Silver tone Burlesque Necklaces on Folksy

Hello all! It’s been a while since I’ve posted due to some unavoidable changes in my routine which but as things are now calming down I’m back and posting again. So let me begin by announcing that my Folksy store now sports these 2 lovely variations on my Burlesque necklace designs, this time in a silver tone. Please click on the images to visit my shop.

More paintings, finished works & jewellery coming soon!

Pendants

I’ve now completed my first 2 pendants for the vintage fair next month. They were a bit fiddly but I think I’ve got the hang of it now. They are made with glass Cabochons and nickel free vintage style backs.

Flying Circus WIP 6

Another slow progress day on this WIP. I’m still trying to get a feel for the ship and how she should look so I’ve mostly been playing around with the colour and decoration and I think I’m getting close to something I’m happy with.

Part of the reason this WIP is taking so long is that my attention has been diverted by my sparkly Christmas tree and lots of gift wrapping

 

Flying Circus WIP 5

Pitifully little to share today I’m afraid. A bout of headaches and Christmas shopping (not necessarily in that order) has slowed me down but I have got a little further on the ship tonight. I seem to suddenly have lots of fiddly bits that I don’t know how to paint left, like the sail wings and the propeller which I’ve re-designed about a dozen times before coming back to something almost identical to my original design.

I’ve also started thinking about “tarting” up the ship as I’m sure a circus ship would be multicoloured… or at least it would be if I owned it!

Not far left to go on this now… I hope!

No updates tomorrow as I have a Christmas tree to tackle. Yes, I know it’s early but I just can’t resist those sparkly lights and glittery baubles!!!

Flying Circus WIP 4

I said I wanted to complete this painting this weekend but typically instead I ended up spending most of the weekend on the sofa feeling rubbish and when I did start working again I discovered that I had no idea what the rigging of a airship should look like and spend most of my time drawing and re-drawing different option.

In my original design I was going to have straps across the top of the balloon but when I painted them in they looked wrong so I decided that instead there would be a sail over the top of what I now lovingly call the gherkin. I also decided that it needed metal buckles to connect some of the straps as they looked a little messy. I also added clasps for the lines attached to the ship, which if you look carefully are in the shape of lion paws.

The boat itself is now nicely blocked in and just waiting to be decorated in nice gaudy circus banners before the crew is added.

Flying Circus WIP 3

Just a small WIP today. I’ve now got the background all but finished. I want to do a bit more with the city, add some haze in the background and maybe define some of the trees a little more but apart from that I’m more or less done and ready to start refining my airship!

Flying Circus WIP 2

Today I’ve spent most of my time working on the foreground mountains which have worked out far better than I expected.

Before I started I decided that it was time that I had my own brush set so I spent about an hour creating several different texture brushes for different uses. My favourite of these was created using one of my own photos of a weeping willow. All my work today was done using this brush.

Anyway, I worked the mountains in only 3 colours (White, Mid Grey, Dark Grey) with various blending settings. I’m a big fan of using only 2 or 3 colours and the picking and blending what I have and it’s worked a treat here.

Once the mountains were finished I wanted to get a better sense of the finished colours I would be going for so I removed the old background and scribbled in a far richer one. The middle distance will now be a forest of pine trees. I haven’t decided what to do with the city yet so I’ve left it black and white. At the moment I’m edging towards making it at least partly gold so maybe I’ll test that out next time. Finally I’ve put more mountains in the distance.

I’m really happy with where this is going so far and I’m looking forward to finishing the background and starting to work on the circus ship.

Flying Circus WIP 1

It’s a miracle. I’m not sure why but Blogger has decided to allow me to upload photos again so I’ve started a new WIP.

This project is a little different to my usual portraiture. I’ve been toying with the idea of doing a circus painting and I wanted to have a play with creating a landscape. Somehow the two ideas collided, mixed with a particularly odd dream and refined themselves while I worked on a very boring spreadsheet. The result is a literal flying circus in convoy on its way to an Emerald City like location (It isn’t supposed to be the Emerald City but that’s what it reminds me of)

This is the very early stages of this painting where the only thing that I am working on is getting my idea down on paper and trying out colour. I need to tweak some of the perspective but otherwise I’m happy with where I’m going.