My Colour~Full World

'Beach Huts & Bunting'

Hello lovely people! How are you?

I'm pleased to be able to share another Small Original painting with you today! This one is 5" square, and is simply called 'Beach Huts & Bunting'...I was inspired to paint this particular scene from good memories of times spent in Wells-Next-The-Sea and Holkham Beach on the north Norfolk coast. If any of you have ever been to this beautiful part of the UK, you will know of the long stretches of white sand backed by firs and trees. Underneath this lush greenery is a string of colourful beach huts painted in cheery ice-cream colours and I love, love, LOVE this place to bits! So that's the inspiration, but the actual painting is very much from the imagination.

This painting can be found for sale on my gallery page, and in my Folksy shop - I'm also hoping to start listing in my Etsy shop again very soon, and I apologise to my friends in the USA for neglecting it (dearest Marge in Kansas, I have been meaning to write to you and tell you that I'm opening my little shop again for you!). The painting includes a white mount so it's all ready for framing and costs £45.00 (which includes P&P in the UK).

Another lovely thing I'm now able to share with you is this painting below. This was a very special commission painting that I did recently for a birthday gift - the birthday girl has become a very dear friend of mine and she's called Emma, and I was over-the-moon delighted to hear that she and her husband (who asked me to do the commission) were very, very happy with it. I hope Emma won't mind me telling you how much she loves rainbows, she is a girl after my own heart as I find them very special myself. Happy Birthday for Sunday Emma!!

You might remember that little patchwork owl that popped up last week...

...well I've been doing a small amount of sketches and doodles with ink pen and crayon, I'm not sure how much I like where this is going at the moment, but it's like most creative journeys I find myself on, there is often a heck of a lot of scribbling and rubbishy things that emerge before the one that makes you shout 'YES!' appears. But anyway, here are a couple of sketch book pages for you, I know I like peeking into other artist's sketch books and that some of you like peeking into mine, so here you are:

I shall persevere though, I'm not one to give up as I think my portfolio may benefit from some character work like this.

So...this week I have been thinking about colour, and how important it is in my little world. I was never ever going to be a minimalist sort of gal surrounded by white and bare surfaces, oh no, my love of colourful things is too strong and I have always been fascinated by its influence on our moods and emotions. While we know that blue is soothing and green is relaxing and so on, did you know that fast food chains very often use the colours red and yellow and white because it makes people eat faster? Its true. Apparently.

I have to admit to loving all colours, and I love rainbow shades together, hence my love for Big Blanket and Rainbow Ripple etc. My home would not be a real 'home' without these festive injections of colours all about the place. Colour plays an important role in our little house, it cheers us up, it makes us feel good and it's also lovely to look at.

And so, over the weekend, adding to the colourful theme, this began to happen:

"What is it?!?! What is it?!?" I can hear you cry. I'm only going to say for now that I'm working on a very nice little project and I will share some more of it with you next week. Isn't that naughty of me to tease you like that?!

However, it is going to involve these gorgeous little buttons...oh how I LOVE buttons!! These caught my eye immediately and I just had to have them for my New Project. Do you like them?

Perfect, rainbow buttony lovliness wouldn't you agree??

And of course, working with a bag full of juicy rainbow coloured wool never ceases to lift the spirits every time I look into it!

This last weekend we had a really nice Sunday - it started out with a lazy breakfast which went on for almost an hour.

And later a trip to a car boot sale at Hope in Derbyshire. After walking around and not finding much we drove up through Castleton to the foot of Mamtor (which is a huge hill which is very popular with walkers and hikers) and had our picnic by Odin Mine. We lay picnic blankets out and after we had eaten everything we had brought, Little Tot went with Daddy and Grandad to look in to the entrance of the mine and shout Loud Things to make Fabulous Noises and Echoes and I decided to lay back in the suddenly warm sunshine and close my eyes. All was very, very quiet - no noise from zooming traffic, just bird song and that soft whistle the wind makes sometimes. I can't remember such peace in a long time and I almost drifted off but the Little One came hurtling along the grass screaming 'ALIENS' and woke me up. :D

On the way home, I took the chance to call in Avant Garde at Baslow again, and I had a little splurge on this pretty, pretty tiffin tin which is just calling out to be filled with brownies and flapjacks don't you think?!

Just the thing for a picnic me thinks!!

Amongst all the other ordinary stuff this last week, we have been up to visit the village nursery & infant school which the Little One will be starting in September...oh my, where has the time gone? Sure she was just a babe in arms not that long ago and now when I look at her I see a proper little girl who makes us laugh, who is growing up a little bit more each day, who is such a beautiful little soul in every way. She is three in a couple of weeks and we are taking her to the seaside in Northumberland for a few days as a treat. She loves the seaside, she loves the sea - it seems to be in her bones, just like it's in her Mums bones and she talks about it or draws it all the time.

Anyway, the visit went very well, it's a warm and happy little place, the teachers were lovely, the children in the classrooms well behaved and we feel quite settled that it's going to be all alright. It's a big step though, and I can't help feeling a bit emotional at the thought of her beginning her little voyage of schooling in just a few months time.

Well! This has turned into rather a long post hasn't it?!! I wasn't expecting it to go on so long so well done if you made it right through to the end!

Next week is going to be my 100th blog post, so I will be having a little giveaway to celebrate!! Don't forget to come by and join in will you, you know how much I enjoy it when you do! :D

Right, that's all for now ~ have scrumptious weekends, sending you warm sunshine, home-made lollipops and happy times!

Love Julia x x x