Marilyn Sketch

This Ladies and Gentlemen is my next masterpiece. Of course it’s just a very basic sketch on canvas using a crappy HB pencil but it does the job.

I have already begun the painting, yes it is pop art Marilyn. I know, it’s been done. A LOT. But it’s going to be cool! I swear… hope.

Happy New Year!

Linking up with 504 Main, Chic on a Shoestring, The Lady Bloggers and Rook No.17.

Photographs & Paintings

 

Note:
For the purpose of this blog, I would like to get back to my roots and focus more solely on art. Meaning my paintings and photographs. I would love to dedicate this blog to my paintings, however, the posts would be few and far between, whereas my photos only take a flash. HAHAHA.

Thank you.

Merry Christmas!

Merry Christmas!

Love Kirsty, Andi & Duke

Crafty Christmas Coffee

OH NO! Andi has run out of Coffee???… Kirsty to the rescue!

A Little Yummy For Your Tummy

I also made some Christmas tags! Yay! Here they are, all ready!

Merry Christmas!

A Quay Thank You

These are just a few photos I took recently from the Quay. Hope you enjoy them! I love how blue they are. I love taking photo’s of boats too. Very serene, even if that’s not the way I would feel if I were on one. Hehe

Well yesterday, I really learnt the value of a few wonderful comments vs. many nice comments. Of course, many wonderful comments is always best but from my Photographing Paintings post I got a couple of comments, which led to conversations, which led to “You should sell your paintings!”

I would be lying if I said I had never thought about the idea of making money off a hobby. I think anyone to say that would be lying. It would be a dream come true, right? But I had never thought about it in terms of “could I actually be good enough for people to WANT to buy them?” No, absolutely not.

But I would like to give a big THANK YOU to Holly at 504 Main, and Allenaim Photography for their amazing votes of confidence and their kind words.

Thank you and Merry Christmas!

Photographing Paintings

If you have been following this blog for a while, you will have seen this oil painting of mine before. Last night I noticed that placed on my desk was Andi’s super awesome camera. Now I usually just use my little point and shoot that Andi bought me as a present.

For a little digital I do really love my camera but while I was playing around with Andi’s I took a few shots of my paintings and it captured them like I have never been able to do. There was no need to touch them up to find the correct colours! Yay!

Eee don’t you just love having a focal point and the rest out of focus? I do! Ok, so I realise you have seen both of these before but I do have something new or rather old to show you. This next photo is from when I first got all my oil paints, easel, everything paint, you name it, Andi bought it. Yes, he does buy me lots of presents! Anyway, so this painting was from way back then, when I had never before used oil paints, and even painting was fairly new to me. So go easy. Hehe.

 

I would have loved to take new photographs of all of my paintings but thankfully people liked some of them enough to take them off my hands. :)

Of course, you can view my other painting posts here:
A Beachscape in Oil
Crayfish Creek Landscape
Crayfish Creek Landscape, a Walk and a Thank you
Oil on Canvas

Wow, going back over those posts, there is the biggest difference in photographs. Thank goodness I’m getting better!

A Christmas Cat in a Hat

While doing some much needed Christmas shopping, I came across Christmas hats! Not only did I find a couple for Andi and I but I found a tiny little Santa hat for Duke! YAY!

I don’t think he likes it very much. It also came with a matching scarf, how cute. There he is ^ trying to rip it off! Poor dear. As I am very much in a Christmas-y kind of mood, I thought I’d share a couple of snaps with you. Enjoy them, I do!

Merry Christmas!

Linking up with 504 Main, Chic on a Shoestring and Serenity Now.

The Blue Tongue

The other day I discovered a gorgeous Eastern Blue Tongue in the backyard. Isn’t he lovely?

 

He is quite large and a wonderful animal to have living in your garden, as they provide great pest control which keep the plants happy. As a skink, this lizard is pretty much immobile at times as they have no body heat and need lots of warm sun in order to move. Hence why I was able to get up close and take some photos. Yay!

As most of my beautiful followers are American, I wonder have you ever heard of the Blue Tongue? I assume you realise he got his name from having a blue tongue… (I hope so) haha. His biggest problems in life are of course cats! The blue tongues defence is surprising his attacker with the blue of his tongue and as cats pounce without him even seeing, he doesn’t have much hope.

Dogs on the other hand can sometimes be a friend. They can share food and usually a dog will not attack the blue tongue out of sheer surprise. How sweet! Of course some dogs and Blue Tongues will not get along. Cars and lawn mowers, like cats are not very much liked by them either.

I hope this post will provide you with some knowledge of Australian wildlife… and no they’re not poisonous.

Advent Origami Boxes

For Christmas I decided to make my lovely Andi an advent calendar out of little origami “Masu” boxes. These boxes are pretty excellent for anything, presents, as gift boxes (an environmentally friendly choice too) and you can make them any size you want.
Because I was making so many, 50 in total (top and bottom) I decided to use regular old computer paper. I have made these with much thicker card paper before, for present boxes which have turned out great too.
Your paper needs to be square so I had to cut mine. For these boxes I just measured the small side of the A4 paper and cut the longer end to match. But as I said, you can make any size you want, it just depends on how big your paper or card is. These boxes are approximately 3 inches x 3 inches or 7.5cm x 7.5cm.
After you cut out the top of your box you need to cut a slightly smaller piece for the bottom. I only made mine half a cm smaller, that’s around 0.2 inches.

Once I had cut out my paper I stamped both sides of each piece. For my boxes I left a section in the middle of each piece blank, this is where I wrote the numbers. But for gift boxes it’s probably best to stamp all around, or of course decorate the box any way you like.
Then comes the fun part, making the origami boxes! I used the website www.origami-fun.com to make my box. They have heaps of excellent crafts and ideas. But you can view and print out the pdf tutorial on the “Masu” box here. It’s very simple and the instructions are very easy to follow.

Once you have made your box you can then fill it with your gift or lollies like I did! Yum! As vegans we can not simply go and buy an advent calendar off the shelf. However getting lots of pretty boxes filled with your favourites is better than one little piece of cheap chocolate any day!

Have Fun!

P.S. You can find all the materials you need to make Advent Origami Boxes here with savings.