of Anniversaries and Amazing Castles

Wow! It’s been an amazing week! It was our 6th Anniversary on Sunday and my 45th Birthday on Tuesday. Hubble requested that I was ‘his’ for the weekend….! We set off on Saturday- destination unknown to me (I tried to get hints from him all week – but to no avail!) What an amazing and gorgeous surprise! We stayed in a castle (we’re talking rural New South Wales, Australia! Not Scotland! Not the UK or Europe.) This castle turns 100 years old this year and up until 7 years ago was owned by the one family… here is a link to a website with a little more info and some more photos; and another here.

We had perfect weather and even a misty morning........

I can highly recommend it for a weekend getaway! We were so lucky and had it COMPLETELY to ourselves for the weekend. We thoroughly enjoyed exploring all the nooks and crannies and the parapet and numerous balconies…. and we revelled in being King and Queen for the weekend!

A rotunda in a garden centre we stopped at on the way home.... would have been right at home in the castle grounds!

I caught up with my eldest daughter Kat for our birthdays this week.... about 8 hours driving to meet up for lunch. She's at Uni in Sydney and was up in Newcastle for a few days; so I took the opportunity to go and see her while she was a bit closer. Cee-Cee came too and was an angel all day! I'm so pleased she travels well.

I had a call from my work on my way home to say I'd sold a painting....! Wow, I'm so thankful. (that'll pay to get a few more framed!)

So, I've had a wonderful week.... back to work now.... Jon's boys are coming up for the long weekend and I hope to get some painting and gardening done! Maybe some art will created too..! Have a great creative week!

Oil Pastel Landscape

My first few hours in the studio for quite some time this quiet Sunday afternoon! I'm missing just coming in here whenever I like... my day job is taking up more and more of my time. I'm still enjoying it very much but will have even less time as I pick up an extra day/week as of this week..... The kids are away (going to Europe for 5 weeks with their Dad- lucky things!) So, it's just me and hubby and my beautiful wee Cee Cee (and the rest of the menagerie of course)...

I had a play around with my scrap/sketchbook and drew this small oil pastel landscape based on a trimming from the bottom edge of a magazine clipping I glued in. It wasn't a landscape but certainly had the feel of one....

I haven't posted any art or textile work on here for quite some time and feel a little guilty! Hopefully I'll be able to spend some more time in here on Tuesday!

Meet Cee Cee

Here is my new baby! Cee Cee.

She’s a 6-9 month old Maltese-Shitzu cross who we adopted from the RSPCA…. Jonny found her at the pound and thankfully no one claimed her! So, after a week we were able to bring her home. Mocha and Jazz - my crazy Burmese cats have their noses severely out of joint! I have them locked in the other half of the house and will gradually introduce them. BJ the Border Collie has welcomed her but he does make an awfully big play mate!

She is absolutely adorable! She's house trained and is just the gentlest wee girl! I love her so much already. I've wanted a little lap dog for so long and Cee Cee certainly fits the bill perfectly. Thank you to my darling hubby for finding her for me!! xxxxxxxxxxxoooooooooooo

Face Drawing Tutorial

I've signed up for a face drawing tutorial over at A Drawing Project with Judy McCarthy. Wow, I only spent a few minutes watching a short video and am amazed at the improvement already!

Judy's other blog can be found here!

The first two are quite quick sketches in a fairly cartoony sort of style. I drew the bottom one whilst watching the video and taking notes. The linework/ small amount of shading etc is the same; Really the only diference is simply the proportions! If you're interested in drawing better faces you might like to pop on over to Judy's drawing blog.

I hope my scanned sketchbook page shows up clearly enough here.

Books, books, book...!

For those of you interested in Books; my daughter sent me a link to a wonderful book sales site (UK) called the Book Depositry and the books seem very reasonably priced - the bonus being they don't charge postage! Worldwide!

For example that wonderful Boro book that we would all love to own is only $57.11 AU and no postage. It is $70.20 US on Amazon plus postage (and they have only 1 copy!) They seem to have a great selection of textile titles too.....

I'm heading back over there now......! ; )