Burtonesque

Dear reader, it may not come as a huge surprise to you that I love Tim Burton. The Nightmare Before Christmas, Beetlejuice and others of his are among my favourite films, and a book called Burton on Burton has been one of the most interesting things I have read. My paintings have often been called Burtonesque, even though, in all but the piece below, there hasn't been a direct influence. It must just have filtered through from my subconscious ;)



So I'm very excited about Burton's re-imagining of Alice in Wonderland, to be released next year. Alice has long been one of my favourite stories, and I love seeing various artists' interpretations of scenes and themes from the book. I can't wait to see what he's done with it. With a cast that includes Johnny Depp, Stephen Fry, Matt Lucas and Alan Rickman, it surely can't fail to be awesome.

In celebration of this, an Etsy friend of mine, the fabulous jewellery-maker Gugaw, is having a merry unbirthday giveaway! You can win anything from her shop - just comment about your favourite piece on her blog.

New things and featurings

After months of a kind of creative block, the past few weeks has seen me creating in wire again. Suncatchers featuring some of my favourite themes - hearts, skulls, the rainbow, stars and bats - have been popping up all over the shop.

















In addition to this, I have also had my work featured in two places - the 'Gift of Art' Gift Guide campaign on Etsy's front page, in which they've used my 'Turquoise Star' piece:



And also on ACEO Showcase, the new blog from the creator of Cuteable, who has featured my 'Midnight Moon' ACEO:

Kinver Hearts

I've just listed my first printed greetings card - Kinver Hearts. I've been wanting to get this image printed for a while, and it finally exists in the form of a card.



The card has come out a little different to the original in colour, but I prefer it. The greys in the sky that you can see above have turned out more purple, which is great. Visit the listing here.

Just over a year ago, I blogged a little about the series of artworks that inspired this piece - visit the post here. It all started with this photograph, taken at Kinver Edge in the Midlands:



Shortly afterwards, I painted this piece. I opened up the negative space a little, allowing for a colourful sunset to be seen behind the plants:



Using that canvas as inspiration, I painted a similar scene in my art journal in watercolours and acrylics:



I experimented with that a little, adding an extra layer in acetate:





I also edited the photograph of the original, stretching it out:



Then playing with the contrast and adding hearts:



The original painting was originally to be for sale but we (that is, my boyfriend and I) liked it so much that we kept it.



I still wanted it to be for sale in some form though, hence these greetings cards (yes, there will be more!). I'm looking into getting prints of many of my paintings made too, of which Kinver will be one. There will also be a Kinver Hearts print - watch this space.

January Sale

Happy new year to everyone! To celebrate 2009, I am having a January sale at Sneddoniart. For this month only, everything in store has 20% off. Click below to visit:

Etsy: Your place to buy & sell all things handmade Sneddoniart.etsy.com

Many items are still on sale in the other shop too - just visit The great 7 dollar sale section.

Hanley Park

There was a park I used to walk home through as a student in Stoke-on-Trent. It was a longer walk than just going up the road, but it was a lot more peaceful. I would sketch, collect twigs and take photos there, it was a great source of inspiration. A few weeks ago, I was looking through some of those old photos and did some work in my art journal about them:





I've recently painted an artwork based on the second of those sketchbook pieces. It's called Hanley Park and depicts trees, and the dark ground from which they grow, silhouetted against a pale sky:

Front Page Glory!

Brierley Sunset made it to Etsy's front page! Sneddoniart's first FP, awww :)

Many thanks to PennyDog, Hippy and PaisleyChainsaw for letting me know. And thanks of course to TickledPinkKnits for creating this Treasury list!

Sneddoniart

I have a new shop for my paintings. Find it at sneddoniart.etsy.com

I currently have paintings for sale - some are mini canvases, some are larger pieces. I will soon have ACEOs and more for sale, so watch this space:

Etsy: Your place to buy & sell all things handmade Sneddoniart.etsy.com

My DaWanda art shop still exists, but it'll be the Etsy shop that gets updated most often.