Looking to send a gift to someone you can't be with this Easter?

After a difficult Mothers Day here in the UK when so many of us couldn't be with our mothers due to coronavirus, I've been thinking about Easter.

When I saw Easter eggs in the shops, I didn't want to think about celebrating Easter at this time of fear and loss - but I delivered a food box to my elderly parents who are self-isolating on Saturday. I dropped it off outside the door and backed off to a goodly distance so that my mum could retrieve it and we could share a few emotional words across those vital two metres of safe space.

I'd popped in my mum's gift that we'd planned to give her at our family meal, plus some treats like her favourite chocolates and a little hyacinth plant...

And later, on the phone, my mum's gratitude was expansive and heartfelt that we'd thought to add those little non-essential extras that meant we'd thought and cared about them and how they'd be feeling while we're all struggling through these days and weeks and that we'd wanted to still bring a little sunshine and joy.

That's why I think it's important, if we can, that we try to bring a little happiness and meaning to those we care about while they're apart from us, perhaps feeling fearful for themselves - and if they're a mum, they're probably still worried about you too, even as you're worrying about them!

This year, we very likely won't be exchanging Easter eggs and Easter gifts in person, but we can still send a little love and happiness to those we love best...

​I work with print-on-demand companies to put my artwork onto all sorts of lovely products, including clothing, accessories and products for home (or the home office!). 

• You can order online and send a gift straight to someone special.
• You can order from (and to) anywhere in the world.
• Your order will be sent from your closest manufacturing site - Redbubble has sites in the UK, USA, Europe, Canada & Australia. Contrado manufactures in London. Spoonflower prints in USA & Germany.
• If you're worried about customs duties, buy from my Redbubble store as Redbubble will refund any customs duties you're inadvertently charged.
• Experts currently believe that the risk of catching coronavirus from a package is low - but you should of course wash your hands and practice careful hygiene in the home after taking in your package from your local carrier or postie.

​Here are some thoughtful Easter gift ideas you could send, themed around this springtime season...
​

Say it with flowers...

​All the colour and joy of spring in one delectable springtime bouquet that lasts well beyond the week!

I wanted to share with you some of my new and recent Celtic knotwork learning for my own art practice…

This year, I’ve decided to spend more time concentrating on drawing Celtic knotwork and including it in my artwork – as well as learning Calligraphy.

 
​These are both art forms that I explored in my childhood and loved!

My mum trained as an art teacher in the 1960s and did her dissertation on Celtic art in Ireland – specifically the Book of Kells. So I was lucky enough to be allowed to play with her dissertation, and she gave me the postcards she’d collected of the Book of Kells to play with and to inspire me.

My mum also taught me how to draw simple Celtic spirals – so that’s what I doodled as a child…

The absolute basics! My recommended top drawing materials supplies to get you started drawing with no unnecessary fuss or massive expenditure…

This post is all about choosing the right drawing tools for you!

It’s something that’s very personal, so there’s no right or wrong thing to choose.

There’s only the thing that’s right or wrong for you – and it’s absolutely okay for that to change, either gradually over time or all of a sudden.

It’s important that you’re happy and comfortable with how you do your art…

And that it feels like an extension of who you are and what you’re about so that you get the most enjoyment out of it.

I’m also not about fancy equipment or expensive equipment…

I’ve been broke… and art paper, pens, and pencils were an expensive luxury!

But guess what? For drawing your own way you don’t need them!

Let me repeat that…

You don’t need anything fancy to get the benefits of creative and expressive drawing.

All you need is something to draw with and something to draw on. Got that? Then you’re sorted.
​
Having said that, your experience of drawing is always going to be far more pleasurable if you actually enjoy using your tools. So this lesson is about helping you choose what to start drawing with and what to start drawing on...
​

Make mum smile this year with great Mother's Day gift ideas to bring delight and happiness to this special family day...

Mother's Day is in March in the UK and Ireland, while in USA, Canada, Australia and New Zealand it falls in June.

I've got some lovely gift ideas to please mum, whether you're making a special trip to see her, enjoying family time together, or simply posting a thoughtful gift with your love...
​

These beautiful silky scarves are lovely and large with gorgeously soft, lightweight fabric that drapes and flows like real silk - incredibly stylish and beautiful!

The colours are vivid with a slightly transparent effect so that the colours are visible both sides of the scarf.

