We finally got to meet the twins!

Yesterday, as we were getting ready to finally see our twin nephews for the first time, a parcel arrived. I was a bit surprised as I had not orderd anything, and the name on the back did not mean anything to me. When I opened it, I figured out it was from the Magic Bartender, a very nice lady I talk to on Twitter.

In the parcel she had put a symbol of good luck and blessing for the mum and dad, dollies for the boys and even some fingerless gloves for me! Yayy!




I also fiiiinally finished the baby blankets for the twins, so I wrapped them up, too.


And then we finally got to meet the twins! They have grown a lot, 7lbs for Jenson and 6lbs8 for Lewis, but they are still so tiny, and still on oxygen. But they are doing well and are getting more kisses and cuddles than ever now that they're home with their mum and dad and two brothers and sister.

Here's Lewis on the left and Jenson on the right, held by their mum:


And I got to hold Lewis, too!!


Once again, thank you everyone for asking after the twins and sending your prayers and thoughts. It means a lot.

Link Love Friday (5)

I know this blog has become all about the puppy lately, but I can't help it she's just too cute not to talk about her.... I'll get back to art again, I promise!

Even before we had Keesha and I was trying to work with Luke who refused to learn anything new at his old age, I've been following some cool dog trainers on Youtube and learned quite a bit about how to get your pooch to walk on the lead properly, what clicker training actually is and how you can use it, and even how to get your dog to do cool tricks.

Here are some of my favourite dog trainers on Youtube:

David the dogtrainer:


Emily of Kikopup


Ashley of Hunkymonkeykaine


Katie of 3LostDogs


If you know any more great dog trainers on Youtube, please let me know!

Get your puppy fix

Keesha, 9 weeks and 1 day old..
More pictures here

Sketchbook Delight

Those who follow me on Twitter already know; I'm taking the Sketchbook Delight course by Alisa Burke and am really enjoying it! It gives me even more reason to play with my watercolours and that can only be a good thing, right?

This week, the topic was 'inspiration' and I suddenly remembered my Project 365 pictures. What an inspiration!











In the next few weeks, be sure to keep an eye on my Flickr set, I'll be posting more pictures there.

Water colour Wednesday (6)

Today's Watercolour Wednesday started out being about layers.



But then it became about mixing colours. The different blues and greens make even more beautiful turquoises.


Tye asked why I was painting wallpaper....



Filling in the page with paint in all the shades I could come up with..



The more I learn about how to mix these paints the more I'm enjoying them. Even though I know I'm not the first person to mix sap green and cobalt blue, it feels like I'm inventing something completely new, making these paints my own.

Great Joy

While my heart and head are still trying to catch up with everything that happened in the last week, we have found that we quite agree with the saying 'a house without a dog is not a home'. (Or without a cat, or a gerbil or any animal that you prefer).

So meet the new addition to the family, the lovely little Keesha. Her name means Great Joy, and aside from all the bitemarks I've already got on my hands and ankles, she's living up to her name.

She is a sable German Shepherd, and looking at her feet, she will be a big girl before we can even blink.

I can see a lot of puppy posts and videos in my future. Hope you're ready for that....

Sketch Tuesday (6)

It's been a rough couple of days and sketching has not exactly been on my mind that much, but I do have a few drawings to show you.

Bye bye Luke

Last October, our crazy labrador Luke had his first stroke. It was scary, he was yelping and seemed 'stuck', not able to use his legs, no bladder control.. By talking to him and stroking him, he came to. It took him about half an hour and then he seemed back to normal.

The vet said older dogs get these, and other than doing what we were already doing, there wasn't a lot he could do.

Last night, at 11pm, he had another one. This one was a lot lot worse than last time, lasted a lot longer and seemed to have effected him for much longer. It took him 45 min. to get up and walking again. Then at 2am he had another one, at 4am another one.... just before Tye came home from work he had another one... Before we could take him to the vet he had another small one and one big one at 10 this morning.

It was time.

Thank you Luke, for being a great dog and for showing me that not all dogs are scary (before I moved here I was so scared of dogs I'd rather cross the streets in busy traffic than to walk past him, but with Luke I even dared to walk him at the park, meeting all kinds of dogs!). I already miss you terribly, but it's good to know you are no longer in pain.

Bye bye Lukey-boy...

Link Love Friday (on a Saturday)

Yeah yeah, I know, I'm a day late with my Link Love Friday.... but here it is...

This last week has been about Loving Kindness, as you may have spotted on Twitter, Ustream and Flickr. It has been about being true friends, and not standing for those friends being attacked. It has been about art and coming together as a group. It was about getting to know new people and making new friends.

So this Link Love is about those who made this week possible, who participated in the Ustream-a-thon or just watched, who posted their Loving Kindness art work on their blogs or the Flickr group dedicated to this cause.

Thank you so much for this last week:
JellyBeansDesigns
Leslie Herger
Paula aka Journal Artista
IKerriLove
Lily aka ArtJourney
Tammy Ozuna
Dede aka Inkwell
Deina aka TheAmpleGoddess

I know this is an incomplete list and I apologize if your name is not on it because there have been so many of you who have made this week a brilliant success and one to never forget. But please know that I have loved every minute of it and that I appreciate you being part of it.

The week may be over now, but The Loving Kindness Project is something that will only grow bigger and better, so please keep posting your art work.

Thank you all for a wonderful week!

Water colour Wednesday (5)

Once you start working in a new medium, you suddenly see it everywhere. People using it in ways you never even thought of.
See, when you think of water colours you think of landscapes and flowers and traditional things like that, but then I stumbled across this blogpost by Gentian and completely fell in love with her style.

I am far from the world's best in drawing faces, but if you never do you'll never learn, so...

I sprayed the page a little:


I started painting by mixing sap green and Payne's gray:


and then Hooker's Green light and Payene's Gray and using some of the grey on its own:



Of course my result is nowhere near Gentian's work, but I quite like it...

Sketch Tuesday (5)

It's Sketch Tuesday number 5, can you believe it? Time sure does fly...

This week, I've been trying to catch up with the Daily Drawing Challenge, and ended up with 18 sketches. That means I've sketched from 9 pictures, not bad for a week's work.

Now, I will not be showing you all 18 pictures here on the blog, but if you're curious, you can go to my Flickr account to see all of them.