Hello friends!
Welcome back…unless this is first time you’ve read one of my posts, then, hey! How ya doing and most importantly welcome!!
Tomorrow is The Glorious Twenty-Fifth of May and I’ve got a new piece of hand lettering art to share with you this week. Truth, justice, freedom, reasonably priced love and a hard boiled egg! Is a quote from Terry Pratchett’s brilliant Discworld novel Night Watch. Sir Terry was a genius and is my favourite author second only to Tolkien.
Hello my friends!
This week I thought I’d share a new bug illustration, featuring one of my favourite beetles!
The Stag beetle!!
Amazingly the Stag beetle is actually a bit of a rare species, the males use their huge mandibles to fight off other males and impress possible mates and it takes between three to seven years for an egg to become a beetle.
Hello my friends!
Over the last week I’ve been captivated by the shield bugs that are in the garden. They’re small, unassuming and really funky to look at.
So I’ve drawn one similar to the bee and ladybird I posted a few weeks ago, its postcard size 300gsm paper and only 13x18cm. Drawn free hand and created using Arteza pencils and a black fine liner.
Hello my friends!
One of my favourite things in life is listening to the bees buzz and watching the ladybirds zip across the garden. So seeing as I haven’t posted a drawing or painting for a while I thought I’d share two little pencil drawings with you, that I’ve been working on while sitting in the sun enjoying being part of nature.
I’ve drawn a very fluffy bumblebee and a seven spot ladybird beetle, two of the most recognisable bugs in the world – both are postcard size 300gsm paper and are only 13x18cm. They are drawn free hand and created using Arteza pencils.
Continue reading “Bug Art #1 The bee and Ladybird”
Hello friends!
This coming Sunday is Mothers Day (in the UK) and one of the things I’ve always done is make something for my mum, I decided a while back that I wanted to paint her something which evolved into a new World Turtle illustration, that I want to share with you.
This is the fifth World Turtle and my growing collection now contains Spring, Autumn, Winter and Valentines illustrations and now I can add a Mothers day one too!!!
So this painting features not one, but three World Turtles – a mummy and two hatchlings! As its a mothers day themed painting I wanted there to be a lot of pink and flowers – so its kinda incorporating all the colours you’d find in a bouquet. Foliage wise the trees and bushes are in bright shades of green.
Continue reading “Mothers Day World Turtle”
Hello friends!
This coming Tuesday is Valentines day and I decided a while back that I wanted to create some love themed art so this week I wanted to share a new illustration with you. My growing collection of World Turtles now contains Spring, Autumn and Winter illustrations and I thought why not create a Valentines day one too!!!
So this painting features two World Turtles – As its a love themed I wanted the colours to reflect the theme of love – using lots of reds and pinks. Foliage wise the trees in vibrant shades of green and help to create a heart in the negative space between the turtles.
Continue reading “Valentines World Turtles”
Hello my friends!!
I said I’d started this painting and here it is!
This weeks post is as the name suggests a Winter World Turtle – and the third World Turtle illustration.
As this one is winter themed I wanted the colours to reflect the time of year – the snow is painted using white ink and acrylic with a very pale ice blue watercolour. There are even some tiny icicles hanging from the turtles’ shell.
I wanted the trees to reflect the time of year so I made a few of them flop to the side – as if they’re weighed down by heavy snow! Its funny we don’t really get ‘proper’ snow where I live, if we’re lucky winter may grace the area with a very light dusting, but that’s it and its always such a disappointment!!
Continue reading “Winter World Turtle”
Hello friends,
Happy December!
As we’ve finally entered the festive month I though I’d share some Christmas Carol themed calligraphy art!
Something I’m trying to do is create a collection of festive themed art – I have a lot of art up around the house and have decided it might be fun to create winter pieces to go in each frame for the holiday season.
Two of my most favourite carols are O come all ye faithful and The Holly and the Ivy, which I’ve turned into A4 sized pieces in traditional festive colours.
I love Christmas music – not necessarily the pop stuff, but the old school carols and folk stuff and having it on in the background while I’m making last minute gifts or decorations is always lovely, ideally I really like to have festive music playing in the background as soon as it hits December 1st.
Anyway that it for this week! I hope you like my festive hand lettering. I’m thinking of maybe trying some tutorials for calligraphy next year. Would anyone be interested in that?
And as always thanks for reading and happy December.
Hello friends!
A couple of weeks have slipped by without me posting – they flashed pass so quickly its unreal (I don’t know how some weeks can disappear in the blink of an eye and yet some days can last a lifetime)
This week I wanted to share a new painting. Back in July I posted the finished watercolour painting of ‘A World Turtle’ and thought, why not do a turtle for each season!
As its autumn I wanted the colours of the foliage to reflect the time of year – November here is a bit nippy but the trees are beautiful as they change colour. I’ve even tried to include little piles of leaves that have been swept together – even if they look like bushes!
Continue reading “Autumn World Turtle”
Hello friends!
This week I thought I’d post about some new needlework pieces that I’ve been creating on. Last year I fell so in love with bumble bees that I embroidered one (in fact I posted a new bumble bee embroidery only a few weeks ago!) and thought that as I’ve been captivated by the ladybird beetles why not sew one and add it to my ever expanding collection of insect needlework (in the end I created two!)
Usually I start all my needlework pieces the same way – by roughly drawing onto the calico and then its all sewn free hand using a single strand of coloured floss at a time onto a hoop and then sewn in teeny tiny little stitches. I’ve tried to sew them to look as round as possible.
I’m really pleased with these little ladybirds each piece is about an inch across so they’re very small, due to their size each one only took about 30 minutes to create from start to finish and its quite nice to have a quick and easy craft on hand for when the nights begin to get longer.
Up close the beetles are tiny – needlework is so soothing and I find its a really good stress/anxiety reliever.
Continue reading “Embroidered ladybird beetles”
ArtyMissK 
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