Just because I can

When I had the shop, I simply didn't have any time to be creative for my own personal pleasure. I always envied you lucky, lucky people who had the time to join in the fun of blog challenges because I thought I would never be in a position to join in the fun. Last week the lovely and extremely talented Dina Wakley posted on her blog, inviting people to take part in "out of the journal". Basically all you have to do is post a comment with a link to a piece of your art here on Dina's blog. Just once piece of art each week for the month of August and I thought to myself.......I can do this!!!!!

So just because I can, here is my submission for week 1.

It's just a canvas board and I sketched out the shape of my flower with a pencil and painted in my background with Mermaid Fresco Finish paint and the flower with Pumpkin Soup. Once I had these base layers dry, I started to lay down lots of layers of paint, mixing my own colours to get varying shades of orange. I started sponging some paint through some Crafters Workshop stencils but still felt that it was missing something. I felt it needed a darker layer. After adding a layer of Claret to my flowers, I dried the whole thing thoroughly with my heat gun and having remembered my Stabilo pencil that Dina had given me, I started to gently scrub around the edge of the canvas as well as define the flowers.

So thank you Dina, not only for the pencil but for the opportunity to post my work somewhere else.....just because I can.