Happy 60th Birthday Dad

It's my Dad's 60th Birthday today so yesterday I painted him a card of his dog 'Grace' using a sheet of 16x12" Sanders Waterford watercolour paper, a pigment liner and Schmincke watercolours.

Happy Birthday Dad!

Sporting Art

I painted this in my Altered baby Book this evening using sepia pigment liner and gouache. Item #160 on the Weekly EDM Challenge List is to ' Draw A Trophy', it belongs to my favourite sportsman of all...My eldest Son Jake.


Read more about my Altered baby Book HERE

I also uploaded these two Spring designs into my card shop at GCU today for Easter, I'd totally forgotten that I painted the Daffodils last year and thought they'd be perfect for the occasion.


My Shop at Greeting Card Universe

You may remember me mentioning the BBC1 programme 'Sportrait' showing the process a group of artists take to complete a commissioned portrait of a sports star to be auctioned for sports relief later this year.
Well...
This is Jack Vettriano's -

Portrait of Zara Phillips, the royal vamp - by Jack Vettriano

It was fabulous to watch all of the artists that took part but, for me, Jack stood out not only for his obvious painting talent but because he was so...well....human! Looking at his work you could never imagine that he would have the same fears, doubts and nerves we all face when approaching a commissioned piece, in fact, he was much more nervous than I have ever been but then, I haven't been commissioned to paint Royalty......Yet!

Great programme, genuine guy, worthwhile cause...FABULOUS PAINTING!

To read more visit The Daily Mail

Winter Wonderland

Card design - Arches HP watercolour block.

I have transformed my 'Elva' card design from the square page of my Seawhite sketchbook to an Arches HP watercolour block and uploaded it into my CARD SHOP 'Nitsa's Noodles' at Greeting Card Universe where it can be purchased for $2.49.

Design sketch - Seawhite sketchbook

I have also uploaded a Robin I painted last year in acrylic into my Imagekind Gallery of fine art prints, where it can be purchased from as little as $14.43.

Robin - Acrylic on canvas

It has felt alot like Winter here in the Fens today, the wind came from nowhere at around 4pm and there's been a frosty chill in the air all day. Physio this morning and the weekend wreckage to contend with meant little time to sketch so I added simple line sketches of items I crossed paths with throughout the day to form this page of my Seawhite sketchbook.

As you can see I ended my day in the studio where I finally started work on a canvas piece I've been planning and packed my bag ready for Tuesday's life session...Can't wait!

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!

Introducing NitsasNoodles

...My new card store at Greeting Card Universe!

I have also updated my blog template to the new version today, something I have been putting off for some time incase I lost everything.
The update appears to have gone well and this blog now matches my Location Sketchbook.