I have been waiting very patiently for the batteries in my camera to charge up so I could take progress shots as I go.

This week has been full on with stretching & priming canvas, clay play then making a cast of that, painting, soft stone work & then life in General on top of that. First of all I received my second piece from the guild swap..

Cheryl Irwin makes these absolutely stunning art works they are painted composite stone & are very textured, as you can see by the shadow on the wall. I have hung this piece in the dinning room so it is one of the first things we see when we get home, quite fitting with the title. :-)

Click here or on the photo to check out Cheryl's Art Site.

Welcome Home By Cheryl Irwin
 



I must show you the Oamaru stone I have started working on, I had two little off cuts in the cupboard, horrible triangular pieces.... I thought I might get a butterfly on a rock out of one of them, after two hours of hacking at the stone I now have a thicker shaped piece, I have left it looking quite thick at this stage because when I go to do the fine sanding & more detailed work on it it will shrink quickly to where it should be any way. So here is stage 1 of my butterfly on a rock, still a load of work to do to it, but it should form quite quickly now, Oamaru Stone is very soft, & can be shaped with anything that has even the slightest rough surface on it, like sand paper or a blade, an old rasp, and files.

Sneak Peek at stage 1 of stone work.




What else.... Clay play.....
We have an absolutely horrible backdoor, at the moment it gets no light, it is muddy, & most unattractive, worst thing is, is this is where I have to go to get to my washing line... so for me, it is an important area of the property to sort,
This meant coming up with a non slip paver not to big but big enough to fit a foot these will get placed randomly in amongst river pebble. I also wanted the paver to be perfect as an in door item as well, so I have made it suitable for benches to put hot pots on also.

First of all I made the clay leaf, once the clay was dry enough to handle but not set, the next day basically, I lined a box with Black plastic and carefully placed the leaf in the centre, Mixed my bucket of plaster of Paris and poured.



I will eventually fire the clay leaf in the kiln & use it as a hot pot holder & the plaster cast will be re-used time & time again to make the concrete stepping stones for the back door area.

I have a heap of brush holders that have already had there first fire, waiting for me to paint & re-fire, will have to get them out this coming week & start painting them.

I have been painting this week too... I have done some abstract but the oil is still to shiny to photograph, I am doing some grisaille work as well, (For those that don't know) it is basically Tonal painting with Acrylic green is the most popular but as I am not a big fan of acrylics I haven't the dark green necessary so greys are the next best thing, then painting over this with oil glazes. I have started this one a black & white I did start to add colour but stopped for the pic... :-)
so this is Stage 1 "the under painting".



School Holidays are here again too... I have started setting up a corner for the kids... I will show you what they will be doing over the next few days with recipes for affordable kids craft... All Home made. :-)

Check back soon.