Blah blah blah

I seem to be finding it increasingly difficult to think of titles for my posts lately, hence the blah blah blah one this time lol.

After a few days where my hands have been so painful I've barely been able to type or turn the cooker knob, the arthritis seems to be easing off a bit again, thank goodness. So I've started to do a painting for a friend of mine, while the goings good so to speak. I've just done the basic background layer so far, and as soon as that's dry I'll start with the more detailed work. It's a shame my friend wanted a replica of a painting I've already done, a new challenge would have been good, but the choice is his. I've also been spray painting the board for my latest glass panel. I tried painting it by hand as I had some paint the right colour, but the finish wasn't smooth enough for my liking. This isn't a mosaic this time, hard to explain what it is really lol. But eventually a photo will be taken I expect and shown to you all as usual.

Along with the arthritis, the extra beats in my heart I've written about before, seem to have returned this past week or so. The last couple of days they've been particularly bad, and although it's not something that's painful, it can feel pretty unpleasant and makes me feel like I might have a heart attack (although the doc has said that won't happen). So one way or another I haven't felt 100% ...but life goes on and I'll carry on plodding on as I always do. I'm sure a bit of sunshine would make me feel tons better !!! But it seems like there's a rain cloud permanently over Anglesey at the moment. The other day the rain was torrential all day and I even contemplated starting to build an ark, but the arthtirtis in my hand put pay to that idea lol.

For now ...

For now I've shelved the idea of doing the african themed panels. I'm not 100% sure why, they just don't seem to appeal to me at the moment. Instead I've doing a sort of abstract 2D long thin panel. It's coming along nicely just a case of waiting for glue to dry all the time as usual *sigh*

I went to see a friend of mine the day and he asked me to do an oil painting for him. So that'll make a nice change from doing mosaics. I shan't be able to start it for a week or so though as we're off on our travels again next week. A wedding this time, with what is looking like a brilliant party to follow !!

Wow what a week

Last week saw us having 12 visitors, more than we usually have in a year lol. But it was good fun and it was really good to catch up with some people I hadn't seen for quite a while. It did put pay to any work getting done around the house, but what the hell, sometimes you just have to hang up the paint brushes and enjoy the company.

One visitor had a camper van, which needed some restoration to put it mildly. It used to have a kitchen but that went flying one day while going round a corner quite quickly lol. So everything was taken out of the van and scattered all over the car park behind out house. There was a pile of keep me's, a pile of rubbish and a pile of this might be useful. Once the pile of rubbish was deposited at the local tip, it was the start of rebuilding the kitchen again. This time it was all screwed together properly, and attached to the side of the van too. On a test run we went over speed humps at some speed, lurched round corners and gave everything every chance to go flying. But it all stayed exactly in place !!

My youngest son came round last Weds, and had a tribal tattoo done on the back of his neck. Then on Saturday a friend called freaky Mark (please don't ask why lol) came round and had a pentagram on the back of his neck. My sons one needs a bit of touching up, but the one on Marks neck was pretty much perfect and he was really pleased. Considering Mark had large portion of his body already tattooed my daughter was really pleased when he said it was the least painful tattoo he'd ever had !!

Once the last visitor had left, I got out a canvas I've been itching to paint for days now. I drew on the abstract design on the first night and started doing the initial painting the 2nd day. This is the largest oil painting I've ever attempted do to at 40" x 30" but it's a challenge I'm enjoying. This painting is for above the fireplace on the feature wall, which is a deep aubergine so one of the best things about painting your own picture, is that you can incorporate a touch of the matching colour to tie everything up together. Which is exactly what I've done of course lol.

My son's tribal tattoo

Freaky Marks pentagram

Another day gluing !!

Well I've spent another day gluing bits of brown paper on to the pair of Dr Marten boots. I really do question my own sanity at times lol. The boots seem pretty solid now, even though they haven't dried out properly from this last assault of paper and glue.

I'll be using beads, tiny pieces of mirror and various sorts of glass tiles to decorate them. I'm thinking that I might have to cut the glass even smaller than the usual 1/4" squares of glass I do, so that the tiles mould as much as possible to the shape of the boots. That alone will be very time consuming as it's much harder to cut tiny pieces of glass than you might think. I'm sure that my fingers will be smoothered with tiny cuts as usual, which despite their size can be quite painful.

No matter how much these boots sell for, I doubt very much whether it will actually ever pay me much above 50p an hour, if I added up the amount of hours that it actually takes me to do them. But that is my choice, I'll never be rich from my crafts, I do it for the love of it.

I've always been one of those type of people that likes to keep busy, which is probably why my crafts often turn out to be quite intricate a lot of the time.

The first photo today is an oil painting I did, this measures about 12" by 8" and is done on board. Most of my paintings and drawings are either nude or semi nude as I love to draw the human form.




This mirror is a style of mirror I do called jester mirrors, it was a commisioned mirror. It is made from stained glass with nuggets and copper wire embellisments



The last photo today is of little copper foiled stained glass guardian angels, they're about 4 " tall and come with their own little bags. I've made and sold more of these than I can count, but I always end up with burnt fingers as the size being so small means the glass heats up very quickly ...ouch !!!