February's Work in Progress -

The time-consuming health distractions that beset me in January have continued into February with a very bad back and then concerns about my blood pressure meaning that I've spent more time in my doctor's waiting room than I would have liked. Thankfully I've now been told that my blood pressure isn't actually anything to worry about and my ECG was also fine. That's a relief but it's all been time-consuming!

So I'm quite surprised at how much 'work' I've managed to complete since I my last 'Work in Progress' blogpost, a month ago!

First there were the birthday cards for two of my teenage grandsons . .

 

 . . . and one for their mother, my eldest daughter, somehow completed and sent off in time - 

I've also finally finished a hand-painted paper collage to illustrate a quote that's been sitting in my ToDo file for at least a couple of years!

It's probably my favourite definition of a really good friend -
but I've found they are hard to come by
so I focus on trying to BE that friend to others!

And while all the messy collage stuff was out of its box, I made a couple of little friends for Finnegan the Fish - Freddie and Fiona. 

I hope I'll have completed some Greeting Cards for the Persian New Year with Finnegan and a pattern with all three fishes by the time I'm writing next month's Work in Progress blog post.

Shortly after Christmas, Zazzle added fabrics to their wide range of products - excellent news! But at about the same time, they put in a new algorithm for searching the Market Place and that has meant a lot of extremely tedious work for us shopkeepers! (Oh for a team of minions - or at least a willing Creative Assistant!)

So I'm still working with the 'Heffalumps' that featured on my grandson's birthday card, making a pattern collection for products on Zazzle, encouraged by having won a category prize in the Zazzle Fabrics competition. *see foot of post.

This will probably become a Pillow/Cushion

I can imagine this pattern on a little boy's pyjamas,

with a different coloured background, maybe.

I had planned to spend most of my 'zazzling' time putting my existing designs and patterns on the hundreds of new products that have been introduced since I opened my Posh & Painterly store in August 2013. I've managed to do quite a lot of that, most recently working on the 'Spring Sunshine' collection - but not as much as I'd hoped!

Daffodils Pillow or Cushion: Faux-patchwork by poshandpainterly

I never thought I'd do this, but in a 'mad moment' one afternoon, I actually put a design on some chocolate brownies and shortbreads! The thing I've learned about selling online is that you never know what people are actually going to buy!

Welsh Costume and Emblems St David's Day Brownies Rectangular Brownie by poshnpainterlycymru
 

 

And I've also made a start on creating gifts for St Patrick's Day, featuring my 'Shamrocks' collection!

Dark Green Shamrocks Pattern Small Gift Bag by poshandpainterly
 

So I've been pretty busy - and even when I'm relaxing in the evenings, watching my favourite WhoDunnits, I haven't been entirely idle. I don't know whether it's a result of spending so much time on the laptop, creating products and greeting cards that don't actually exist until somebody actually orders them.

But I've had a real yearning to make things, using my hands, real things, things you can actually handle!

A friend sent me a paper bead necklace for my birthday last year and it fascinated me. Apart from anything else, it appealed to me because I already have everything needed - scrap paper, glue and cocktail sticks. 

So I made a start, rolling strips of magazine paper around cocktail sticks, moving on to newspaper, junk mail and my favourite so far, wallpaper. I'm not very good at rolling them evenly yet but I am improving and I find it actually quite therapeutic!

I just KNEW I'd find a use for that plastic insert from a box
of biscuits - NEVER throw anything away!!!

Strictly speaking, paper bead making doesn't require expensive materials or tools and that's always a plus for me, especially when it also uses up junk mail that would otherwise have to go in my recycling bag. But as you can see from the assorted shapes of the bigger 'beads' above, I'm not very happy with the evenness of my rolling so I've sent away for a paper bead roller which I'm hoping will improve my technique sufficiently to make something really wearable. What I shall do with them if I succeed, I have no idea. I already have more necklaces than I know what to do with. 

Maybe it'll be making for making's sake?

I made the mistake of searching for Craft Ideas on Pinterest - now there's an occupation to while away those long winter evenings! I'm just dying to get back to some papier mache and some salt dough craft. I'm also attracted to the idea of Shrink Plastic, mosaic and decoupage on bottles - though I'll have to make some Coq au Vin and a Boeuf Bourgignon to liberate some wine bottles first!

I've made hand-sewn patchwork quilts in the past. Here's a nice bright cot-quilt I made a while back - the design is an Islamic one:

But now I'd like to try my hand at applique . . . 

