just 5 mins into the piece, because it is a whole new approach for me, blocking colours in with no sketch, working loose and I love the look. It appears my summer sketching has allowed me the confidence to approach painting differently, the detail freak still lingers within and I am not done with her yet but I get so much enjoyment out of working this loosely. My recent self portraits in acrylic were created the same way and I think this technique is born of my sub conscience aim to tackle oils again this Winter, I had but a short time with them after last Christmas before my Location sketching began.



I managed to capture the tomatoes again in my small moleskin sketchbook, this time in ink and coloured pencil.

I'll finish by mentioning my new Imagekind Print Shop, which you can view on the right hand side of this blog just above my Greeting Card Universe Shop. Affordable, stress free quality cards and prints at your fingertips just in time for a spot of Christmas shopping!

Teddy Tales & Imagination Streetz

' Teddy Tales '

'Engrossed' --------------------- - - - - 'Baffled Bookend'

On Thursday time was limited for a daily painting so I decided to create some new ACEO with the gaps I found throughout the day and the ideas that had been floating around in my mind for some time now.

I'm not in the habit of creating art from my imagination but I am finding it a really enjoyable process that seems to be frequenting me more and more with the ACEO card designs.

' Imagination Streetz 1 & 2 '

All of the cards were created using pen and wash and are 2.5x3.5" in size.

Weekend ACEO Dailies

This weekend I decided to concentrate my 'Dailies' on ACEO sized paintings. Each one is painted from life and is 2.5"x3.5" in size.

16 Feb 07 - Acrylic - BID NOW!

17 Feb 07 - Acrylic - BID NOW!

18 Feb 07 - Acrylic - BID NOW!

ACEO - Affordable, Collectable Art

Dailies - (w/e 15 Feb 07)

Dailies - (w/e 9 Feb 07)

Dailies - (w/e 2 Feb 07)

Introducing DAILIES

ACEO - Affordable, Collectable Art

ACEO stands for "Art Cards, Editions and Originals". These cards have one main rule - they are all 3.5 inches by 2.5 inches - the size of a trading card.

Art cards or miniatures were the rage in the 16th century. They were mostly portraits and they were sold, not traded or given away. Miniature Portraits would be used for exchange when rich people arranged marriages. In fact, this caused a big problem for Henry the Eighth, when the artist who painted his fourth wife, Anne of Cleaves, took a little too much "artistic license". Plain Anne was not up to standard and Henry promptly divorced her.

Today there is a resurgence of hand made art cards produced for both; trade and sale.

Collectors are able to build a gallery of their favourite works from a variety of artists at affordable prices, creating a wonderful family heirloom.

Here are a recent series of ACEO originals I produced in pen and wash, entitled

'Abigail's Castle'.

'Reception1' - BID NOW!

'East Stairwell'

'Billiard Room'

'Chapel'

'South Hall' - BID NOW!

'South Guestroom 1' - BID NOW!

The series was created from my imagination and my
my infatuation of decorative architecture and all things 'grand'.

Creating these cards was so much fun, I felt like a young girl dressing her dolls house.

I hope to add to the series in the near future.