My massive Christmas cake!!

Soooo.... It's that wonderful time of year again and the smell of Christmas is in the air... well it is in my house anyway coz I've just put my massive Christmas cake in the oven :0) as we don't have smellevision (yet) I shall describe to you what you would smell if you were sitting here with me now cup of coffee in hand and feet up on the sofa in my living room: so, you all know what mixed spice and nutmeg smell like yes? Well add to that some deliciously plump fruit and candied peel with plenty of soft brown sugar and almonds and lashings of White Rum and Whisky all warmed and mixed together and there you have it... a sweet smelling reminder that the fat guy in the red suit will soon be sweeping across the globe, reins in hand with mountains of toys and treats in tow. Ahhh what a joyous thought. We all still BELIEVE right?? Of course we do.

So here is my Christmas cake in the making:

Two of the main ingredients...No, not the mixed fruit and cherries... the Rum and the Whisky...hic!!

Now here I wondered how the heck am I going to get all that fruit into that bowl and mix it??...

.... it just about fits ;o) where there is a will there is a way!

This is a 10" tin that I double layered with baking parchment.

and probably the trickiest part of all was to wrap the whole tin with a protective layer of brown paper, trying to tie the string in a knot and keep the paper wrapped tightly WITHOUT dropping the whole thing was difficult, thank goodness I didn't drop it, I'd have cried all week!!!

So, this baby is in the oven for at least 5 hours. Over the next week or two I'll be adding the marzipan and royal icing. I'll be back with more pics soon as it's done :o)

Thanks for reading guys, I hope you're all well xx jo xx

I LOVE Owls xxx

So, for ages and ages I've loved including owls in some of my paintings and right now I just can't stop!!

Here are a couple of paintings that I've been working on the past few days. The painting with the girl and the red hair is finished but the other one is not yet complete, I might paint the little owls wings red, what do you think? I don't usually think my colours through I just usually dab into the colour that I fancy at the time. The colour wheel has never played a part in any of my paintings, and doubt it ever will, I'd rather just go with the flow and if it turns out pretty then great :0) do you guys use colour wheels? Are they usually used more for room decors etc? Being a self taught artist I wouldn't really know (blush). When it comes to art, anything goes I guess.

I hope you like the paintings, I'm off up to the bomb site.. Oh I mean 'studio' to finish that painting.

Happy Thursday x x x

Happy Halloweeeeeeeen!!!

A little early I realise but most of the celebrations near us are being held this evening with it being the weekend and all.
I hope you're all enjoying the scary sights that you may see on your travels, more so in the U.S. than here in the UK I guess as the majority of British people don't seem to participate in decorating their houses or go 'trick or treating'. But me, my hubby and our gorgeous girl have been very busy today carving some amazing jack o lanterns. We've not lit them yet but we shall do tonight after we get back from the amazing lantern parade in our local park :0)

Whilst searching the Internet for pumpkin face ideas I came across a picture of painted jack o lanterns and I couldn't resist in having a go myself. He is only partially carved and he is still whole so I can't light him up but I'm very proud of him and I especially enjoyed painting his teeth, cheeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeese!!! :o)

Now this little fella (or I should say lady as she has big eyelashes and 'rosy' cheeks) was created by my beautiful daughter Izzy, she's just turned 7 and this is her very first attempt at pumpkin carving and I think she has done a marvelous job... I especially love the eyelashes ;O)

A cheeky side view....."what cha lookin at eh"???? grrrrrrr

Now.... this one was made by my husband Col who insists that he has no interest in the likes of arts and craft (yeah right) you can tell by looking at this that he has put his heart and soul into it,... he even researched Jack the Pumpkin Kings face online so he could give it his best shot...(no interest in arts and crafts... who's he kidding??) Good effort I say :o)

The two of us, what a handsome couple we make aaaahhhhhhh.

I hope you like our Jacks and you have a wonderful and 'creepy' evening.

I hope to add some photos from the Lantern Parade from this evening, check back soon :o)

Glow draw for fun

So I'm laying in bed at 6am with a banging headache, can't get back to sleep so what do I do?? "Get up and go downstairs for some paracetamol" I hear you say... No, not me, I doodle on my phone instead.. No doubt making this headache of mine even worse but when the bug bites :0)

It's tricky to draw intricate details with chubby fingers and your flowers end up looking like spaghetti and meatballs but it's fun all the same. Here are my best efforts from this morning.. All in the name of fun.

My fave is 'towit towooo' of course :0)

Back soon xxx

Coffee and work in progress.

I'm such a morning person and I guess I have to be coz more often than not I'm up with the larks or actually way before them, mostly because I'm such a light sleeper and if something wakes me in the early hours then there's no way I'm getting back to sleep unless I'm ultra lucky. When this happens I tend to make my way into the Art Room carefully dodging the creaky floor boards desperately trying not to wake my husband and little girl... But not before I've creeped downstairs and made myself a strong, sweet and creamy coffee, then I'm back up to the art room and ready to paint.

I've recently created this watercolour for a sweet friend of mine Sue. Sue and I are old college buddies and she's one of my biggest fans when it comes to my art works, which is wonderful as she's always full of compliments for me which of course makes me feel GREAT!!

Most of the times that Sue and I meet up we have coffee in either her house or mine and usually there's a cake or chocolate pile near by in which we will always over indulge... It would be rude not to, eh?

So, as I have a tendancy to paint girls with 'things' on their heads I figured that as this painting was for Sue a coffee cup would be an appropriate 'thing' for this girls head. And so there we have it, my painting for Sue and I'm pleased to say she loves it and as soon as I gave it to her she put it in a beautiful wooden frame and it looks great :0)

Hope you like to see the progress pictures as I love to see them on other blogs.

Back soon xxx

Freezing cold and more paintings

It's freezing here in the UK today and as I type on my phone with my chilly fingers I'm watching the weather report on tv and it looks like we're in for a cold
night tonight and 'long johns' have been advised... Brrrrrrrr.

So, I have painted some more and slowly I'm building up enough paintings for me to relaunch my Etsy shop. Maybe a few more weeks and I'll have enough...well maybe :0)

This lot of 3 paintings are probably my favourite ones of late, especially the girl with the owl and the girl with the eyes in her hair. I work in mixed media quite often and sometimes I stick to mainly watercolour (the girl with the owl) or mainly acrylics (the girl with the eyes).

I work on many surfaces but mainly heavy weight watercolour paper or canvas boards, I love to paint on either but the boards take some prepping and therefore I have to wait before I can begin the actual painting. I have a few boards prepped and sketched and I'm eager to begin painting but for now... I'm off to bed, it's been a very long day zzzZzzzzzzzzzzzzz ttfn x

New paintings and phone blogging.

As I said in my last post I've been wanting to paint & blog more often, at least weekly I think I said. Thankfully I've found some time to paint but alas no time to find my camera, take pics and download them and then blog ( ah deep breath) so I thought as I always have my phone with me wherever I am I should try to blog using that as and when I paint etc.

So this is my first blog entry using my phone and I'd like to show you a few of my latest paintings.

I always try to paint with muted and dull tones but I always seem to paint brightly coloured paintings and although I like them I didn't intend for them to be so bold, neat and colourful. I like messy art but usually struggle to make my brush bounce around the canvas and instead I paint the canvas as if I'm painting in a colouring book and have to stay in the lines. I have managed to paint in the early hours of this morning and I must say that it's rather messy painting (for me anyway) and dare I say it has a dark tone to it? Well it has and I love it. I shall take pics later and include them in my next blog.

These paintings will find themselves in my Etsy shop as soon as I have a bunch more to go with them. Thanks for visiting my blog xxxx