When I saw that the amazingly wonderful Micki Wilde from The Secret Hermit was embarking on a mail art extravaganza of her own I knew immediately I wanted in. I absolutely adore Micki’s art. From the very first moment I saw her quirky little characters and lovely ladies pop up on the Willowing picture gallery I was drawn to them like no other. You know how sometimes you just see an art work and it jumps out at you and you instantly love it. That’s how I felt about ALL of Micki’s paintings.

So I signed up and got to it. I was a bit worried that my art was not going to be awesome enough compared to what I would receive in return but Micki was quick to assure everyone that was sooooo not what mail art is all about so quit worrying and just create something from the heart.

Anyway I won’t blubber on too much. I know you just want to see the pictures. So without further ado here they are.

The beautiful piece I received from Micki. Can you believe it’s even my favourite colour in the whole world and it also has my “word” for 2012 on it (see here if you want to know about my “wanky word”)

I love her. She is perfect. I am so thrilled to have my very own piece of art created by the ever fabulous and gracious Micki Wilde. I will treasure her forever. Thanks Micki!!

Here’s the piece that I sent Micki. I really hope she likes it.

Also just a quick thank you to the inconsiderate post office lady who unceremoniously plastered my lovely painted envelope with really big fat ugly stickers when I went to post it. Grrrr!!!!

And a better look at the one I did.

I’m telling you now you just have to go check out the awesome photos of all the wonderful art Micki received from all that took part in her mail art swap.

It’s a sight to behold. See it here.

Big thanks to Micki for allowing me to be a part of her mail swap. I loved every minute (well maybe not the stressing if my art was too lame bit but everything else)

“What’s that all about?” I hear you ask.

Well in a nutshell the lovely folk at The Arthouse Co-op send you out a blank sketchbook to fill with whatever takes your fancy then you send it back to them and they catalogue it into a big fat travelling art library.

The sketchbooks then head off like good little rock stars on a boozy world tour so people everywhere can check them out. Once they recover it’s back to The Brooklyn Art Library where they shall remain indefinitely. The library is accessible 7 days a week to the general public so hipsters and arty peeps and basically anyone can peruse them whenever they choose for ever and ever.

My theme was Heroes and Villains. I didn’t stick to it totally as you will see. To find out more about each one you can visit my Sketchbook Project profile or it’s all on my Facebook page too.

Ok so enough blabbing, here are my sketchbook pages.

And here is my cover which has absolutely nothing to do with my theme or the art within it for some reason. I don’t know why it turned out like this. I was just doodling away on it and this is what happened. I like it but probably would have preferred to have something that actually reflected the contents of the sketchbook. Oh well perhaps the old ‘Don’t judge a book by it’s cover” will ring true for whoever selects it for a look-see.

It was heaps of fun. I’d love to do it again next year however this time I’ll have to try not to leave it to a few weeks before the deadline to start. Mmmmm!!!

Here is a quick little post about my last painting for 2011. As usual I didn’t have a title so I put it out to my peeps on Facebook and the lovely Mel from Meliesque Art suggested I call them The Blue Belles. I loved it so that became the title.

In my mind these girls were upset with their lives so decided to become runaways, sisters who were willing to escape to anywhere as long as they were together. So they waited until the middle of the night and crept away to a better life.

That probably sounds ridiculous but hey that’s what was going through my mind when I created them.

Anyhoo here are some progress shots of “The Blue Belles”.

 I thought I was finished at this point but quickly realised they looked like they were floating so I had to whip out the paints again to fix up the bottom a bit.

Here is the final painting of The Blue Belles.

So I had a lovely break over Christmas hanging out with all of my extended family. Trips to the beach, drinks with old friends and WAAAAAAAAYYYYYYYY too much food.

