Since Claire and Evie headed back to England (we miss you!) it has been a busy week on the coursework front, and now that the printer cartridge has arrived I have been able to print all the annotations for my portfolio. It is not yet complete but I will show you some pictures of my favourite pages of my portfolio so far.  But before that I wanted to share this one, a picture of the most beautiful, strong, vibrant rainbow that appeared on Friday morning...

 

Rainbows never look and feel as magical in photographs as they do in real life, but I still think it has been captured out quite well considering.  I wonder if it was a sign - a pot of (metaphorical) gold on the way perhaps?  Here's hoping!

Anyway, back to my coursework, here's a picture of all my annotations drying, having been stained with tea;

And here are some pictures of my portfolio...

Again, I feel the photos don't really do justice to the work, it is hard to tell for example that the portfolio is A3 in size.  I shall have to work out the best way to photograph it for submission to my tutor.  Perhaps one page at a time will work better.  Anyway, I couldn't resist including a picture of Freya below, who had lots of fun colouring in Peter Rabbit colouring pages while I was working overtime with the double sided tape.  And yes I kept her well out of reach of all my work!!

Freya gets creative with the crayons

I am also working on a larger collage for my final resolved design, it's a work in progress and as soon as it's done I shall show you a picture.

Claire and Evie come to stay

I haven't posted for a couple of weeks, but that doesn't mean to say I haven't been busy.  I am still making good progress with my portfolio and I am now thinking about the layout for each page and also tackling the dreaded paperwork, including health and safety and bibliography, which never fills me with inspiration!  But all an essential part of the course so it has to be done. 

The more exciting news is that I had some visitors this weekend; my lovely friend Claire, and her daughter Evie, who is the same age as Freya. They have been here for 5 days, and here are a few of our holiday snaps, out and about around the Island...

A quick trip to the local swings

Before heading to the beach

And admiring the stunning scenery

And when it's bedtime for the girls

It's dinner out for us

Before heading to the Lion Park the next day...among other things!

And Claire and Evie's stay was not without creative pursuit. When the girls were tucked up in bed, we decided to start making preparations for Christmas, and what could be more fun than making some salt dough tree decorations!  After initially thinking, yes we have everything we need in the cupboard (plain flour, salt) we were halted in our tracks when we discovered that we had rock salt, not table salt. So it was not until 24 hours later that we were able to commence, and what fun we had! First we made the dough, cut out different shapes and put them in the oven for 4 hours. And the following evening came the fun bit - the painting! We used a combination of acrylic, metallic and glitter paint, and decorated with buttons and ribbon. Here is our work in progress...

And we were pleased with the results considering it was our first ever attempt...

Claire's Masterpieces

And Mine

So this week, after recovering from having two 2 year olds in the house, (it was a pleasure really -  honestly!) I am going to carry on making Christmas preparations and work on my never-ending colour portfolio.  I can't wait to post some photos of some of the finished pages soon.  

Tea in the Garden

This weekend has been a busy one as well as a record one - the hottest October on record, at a lovely 28 degrees! So in between drawing and painting, we have been making the most of it and going to the beach and also to a place called St Catherine's Breakwater, where we had a lovely walk along the pier, with spectacular views and clear blue sea. And of course the trip wasn't complete without an icecream.  But let me show you some work that I have been doing in between enjoying the sunshine. More painting and experimenting with colour to start with...

Aztec Rain Deity - painted in acrylics

Quick colour sketches

Using watercolour and pencil and pen

Using acrylics

Experimenting with colour

Today, Monday is supposedly the last day of our mini heatwave, so I thought I would make the most of the sunshine and use it to my advantage.  I have decided that I want to make my portfolio to look 'old' so I have stained each page with tea.  Working in direct sunlight certainly speeded up the drying process as each page needed two coats of tea to produce a decent effect.  It has been a whole day of painting paper in between entertaining Freya but it was very pleasant working in the garden, catching a few rays at the same time!

Tea in the garden

I have had a few more ideas for presentation of my portfolio and also my backup folder, so I will be working on this soon, as well as ploughing on with some more designs.