So many ideas, so little time!

Watch this space . . .

*My winning pattern in the Zazzle competition 

Rangoli Flowers, Polka Dots on Turquoiose Fabric by poshandpainterly
   

Work in Progress: Best Laid Plans . . .

Tissue paper painted with acrylic - click HERE for tips about making collage

They say that 'Life is what happens when you'd planned something else' and that's certainly been the case for me lately!

Early last month I decided to take a break from my usual routine of uploading my designs to Zazzle and other PODstores to give myself time to catch up with the ever-growing number of designs and patterns in my 'pending' folder. I also wanted to take a step back to ponder the possibilities of a change of direction after Christmas.

So I quickly finished up my new October Birth Month Flower gifts and greeting cards and took myself up to my attic studio to paint and make collages, right away from my laptop where all the tedious uploading, titling, describing and tagging takes place.

Over the first weekend I painted some tissue for the collages and finished the mice for the cheeseboards that Zazzle had recently introduced - I'd been doodling them in the evenings but never seemed to have enough time to paint them.

Cute Dancing Mice on Cheese: Round Cheeseboard by helikettle
 

And then, on the Monday, I made a start on quite an ambitious collage, inspired by the Folk Art Embroidery of Eastern Europe:

As you can see, although I was having fun cutting and sticking little flowers, I only made half of the heart shape because I wanted to be sure that the pattern was symmetrical.

Here's one of the finished 'Folk Heart' cushions -

Folk Art Style Floral Heart on Moody Blue Pillow by poshandpainterly

And I've even got around to making one of my faux patchwork patterns - as I worked with this one, the colours seemed to suggest the Art Deco home furnishing colours of the 1920s and '30s.

Folk Art Style Faux Patchwork Round Pouf by poshandpainterly
 

I'm still adding to my Folk Heart Collection but you can see more than four hundred greeting cards and gifts that I've created from that one collage 

HERE.

By now I was on a roll and on the Wednesday I moved on to making a collage from a hand-drawn Rangoli motif that had been sitting in my 'pending' folder for quite a while - 

The making of Rangoli patterns is part of the Diwali celebrations and you can read about them HERE.

When I drew the Rangoli design, months ago, I had based some of my motifs on traditional elements of Indian Design from my huge 'Grammar of Ornament'. 

And again, I worked out that I didn't need to make the whole pattern in hand-painted paper collage. 

Making just a segment of the pattern saved a lot of time but it also involved a lot of very accurate work in Photoshop afterwards to make sure the segments fitted together properly. Not being a perfectionist, I find this sort of thing very hard work - and tedious! But looking forward to seeing the finished pattern kept me going - and here it is!

And I think I like it even better with a black background!

But I'm afraid that's when my 'creativity break' ground  - or screeched! - to a sudden halt!

I came downstairs from putting the eight segments of the Rangoli together to boil the kettle for coffee and found an email from my neighbours telling me that they had a leak in their bedroom ceiling, close to the party wall that joins our pair of Edwardian houses. 

They asked me if I had a leak too and when I went to look in my guest bedroom (that I only use about once a week to do the ironing) to my horror, this is what confronted me:

It's not actually a leak in the ceiling, 'just' water seeped through from next door I imagine, from just below the picture rail. And I found out later that it had been 'seeping' ever since early on the Monday morning, while I was happily making my Folk Heart collage, in total ignorance of what was happening!

As if the damage to one of my favourite wallpapers, now unavailable, wasn't bad enough, a silly dispute has arisen about which builder to use. Apparently the leak was caused by the lead in the 'valley' between our two roofs being faulty and replacing that is a joint responsibility. Thanks to the internet there's now not much I don't know about repairing a 'valley' and what it should cost! 

But all this has taken up so much of my time and energy, that I abandoned my attempt to make a collage Christmas Angel because I just couldn't concentrate. 

I was becoming completely indecisive about it - which is unusual for me. So I've put her back into the 'pending' folder and gone back to the rather less demanding uploading - hence the hundreds of new 'Folk Heart' products in my Zazzle store! 

And I haven't even begun the November Birth Month flower, the Chrysanthemum.

But the repairs to the roof are due to begin on Tuesday so I hope the end is in sight. And meanwhile, I shall enjoy working with the Rangoli pattern to create lots of greeting cards and gifts. Too late for this year's Diwali but in plenty of time for next year!

