Showing posts with label flowers. Show all posts
Showing posts with label flowers. Show all posts

Monday, May 14, 2012

Little Christ in a Garden

I am alive and painting. I just couldn't show you this painting until just now because it was a commission/surprise graduation gift for My Lovely Friend (click on the link!). Now she has it, so now you can see it:

Little Christ in a Garden

Detail Image
I love this painting. As you can see, I managed to do a ginger-headed, freckled-faced, little Jesus with a mouse and toadstools. I had fun painting this. I was hoping for a fairy tale feel- I don't see why the Christ child wouldn't have loved fairy tales.
      And I think I should let you know that for some reason my carpal tunnel is better lately. I am not sure why, and I don't know how long this good spell will last, but I will take what I can get.
      I just got back from Franciscan University where they sent off the newly graduated class of 2012. If I had stayed at Franciscan longer than 2 years, this would have been my class. I love them so. It was a great blessing to be there with them, through the good and the bad.



"WHAT was wonderful about childhood is that anything in it was a wonder. It was not merely a world full of miracles; it was a miraculous world." ~GKC: 'Autobiography.'

“My imagination is a monastery, and I am its monk” -John Keats

When you are describing,
A shape, or sound, or tint;
Don't state the matter plainly,
But put it in a hint;
And learn to look at all things,
With a sort of mental squint.
~Lewis Carroll


Tuesday, July 26, 2011

Flowers, Ink Pens, and More Movies

Well, I worked on this a bit and a painting over the weekend, and finished it last night. When I started it, I was re-watching Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix, and finished later with Sense and Sensibility. I think I was looking up Alan Rickman (Severus Snape) to see what else I had seen him in, and that reminded me of Sense and Sensibility's existence (he plays Colonel Brandon), and put it into my head that I could use a bit of Jane Austen.

   I used a Bic Atlantis pen for this. I discovered this pen's amazing ability for sketching during my note taking days at Franciscan University. Yes, I DID take real notes- it was nothing for me to take 10 to 15 pages of real notes per class- but I will admit to being distracted here or there at times, especially in the library whilst studying. Ugh, especially then. Whenever I wasn't sketching I was being distracted by the AMAZING selection of books there.... but believe it or not, I did actually get a lot of work done in that unattractive modern building full of wonderful old books. I love you Franciscan, so much, but you don't always have the best taste in architecture..... When I am a famous artist I will come help you out- when I am on vacation in the states away from my home somewhere in the British Isles that is.
      I am in the mood for yet MORE Jane Austen- I think I will listen to Pride and Prejudice while I work today. I hope the narrator's good, I can't stand it when I listen to audiobooks and the narrator is getting on my nerves. It messes with the feeling of things! I prefer real books, with actual paper and smells. Which reminds me, John William Waterhouse, one of my favorite artist of all time, used to draw in his books (novels, for example), and sometimes ended up using those drawings for his paintings. I think that that's a wonderful idea! I should try it sometime. Here is an example:

     I had no intention to discuss Waterhouse at the beginning of this post- but he is a delightful diversion any time.

   How about some Jane Austen quotes?

"The person, be it gentleman or lady, who has not pleasure in a good novel, must be intolerably stupid."


When a young lady is be a heroine, the perverseness of forty surrounding families cannot prevent her. Something must and will happen to throw a hero in her way.” 


    This was a rather, um, gushy post, full of Waterhouse and Austen. Maybe next time I'll post something on Caravaggio or Michelangelo- they were pretty tough! Not that someone like Jane Austen wasn't hard as nails to be sure! But I am due for another dragon soon. It has been a while. 

Friday, March 18, 2011

March 18th, 2011: Flowers are EVERYWHERE.... more or less

So... I was sick all night, the plans for my day were out the window, and I moped around the house sick all day. So I drew some flowers, and an obnoxiously happy little painting.
     The first is a t-shirt design I did to help out the Little Flowers, a household I joined while at Franciscan University. The second is the obnoxious one. Take that depression and icky feelings! Take the flowers and sunshine and yellows and pinks!! (I  don't really care for too much yellows and pinks, just so you know, so them IS fighting words for me)





So that is my happy picture with the pinks and yellows. It did make me feel better. Even if it IS pink.....