Hearts and Flowers - beaded floral necklace

Hearts and Flowers, beaded necklace with lucite flowers, Vivien Blackburn

This and others are in my Etsy store now

Committments have cut into my painting time lately - but these necklaces I can work on under artificial light in the evening and I'm enjoying playing with colour combinations and beads.

Help???
I'd appreciate some advice from you who wear necklaces - what length do you like to wear?  16inch?   18inch?  20 inch?? (that's excluding the pendant flowers).  In the past the ones I've made have been just for me and I'd like to know what lenght you would consider the best generally?

Off to do some painting now ............

Painting skies and skies in artists paintings

 oil

The Guardian have done an article on skies in art with some great paintings mentioned - here.

So I thought I'd trawl through some of my sketches of skies ................

Dawn at Sennen Cove, coloured pencil in moleskine sketchbook

charcoal

watercolour

coloured pencil

oil

charcoal and coloured pencil

oil

photo, early morning

water soluble brush pen

oil

oil

charcoal

coloured pencil

watercolour

We do have such lovely changeable skies and they are fascinating to try to catch - in whatever medium :>)  Done sitting on cliff tops, in the countryside, on the back of the car as it opens flat  ..... very comfortable when sketching alone if I can park with a good view.  Getting out there and looking is essential to understand the layers, the colours, the way light shines through from behind ............

And - if anyone is interested in the jewellery I've been designing and making, I'm beginning to put it on Etsy in my shop

These are some yet to be listed

Variations on a theme: flower bead necklaces, next installment of the Key Elements in Drawing and Painting very soon

Gold and Black:  Flower necklace, Vivien Blackburn

photo taken from above showing the scale of the flowers more accurately

Tommorow I'll have time to paint after a spell with very little time. :>)

I'll also write another installment in the Key Elements in improving your painting and drawing series over the weekend.  Previous posts One, Two and Three  - click on these to recap or read for the first time.

In the meantime I've been learning more bead techniques, brick stitch, ladder stitch and a complex bracelet with picot edging  (some needing much practice if I'm ever going to be any good at them! - they require neatness   8>0 ).   I. Don't (Can 't). Do. Neat.  :>(     The little (scruffy) samples I produced yesterday won't be seen here!  I'll show you when I'm better.

Daisy chain necklace, Vivien Blackburn

But the techniques learned will feed into my more free form, make-it-up-as-you-go-along, natural way of working :>)     The methods learned in doing the necklace above meant I could work out how to add the flowers and flower clusters as I went, creating stamens etc

When I have a few more I'll re-open my Etsy store and put these and some small paintings on.  Watch this space :>)

Spring; green, white and brown.  A different Spring necklace - early spring this time, Glass beads, wooden beads, Lucite and glass leaves and flowers.  Vivien Blackburn

I'm really enjoying doing these - playing with the gorgeous colours available.

A Spring themed necklace and a sketch of trees done while waiting

I made a spring themed necklace as the weather has a definite, if cool, feel of Spring.  I was really pleased with how it all came together as I'd hoped.  I've not learned a lot yet but I used 2 of the techniques I've learned so far :>)

I'm going to do variations on this them, different colours, different seasons.

I must update the Etsy shop with paintings - and I may - just may - do a page for some of these when I makes some more.   What do you think?  

 From a different angle.

I had a puncture this morning :>(  and whilst waiting for the AA to come and put the spare on for me, I sketched the trees I could see.  Nothing brilliant but better than being bored :>)   They were done with Derwent Graphitint.   The colours were really suitable for the cool morning light.  It's better in real life though, the photo doesn't show up the colours quite well enough.

I'll carry on with the series of issues to consider when drawing and painting later this week - life has been a bit hectic and I've not had the brain power left to write the next installment.   Sorry.

PS If anyone lives near Market Harborough, I'm starting a new, additional class after Easter on either a Tuesday or Wednesday (not sure which yet, the college will let me know) as the 2 classes I currently teach there are bursting at the seams and there are some on a waiting list.   So if you want to come to a friendly multi level class - come and sign on :>) ........... painting and drawing and any medium.

Further experiments with the small abstracts - digital variations

Digital experiment with small abstracts. Vivien Blackburn

I'm working out options for this series.   The original ones were manipulated in photoshop, playing with colour variations and rotating/flipping.

I quite like the idea of doing a series of 9 framed liked this on either black or white.

Which do you prefer for the background - black or white?

I think the white background has a clean freshness but the black has an added glow.