(I keep looking at my wallpaper and hoping it's not my imagination that's making it appear slightly better. But I don't think I will ever get rid of the stains and all I can think of is to mix the two shades of green gouache and paint over all the tiny leaves in the pattern. Shouldn't be too difficult for a painter, should it? Watch this space!)

Close-up of an undamaged part of the wallpaper in my spare bedroom. 

Easter Parade -

There’s a saying, ‘Jack of All Trades and Master of None’. 

And when I look at the Easter Cards I’ve designed for my online stores, I wonder whether maybe that could apply to me! 

I’ve used no fewer than nine different mediums – though when trying to define my ‘signature style’, people told me that no matter what medium I used, they would always recognize my work - though nobody told me what it was that they recognized and maybe I'd rather not know!

I wonder whether that’s true of this hotchpotch of Easter Greeting Cards that I’ve made into a kind of ‘Easter Parade’ – or whether it really matters?

(of course there's also some digital input in the borders and lettering on all of these Easter Greeting Cards)

Watercolour

Easter Daffodils Card, From Our Home to Yours by helikettle

Gouache

Spring Flowers Easter Card for a Grandmother by helikettle

Watercolour Pencils

Easter Card with Pink Hyacinths by helikettle
 

Pen and Wash

(Ink and Watercolour)

Easter Bunnies Card for a Grandson by helikettle
 

Soft Pastels

Easter Greeting Card, Riverbank in Spring by helikettle
 

Oil Pastels

Scarlet Tulips Customizable Greeting Card by helikettle
 

Hand-painted Paper Collage

'Spring Garden' Easter Card - French Greeting by helikettle

A mixture of Hand-painted and Digital

Daffodils and Polka Dots, Easter Card by poshandpainterly

and finally - a Photograph

Easter Card with Daffodils and Church by helikettle

The trouble is, I get bored sticking to one medium and when there are so many to choose from, it seems such a waste not to try them all!

I don't think very many Easter Cards are sent in the UK - at least, I don't know anyone who sends them. But if you are looking for Easter cards to send, there's a good chance you'll find something you like in my Easter Parade of different styles!

Click

HERE

for more

EASTER CARDS

and

Easter Bunny Mugs

What is it about Poppies?

It’s hardly surprising that poppies are such popular flowers, especially among artists. They come in such a wide selection of varieties and somehow they seem to combine brilliant, bold colours with an air of fragility, both in their paper-thin petals and their delicate-looking stems!

A far cry from the rather dull, red paper poppies that we buy to wear on November 11,  Poppy Day or Remembrance Sunday, here in the UK and in some of the Commonwealth countries.


I don’t know whether it’s seeing that politicians and TV presenters seem to wear their poppies earlier and earlier each year, but last weekend, I had a sudden yen to make a poppy collage! 

This was unfortunate as it was the last weekend before the start of Module 2 of the ‘Art and Business of Surface Pattern’ course and I had so much to do, not least finishing the illustration for the book of Welsh Nursery Rhymes I’ve been invited to contribute to. Time is running out!

But on Saturday, when I was scanning the illustration at high resolution, I could see that it was going to take a long time. So I seized the opportunity and started to cut out poppy petals, based loosely on a doodle I’d done one evening while watching TV, trying out my new blendable coloured pencils!

On Sunday I made some changes to the illustration so I needed to scan it again and I used the time to make a different kind of ‘stripe’, consisting of diamond shapes in the bright pink, orange and green that I used for the poppies.

Sadly, the pink and the orange have both come out looking fairly uniformly red on my computer and I couldn’t find a way around that. Even so, I’m quite pleased with my collection of 'Poppies' patterns – and, as a bonus, they reminds of me of the ‘Poppyland’ area of my beloved Norfolk!

You can read my earlier blog post about 'Poppyland', illustrated by my soft pastel painting of it, HERE
 

Poppies seem to be very popular as greeting cards and I’ll probably make another ‘poppy’ card from my collage, alongside my watercolour, oil pastel, watersoluble crayons and photographic versions of Poppy greeting cards – when I find time! 

In the meantime, you can find more information about the varieties of poppies and see 'Poppy' gifts and cards that I've already created, on my other blog -

Mugs, Mousepads & More

Collage Flowers . . . with a Hint of Hippy!

my kitchen in the '70s

I’ll begin by getting a confession out of the way!

I was born in the ‘40s so I was an undergraduate in the Sixties and I can remember exactly where I was when I first heard about the emergence of a new ‘group’ with outlandish haircuts and an exciting new sound -  the Beatles.