I’m kicking off 2012 by jumping on a couple of bandwagons. The first is to hopefully get rid of the extra pounds that snuck up on me over Xmas by having a crack at The Dukan Diet. So far so good. The weight seems to be melting off (did I mention I’m only on day 2 though hehehehe) and I’m enjoying eating some different stuff for a change. As my BFF would say “DUKAN DO IT”. :)

The next bandwagon is to choose a ‘word’ for 2012. All the cool kids are doing it you know.

At first I just came up with silly ones like ‘Chastise’ (my youngest is about to hit the terrible 2′s) or ‘Expand’ (based on the size of my arse after all that xmas food) but then I really started thinking about it. Soon I found myself to be so ridiculously spiritual and new age that I was even making myself sick. So I decided maybe choosing a ‘word’ was not for me after all.

But then it hit me out of nowhere. My ‘word’ (yes it has to be in quotation marks every single time apparently) had appeared to me like an apparition. Like an angel whispered it in my ear from above. Well not really I’m just being dramatic I was actually just pushing a shopping trolley around the supermarket but you get the idea.

So do you wanna know what it is then?

My ‘word’ for 2012 is ‘EMBRACE’.

Shall I explain. Ok then, I’ll try.

There are a few reasons this is perfect for me and I think if I can embrace ‘embrace’ (see what I did there) 2012 will be my year.

I think of it as a chance to just step back and relax about the small stuff a little. Embrace the fact that the house isn’t always clean, that the kids are not always well behaved, that I am not always going to please everyone. Instead of stressing about these things I need to just embrace and accept that it will be OK. I just need to remove the worry a bit and know that everything will work out just as it is supposed to and embrace life instead of picking on myself for all I don’t get right.

I also will be applying the word ‘embrace’ to my love of creating. I plan to embrace and explore this art thing a bit more in 2012 starting with Life Book. I have signed up for the adventure already and am ready to get into it. 12 months of art classes = awesome.

The other part of the story is to actually physically embrace people. I’ve always been the person that kind of stands back and feels weird when people try to kiss or hug me. I’m more likely to quickly stick out my hand for a handshake if I feel a kiss/hug is coming my way. I think this puts people off a bit and I’m quite sure I come across as a bit of an ice queen because of it. So this year I’m going to get all loved up and embrace embracing people. :) So if you see me in the street don’t say I didn’t warn you.

Ok well that’s about it for now. I will leave you with a little photo of my son Eden and I. He woke up mega early one morning last week but instead of feeling cranky about being rudely interrupted during my much needed beauty sleep, I tried to embrace the moment. I chose to have a bit of fun doing self portraits with him on my phone while the rest of the house had a big sleep in. We had a lot of fun.

I’m a bit sorry I ‘embraced’ the no make up look though. Mmmmm. At least I still shared it. Something I so wouldn’t have done way back in 2011. Embracing all over the place I am. :)

In the meantime I can finally share my finished Rock Chick painting that I did as a commission for a very dear friend of mine. This little piece was created as a gift for a Bona Fide Rock Chick from Singapore who just had a little baby rock chick of her own named Florence (hence the Florence and The Machine t-shirt). The brief was for one of my girls playing a guitar with purple as the main colour.

Here’s how she started out

And below is how she finished up. My lovely friend is really happy with how she turned out and I’m really thrilled to say that so is the new owner. I hope she inspires little Florence to one day be just as awesome a musician as her beautiful Mum. I haven’t given her a name really. In my mind she is just “The Rock Chick” so perhaps that in itself is the title.

The artwork was constructed on wood panel using Watercolour, Acrylic, Ink and Collage. I finished it off with a layer of yummy resin to give it that little extra something.

I hope you like her. More new art to come soon finally. Keep an eye on my Facebook page for some progress shots.

So if you read my last post you would know I took part in a mail art exchange recently. Well my return mail art from the fantabulous Mindy Lacefield has arrived and boy do I LOVE it.

I just can’t tell you how exciting it was to see the beautifully decorated envelope sitting in my letter box. I knew instantly my little treasure had arrived (this little burst of sunshine literally leapt out from amongst boring old bills in their boring white envelopes). I couldn’t wait to open it.