Easy artist colour theory for you to understand how to use colour practically in your art.

​Colour is one of those things that attracts us to creating art – it’s exciting and emotional and it gives our drawings life and personality.

It looks so easy… so why is it sometimes so damn hard?!

Let’s start by looking at some easy ways to add colour to our art –

• some ways to create realistic looking colour
• easy artist colour palette ideas
• using colour to enhance your drawing
• adding colour with markers – there’s a separate PDF resource for this here…
• adding colour with markers – there’s a separate PDF resource for this here…
• adding colour with coloured pencils or watercolour pencils – there’s a separate PDF resource for this here…
• adding colour with pastels – there’s a separate PDF resource for this here…
• adding colour with oil pastels – there’s a separate PDF resource for this here…

In this blog post, we’ll learn techniques for using colour to add form, depth, light, shade, and shape to your drawing – as well as the excitement of colour!

This is important, because as well as being an expressive tool to give emotion, feeling, and excitement to your artwork, colour is also a tool that you can use to give your artwork shape, depth, and form.

In the earliest parts of our drawing, we spend time looking at our subject matter and not our page so that we can draw the outline correctly…

We’ve done lots of hard work with our basic line drawing and may even have added texture and shade (mark making) with pen, pencil, or charcoal. So now we have that already in place, it’s the time to really immerse ourselves in the colour on the page or canvas.

You can apply the following ideas to any medium that you choose to use to apply colour to your artwork.
​
And you can adapt the ideas to suit your own style – and I would encourage you to do so.

Choosing colour for an artwork or design can be a really fun part of the creative process, but sometimes the sheer amount of colour choice available is just a little bit overwhelming, so here's a few tips I've learned over the past few years to help...
​
Of course, if the artwork or design is of flowers, animals, or birds I find the the natural colour of the flower, animal or bird is a great place to start, but for more abstract designs, or ones where you don't necessarily want the colours to look true to life, you can start by picking colours out of a favourite photo...
​
Here are some I tried from some of my own holiday snaps...

How we learn art matters!

Where some art teaching just teaches you specific art techniques so that you can recreate an individual artwork or copy the teacher’s style, I want to help you learn art to think like an artist, to be creative, and to learn art and drawing in your own way…

There’s so many benefits to learning a creative way of thinking, an artist’s way of seeing and thinking…

From the way that we can feel free to enjoy ourselves and not subject to judgement from ourselves and others as to if we’re doing art ‘the right way’…

To how we learn to flex and strengthen our creative thinking muscles!
​
Literally changing the way we approach problems in our everyday personal lives and potentially benefiting society as a whole as we bring new ways of thinking into the world…

We need to feel free when we learn art and we need to learn how to be creative…

Not just to learn to draw and paint but to learn how to be artists…

You might have noticed that I teach art and drawing differently to a lot of other artists. This is deliberate…

I don’t share my exact techniques and I don’t provide instructions for a quick fix so that you can quickly learn how to draw specific things…

Because, while this may allow you to make a fair copy of the original – which feels good, pretty satisfying, right? – it isn’t you and it isn’t creative!

Instead, I prefer you to learn art by me providing a basic instruction and understanding of the fundamental principles that allows you to go away and find out your own way of doing things…

Play a bit, get curious, develop your own drawing technique and evolve your own unique artistic style.

Last month, we were looking at understanding pastels (the different types of pastels, including oil pastels, and the different pastel techniques).

Today, we're making a more specialised pastel journey, looking at oil pastel techniques...

Oil pastels are less messy than traditional pastels and lots of fun with rich colours and textures that you can create with very expressively.

I do enjoy using oil pastels and I find I create with them quite differently than with my usual pens and markers.

In this Oil Pastels free PDF download we'll look at:

• oil pastel techniques including lines, shading and sgraffito technique
• oil pastel ideas
• oil pastel drawing demos

Is art important? Do we need art when there's so many struggling for just the basics in life..? What do we need art for?

It's an important question - and one which goes to the very heart of our identity as humans and our hopes for how we want to live in this world...

I actually think in times like these it’s more important than ever to take care of, nourish and nurture our humanity… because art is humanity!

Humans create art. It’s one of the things we do that distinguishes us from animals. Cave paintings and carvings on stones, bones and more show us that art is important to humans. It’s a huge part of what makes us who we are.