I loved the Sixties but – and here’s something else I don’t usually admit to – I absolutely adored the Seventies! The fashions that we now make fun of, the music – much of which has stood the test of time, Women’s Lib and above all the colour – it was all so vibrant and liberating after the drabness of the Forties and the rather staid, 'comfortable' Fifties!

Needless to say, I think everything has gone downhill ever since.

But on the other hand, I keep coming across revivals of the ‘hippy’ style and think to myself, how could we have lived surrounded by all that frantic pattern, coloured as if by some maniac, hell-bent on using every single hue in their paintbox! And yet we did and it was wonderful – at the time.

My own modern ‘flower-power’ designs are a little more restrained while, I hope, still capturing something of the essence of that era.

Here’s a collage birthday card I named ‘Birthday Fizz’ because it seemed to have an effervescent quality about it.

I’ve recently found out how to take a section of a design and ‘tile’ it in paint.net – the wonders of the internet! So this is a really multi-purpose design that is well and truly earning its keep!

Floral Purple Aqua Pink Orange MacBook Pro Sleeve by helikettle
 

It’s fun to be able to experiment with different background colours and although I don’t like some of them, one thing I’ve learned is that ‘there’s no accounting for taste’!

Flower Power Purple, Aqua Pink Orange Necktie by helikettle

Flower Power Black Pink Orange Messenger Bag by helikettle

I’ll be using this design to create about one hundred products during the course of this week. Hopefully, if the new Zazzle ‘grouping’ is working properly, you can explore them as I add more by clicking HERE

I made this one a few days ago and it took a long time to cut out and stick on all those petals.

But when I’d finished, I wasn’t sure that I needed all those little flowers and luckily, thanks to being able to edit on the computer, I was able to create various versions without losing the original.

I think I know which one I will actually use – what do you think?

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Early Flowers and Late Flowers - Snowdrops and Nasturtiums

Nasturtiums are one of my favourite flowers.

They go on flowering well into the Autumn and as the afternoons grow shorter towards winter, I've often been cheered by their bright glow in the dusk as I look out from my work. So after the trials and tribulations of piecing together my repeating pattern last week, I was all the more determined to bring that experience to an outcome that I'd be pleased with.

And this is it: the tracing from last week's post with colour added!

And here is the Messenger Bag that this was originally designed for:

Scarlet and Yellow Nasturtiums Courier Bag by helikettle

You'll see why I needed a large area of repeating pattern, if you go to my:

 Mugs, Mousepads & More - cases etc

blog

- where you can see the whole of the back of the Messenger Bag, as well as a range of sleeves and planners that complement it.

Of course, as I love creating pretty tea pots, pitchers, mugs etc, the design also found its way onto some of them as well - not forgetting a few greeting cards -

Mugs, Mousepads & More -  teapots etc

Pleased as I was, in the end, with my 'Summer Garden' design, I hoped to move on to something less challenging for my daughter's birthday card.

Her birthday is in February, the month that I always associate with snowdrops. Lord Alfred Tennyson called them 'Fair Maids of February' and, delving into my huge old file of screenprinting designs that I've hoarded since the 1980's, I came across this scruffy little tracing -

This was great news as, although I have crocuses flowering in my garden, there's no sign of the snowdrops from previous years and I read somewhere that they don't like heavy clay soil - which is precisely what ours is!

So, on Friday afternoon, I scanned the tracing, enlarged it, printed it out and traced it again, ready for the lightbox. I was undecided about the best way to go about painting the blue background, which I could see would be interminably fiddly with all those stalks and petals to paint round - especially as I'm not a person who enjoys working meticulously, especially in paint!

One option would be to make a collage, but again, those stems would mean a lot of tricky cutting! Another way would be to use masking fluid, but I only use that when nothing else will do because it ruins brushes and is sometime difficult to get accurate enough. Then I happened upon a solution in Alison Kolesar's blog:  Jumping in Puddles, where she suggests painting the whole background wash in transparent watercolours and then using gouache to paint the light colours - in my case the flowers.

So that's what I did and I was very happy with my beautiful, sunshiny sky-blue background - until I scanned it and 'Technology' let me down again! As I found with some of my seaside collages, my scanner seems to be unhappy with light blues and greens in close proximity and makes as real mess of them. 

No amount of adjusting helped to put this right:

So I'll leave you to wonder if and how I'll manage to retrieve this dismal attempt at a birthday card for my daughter . . . watch this space!

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