pen

Still no writing to share (bloomin’ Masters course) instead, to keep you amused, I thought I’d share another of my painting exploits with you. As you may already know I have a love/hate relationship with my arty efforts. Lets just say it doesn’t come all that naturally to me. But hey ho, keep on trying eh?

A couple of weeks ago we had a splendid workshop session at our art group (Click here to find out more about the group) which introduced me to the wonders of ‘Brusho’. Of course, I’ve seen it advertised, but never really understood what the product was. Well, it turns out it is powdered pigment which you can sprinkle on to wet paper to produce some fireworky effects. Sprinkling it onto dry paper then spraying with water also produces some lovely rainbow colours. This is because colours such as leaf green, or grey, are made up of different pigments which are separate in the pots but merge on the paper. It was great fun and I was pleased with the result too (for a change!) What do you think of ‘Lunch in the Jungle’? The background is brusho and the birds and details pen and coloured pencil. Oh, and for any pedants out there… these are my Kingfishers and they do live in the jungle, ok!! 😉

IMG_1232 (Edited)

Well, hello! You may (or more likely, may not) have noticed that things have been a bit quiet around this blog for a while, since November in fact. My apologies. Life seems to have got in the way quite a bit lately.

‘Why, what have you been up to?’ you may ask.

Really there is a variety of reasons, however probably the main factor is that I have rather rashly, begun a Masters degree in Creative Writing with the Open University. Not only does this, unexpectedly, take up a disproportionate amount of my time, but also, I’m not allowed to use for the course anything I write once it’s been published, even if that ‘publishing’ is only on this wee little blog.

Now, my writing being a bit hit and miss, I can’t afford to use any of my poems or short stories just in case they turn out to be the best I can manage and I want to submit them for assessment at some point. This leaves potential content for this site a somewhat dry area.

Nonetheless, I’m quite enjoying the course and learning a lot, even though I’m finding it pretty challenging. The content is all on-line and you are expected to contribute to the forums regularly, thus meeting some like-minded, like-baffled peers, which has been fun.

Whilst the course is keeping me busy, I’m still trotting off to the art group every Friday. I’m not sure there is a lot of improvement in my artworks, but painting alongside such jolly and talented friends is always relaxing. This week we were all doing our own thing, and producing this little flight of fancy in watercolour and pen work kept me quiet all morning! :

IMG_1070 (Edited)