Paint and pieces of things

On Wednesday it was a public holiday, so I decided to make it a painting day.



I put out all my paints and the kids paints and some inks and crayons etc on the kitchen table, found some paper and brushes and smocks. I also had some canvas panels set aside to be used for the 'Not the Archies' project, which I had registered myself, Sienna and Ash for. So we did painting, and portraits. It was a nice way to spend a day, though the kids lasted about half the day before pottering about doing other things. Scroll down for the artwork :)

Here are a few scrapbooking projects I've complete for Aussie Scrap Source recently.... the first one was for the Trends post on quilting. The second layout features Echo Park products, and the cards were for the Thank You cards feature... Click over to check out the rest of the blog posts, there is much inspiration to be had!

 

So these - below - are the portraits we painted. Sienna was painting Imogen. She began on paper and did the painting on the right, but then wrote a little note that "It's too hard" and put it in front of me looking a bit upset. While I was encouraging, she was frustrated at not being able to paint how she would like, but perked up when she started creating simpler drawings. So she ended up painting this larger piece of Imogen with a kite.



Ash's portraits were both of Ben, he really got into it and was quite happily painting away without much angst at all, which was great. I love his big piece :)

 

I ended up doing a quick practice piece on paper of my friend Nadya and was going for a fairly loose style, thinking I may end up doing something a bit abstract, but then changed to a photo of Imogen for the larger piece just because I love the dreamy feel of her expression and the light background. It ended up being quite impressionistic. I dropped the three canvas panel portraits off to Healesville this morning.

On Tuesday afternoon, I went to Monbulk College and taught a mixed media workshop to the year 12 Photo Media class there. Carli Wilson, of Barnaby & Wilson Photography, teaches there and had asked me to come in. It was really fun and interesting, the kids seemed to really enjoy themselves, and I might be teaching another to year 11s soon.

I went to an AIPP print critique night on Tuesday evening, which was pretty confronting as much as it was very interesting, quite educational and a little bit frustrating. I really loved seeing the variety of styles and genres shot, and came away looking with a bit more interest at my nature and travel shots instead of just focusing on portraits. I might talk about that later, I have thoughts that are still mulling and developing over this whole professional awards season thingy, I'm still not clear on how I feel about my place in it. And it's not over until June, so we'll see.

And now I am meant to be making a lasagna for tomorrow's dinner, since I will be out doing a photo session in the afternoon (weather going well). But I'm procrastinating :P Chicken and leeks, here I come...