Snow day!

Followers of my Twitter may have read that I was "Planning to be very creative" today - in other words, intending to spend the day doing a lot of painting and maybe even a bit of wirework. Well, the snow had other ideas. Much of today has been spent either watching the snow out of the window or actually being out playing in the snow, leaving little time for much else. But no matter. Days like this tend to bring a lot of inspiration, which makes up for the lack of actual work :)











I have in fact got some 'actual work' done today - I've made a start to a painting that will eventually look a bit like the last of the above photos:



I've also made a sinister snowman - don't have nightmares! ;)

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:

An unlikely source of inspiration

A few days ago I took inspiration from an unlikely source - a Wallace & Gromit poster on my wall.



Much as I love them, they've never inspired me to paint before, but looking at the background of that image I had an idea.



I'd been looking for something different to paint, something other than the trees and sunsets. So this simple landscape was a solution to that.



It's not a huge departure from my usual style, but it's something a little different. And it's inspired quite a few works in progress.



As has this sketchbook piece, painted a few days before, which was also an attempt to do something different (this attempt to do something different still ended up in painting trees though, lol).





I'm now newly inspired to paint, after a bit of a dry spell. Which is no bad thing.

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!

Glass Moon - a painted suncatcher

Just last night I finished a new suncatcher. I make lot of suncatchers, usually from wire and beads, but this one was quite different. It involved painted glass, which is a technique I haven't used for quite a while. I used to do it all the time. This time though, I've not done it in the usual way. How you're supposed to do it is put the outliner on the glass then, after it has dried, put the paint in between where the outliner is, to look like stained glass with lead. I instead just painted onto the glass straight away, painting over the outliner in places and using it on top of the paint in others, to give it extra texture and colour.

I started off with a rectangle of glass, which was originally in this frame. I don't like to waste anything! I painted this glass with blue glass paint:



then painted a moon onto that with white glass paint:



After I'd let that dry, I then wrapped steel wire around the edges of the glass to form a frame, and also something from which to hang this piece:



I then painted a tree onto the glass, painting over some of the wire. This wire forms a frame for this painting and also gives more texture to the tree. I also painted silver-coloured outliner on top of the tree to echo the colour of the steel wire, and add to the texture. This suncatcher measures 17cm (6.5") wide by 13cm (5") high.



It's for sale here.

Batty Moon - a mixed-media painting on canvas

In the end, I didn't add bats to that sketchbook piece, but I did draw this, using charcoal pencil and normal HB pencil, to get an idea of how the painting might look:



So, using the above sketch and my previous moon painting as inspiration,



I painted this piece, Batty Moon, using acrylics, silvery poster paint, liquid watercolour and blue glitter glue. It depicts a cloud of bats, silhouetted against a bright full moon, in a dark blue night sky:



The dark colours of the sky continue over the sides of the canvas on which this is painted, as do the shimmer of the blue glitter and the bat detail, to give one continuous block of colour. This means that this piece does not need to be framed. This square box canvas measures 15cm square by just under 4cm deep.



Find it for sale here.

New designs - a full moon and a starry necklace

I'm working on a series of artworks at the moment, based on this piece:



Each will have a full moon motif:



Both the above sketchbook piece and square canvas are to have bats on, but the other piece is finished:

One of my favourite sights in the sky is when the moon is full, and the sky is cloudy. When the clouds part, and the moonlight catches on them, it looks magical to me.

This piece depicts a bright full moon in a cloudy, dark blue night sky. It was painted in acrylics, silvery poster paint and liquid watercolour. The colours of the sky continue over the sides of the canvas on which this is painted, to give one continuous block of colour. This means that it does not need to be framed. This small canvas measures 12cm (7") high by 18cm (5") wide:



Find it for sale here.

I've also recently listed a new necklace in my Etsy shop. To create this long chain, I re-assembled a chain from another necklace. I then added the twisted steel wire and pink beads. The pink star beads were repurposed from an old necklace, and the round pink bead was from an old bracelet. The pink star pendant was from a keyring.

The chain itself measures 82cm (about 32.5") long, and the main star pendant measures 3cm (just over 1") high.

Find it for sale here.

Painted hearts and beaded Valentines

Looking for something to buy your loved one this Valentine's Day? Look no further. I have a range of heart canvases up for sale in my DaWanda shop. Click the link to go there:

http://en.dawanda.com/shop/Sneddonia




There will soon be hand painted cards in the same style.

I also have pendants, suncatchers and even a little heart hook for sale in my Etsy shop. Click the images to go there:



Happy Valentine's!

New Year, New Art

So what have I been up to since I last blogged? Working very hard for Acme Jewellery, mostly. But all work and no play makes Jen a dull girl, so I've had a few decent nights out too, including seeing Madness on the 12th Dec and Aladdin (a panto starring John Barrowman) on 20th Dec. Yayness! With them, plus Bill Bailey and Alice Cooper, I've had a busy winter :D

I started a new project in the Christmas holidays too. The actual paintings have nothing to do with this, but me starting to paint again was inspired by reading Anthony Keidis's autobiography. He described how he and the rest of the Chilis lived in a house while writing Blood Sugar Sex Magik, and that John would be painting in his room there. Just the word 'painting' made me want to paint stuff, so the next day I started off a new sketchbook of paintings, little ideas for future canvases.

The first page of the sketchbook is a version of this canvas (click the image for a little more about this piece):



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



I traced the outline of the tree onto a piece of acetate with a marker, then added to this using copper-coloured glass outliner. I cut a hole in the top of the plastic, then attached it to the rings of my sketchbook with black ribbon.







The next page. Painted in watercolours:



When I was in college, a few years ago, one of the things the tutors had us doing was drawing the negative space around a figure, rather than the figure itself. I've come back to this idea, painting the sky around the tree rather than the tree itself.

I'll have more of these soon, plus some canvases and Valentines cards based on them.

New on DaWanda

My latest DaWanda products, pictured below, include Purple Rose, Purple and Green Fire, Darkshines, and my newest listing, Dark Day:





The diptych "Dark Day" is actually a mini version of a previous artwork of mine, Dark Day and its Sunset. That piece is no longer for sale (I love it too much!) but if you'd like a similar one, I'm more than happy to paint that for you :)

Watch this space, I guarantee there'll be more art coming soon, including a Blue Rose painting and more trees.

Thanks for looking!

New painting - Red Sky at Night

This piece came about from a desire to mix two elements of what I do, the painting and the wire sculpture. It is a representation of a tree in silhouette against a red sunset, created using a mixture of acrylic paints and copper-coloured poster paint. I've also used copper wire, which forms part of the structure of the tree. This wire also goes behind the canvas, to attach itself there, and forms a loop at the top for hanging the painting.

For more information, go to the listing at DaWanda.