I’ve been a huge admirer of Mindy’s amazing work for some time now. I just love her style. I was so excited, much like as a youngster (a looooong time ago) when I’d get mail from my pen pal. I’d run off to a quiet corner to savour the moment and pore over every little detail. I sat down, made myself a cup of tea and gently pried it open. It did not disappoint. Here is my little treasure.

Isn’t it amazing?? I really adore everything about it and am so thrilled to have an artwork in my house by such a talented, kind and amazebubbles artist like Mindy.  You can read more about Mindy on her blog Tim’s Sally or check out her Etsy Store to get your hands on your own gorgeous artwork by this talented lady.

A bit of mindless trivia for you. I am a HUGE fan of Drew Barrymore. I’ve seen all of her movies (even the not so fabulous ones) and I just love her to bits. Anyway I was pretty impressed to see that Mindy recently sold one of her paintings to the Hollywood actress Ginnifer Goodwin (read all about it here). Now Ginnifer was in “He’s Just Not That Into You” with Drew so I figure a bonus to having this gorgeous little work of art by Mindy is that it also works out to be just 3 degrees of separation between me and Drew. Hahaha. I know, I’m a bit sad and have way too much time on my hands to think of such things but it’s what I do. Hahaha. Love it!!! Oh and I actually blogged before Xmas YAY!!!

So it’s been a big couple of weeks in cyberland for Run Away Violet. Let me elaborate.

First of all the lovely Kristine over at Living in The Moment  wrote a lovely blog post about my ‘Fairy Lovesong’ painting as part of her Whimsical Wednesdays. How cool is that? I think that’s the first time anyone has ever blogged about me. I was so completely thrilled and honoured to be featured on Kristine’s gorgeous blog. I can’t even describe how awesome that made me feel. Thank you Kristine. You rock!!

Next I was looking at my Etsy shop stats and noticed lots of traffic coming from Tumblr. I have to admit I’ve never really been on Tumblr before. Maybe once or twice looking at  WTF is Matt Bellamy Wearing (this site is hilarious, if you don’t know already Matt is the lead singer of Muse and he is somewhat challenged in the style department). Anyway I clicked on over to check out the page that was sending me traffic All Things Alice In Wonderland only to find my “Tea With Alice” had been on their awesome page and was being passed around Tumblr and reblogged quite a bit. I have to say I was pretty floored by it all. It’s kinda weird and kinda amazing to think that something I drew on a bit of paper from nothing and then painted could have ended up where it did. It blows my mind.

But wait there’s more. My gorgeous first ever Etsy customer put a lovely blog post up about a little print I recently sent her. I honestly cried when I read it. Thank you sweet Debi. :)

And finally my little  mail art girl ‘Danita’ appeared on the Tim’s Sally blog which belongs to the fabulous Mindy Lacefield. It really made my day to see that she had arrived and that Mindy liked her. I can’t wait to open my letterbox to find what little treasure she has sent me in return. I totally loved doing the mail art thing. So cool. I’ll show you what Mindy sends me when it arrives. So excited…..

Anyway that’s all from me for now. Expect another exciting and insightful blog post from me sometime before Christmas :)

Just a quick note to let you all know I am off on a mini holiday this week with my beautiful Mum and lovely Sister and our kidlets. Can’t wait to get to the beach and soak up all the beautiful sights and sounds of the ocean. My little nephew is a crazy mad surfer and I love watching him get out there to do his thing. There’s just something so magical and rejuvenating about the sea isn’t there? I can’t wait to shake the winter blues (and vampire tan) away. Argh!!!! So excited.

