One of my favourite things - my paint tin

One of my favorite things to do is mix paint. I find it meditative and calming and can throw up many surprises. I'm getting good at it at this stage and have gotten to know all of the nuances of my watercolour tin.

It was  gift from an artist I painted with in Germany when I was 16. I adore that a symbol of the early nurturing of my creativity has traveled with me everywhere, been used and abused, refilled and just gives and gives. I can't remember the ladies name which is a shame but we had a glorious day painting her garden and she gifted me this precious tin. I spoke very little German and she spoke no English. It was the first time I really understood the power of visual art as a communicator and connector.

I am working on some new illustrations today. It's fun to take the paints back out! 

PS Here's another great shop (Gallery Crafts, Cork) which is stocking my canvas prints and jewellery range - If you're in the cork area do be sure to check it out! Have a beautiful Day :"-)

Drinks Cabinet - Re purposed and Reborn

I love a bargain and this drinks / display cabinet is defiently a bargain!

 

Herself has taken over the bottom shelf for toys and thankfully can't yet reach the higher shelves and doors! 

 

She cost my €50 in Oxfam Home, Dublin.

Probably €20 to get her home in petrol

Paint was free (left over from other projects) 

Vintage wallpaper was free (gifted to me from an interior design shop) 

Knobs were around €3 each (I picked them up in Austria when I was on a painting residency) 

 It\s great  to finally be able to display car boot finds (vintage telephone, vintage plates) along with some fab wedding presents we hadn't been able to display before (Mosses pottery plates and bowls, Killarney crystal glasses etc)

And paintings from Mary Hoare, Laura De Búrca, TimsSally and my newest purchase from Marriane Wolf (Mon Petit Pois)

I'm sorry I didn't take a before pic but she was a big dark ominous beast in the room! Lets just say himself was none too happy when I brought her home! But he did the majority of the hard work with her and I'm so in love!

at long last! A new blog post!

I'm back!!

It's been a while,

things have been busy.

The juggling continues but recently I've enjoyed lots of family time. Some time in the garden and lots of play time with herself. I'm enjoying the longer days, warmer (slightly!) weather, and new growth.

We have a lovely old granite wall in our garden and last year I planted some bulbs on top of it in the crevaces. Nothing came up last year - but hey presto this year we have a poppy! 

Auch a heartlifting sight to see some colour and growth in the garden after the winter. 

Here's our dog Rosie standing on the wall admiring the flower - or maybe just contemplating trampling it! 

I don't know why I'm surprised but so much of my time is spent on non-making / non-painting endeavors! I've been doing lots of writing of proposals, business plans, cathcing up with accounts, networking that I haven't gotten to paint in a while.

My new plan is to do a plan! A realistic plan this time :-) 

I'm redesigning my website! Here's my proposed new layout. Hopefully it'll give me room to grow, is  a tad less busy than the one I've up at the mo and will be search engine friendly!

So now it's just a matter of getting the head down and coding it! 

No rest eh? 

PS

I'm really excited to be stocked in such lovely shops as Couture, Naas and  Sineads Gifts, Portarlington. Do check them out if you're in the area :-) x