Given that I am sooooooo not a regular blogger I’m sure you would hardly even know I was gone anyway. hehehe

I’ve been feeling a bit blocked this week when it comes to my art so hopefully the trip away will free that up too. I’ll definitely be taking my sketchbook and supplies. I just can’t go anywhere without them these days. :)

I have some really cool videos and photos of a big painting day I had with my little munchkins this week that I will blog about when I get home. In the meantime below is a photo of my daughter Milla with her finished canvas (she did one, her brother did another and then they collaborated on a third) I was so proud of what they came up with and how they went about it. More on that next time though. Have a great week. I’ll be thinking of you as I sip cocktails in the sunshine :)

Iris’s beautiful whimsy girl

Just like that I was transported into a very special little realm where “Everyone is Awesome by Default” according to the fantastical Tamara Laporte, the beautiful and generous Artist who created Willowing. I looked at some student art and immediately knew I had to join to find out more. I can’t tell you how inspired I felt. It was like a fire was lit within. I know that sounds like a load of hippy wank but it’s true. I even called my mum and told her I’d found this amazing art community and urged her to join too.

I started by looking at all the wonderful artworks by Tam and her students. To be honest I felt a little out of my depth. These paintings were awesome. I looked at Tam’s courses next and saw that she offered a FREE course called Art, Heart and Healing. Before I knew it I was signed up and watching the first video of Tam’s class. I did the 4 week course in just 4 days. :) I just couldn’t stop.

That was in April this year. Not all that long ago really. I hadn’t drawn anything or done anything all that arty since High School which was a looooooooong time ago. A couple of paintings for my home here and there. I definitely steered clear of doing faces (way too scary) preferring to do abstract stuff if anything but you know Tam is so inspiring and such an amazing teacher that she really does make you feel like you can do almost anything.

Now this is a bit confronting for me to share but I thought I would show you my first attempts at painting as part of the Art, Heart and Healing course. They’re a bit dodge but you know we all have to start somewhere. :)

These are my little whimsies

And this was my Girl

Whoa look at those lips. Hahaha

Anyway thanks to Tam and Iris I haven’t stopped drawing my girly girls ever since that day back in April. I wish I had more time to paint but having 2 little kidlets to chase after doesn’t exactly allow for it at the moment. I’m working on improving my art every chance I get though and am totally loving having this creative outlet. It feels like something I just NEED to do.

If you’ve ever thought about drawing or painting even if just for yourself I thoroughly recommend heading over to Willowing for a play. It really was one of the best things I have ever done in my life. Everyone is so encouraging and supportive and friendly. You’ll love it. And if you join by the end of September you may even be able to see yours truly as one of this months featured artists. I still can’t believe it but I am so thrilled and honoured to see my art up there in the featured art section alongside some truly great artists.

 I really feel blessed to have found Iris (who is totally lovely btw, just like her painting) and the ever wonderful Tam and the awesome community that is Willowing.

PS: Please stop laughing at my paintings now :)

A Cute little Etsy treasury my “Gypsy Landslide” was in recently. Love the punny name :)

‘Darling, You Look Mauvelous!’ by beadenchanting

A treasury featuring exquisite works from the v ery talented artists of the Alexandria Team!

Beach Photography, Blue, Tur… beachbumchix $10.00	Vintage Baroque Oddly Shaped… TUTreasures $3.50	Lilac Dream Garden ArtBeadwork $165.00	Waterfall / Morning Falls / … RayMcMullen $25.00
Slouchy Lacy Crochet Tam Hat… LoveFuzz $36.00	Flying Witch Treat Box ljc3 $1.50	Lavender and white iris RobertPLangdon… $3.50	wedding patchwork wall hangi… tribalvintageb… $109.00
Set of 6 hang tags with Twin… ThePaperPrairi… $3.00	Heather CairineMacGill… $22.99	Recycled Butterfly Shadow Bo… mybutterflyhea… $15.00	Lost scepter – KCF art print KCFF $40.00
FEATURE OIL PAINTING on boar… edwardbowie $295.00	Isabella Bridal Bag – purple… elloriasboutiq… $50.00	Gypsy Landslide 8×10 Art Pri… RunAwayViolet $18.00	Original art ACEO Shimmering… martaharvey $12.00

Treasury tool by Red Row Studio.