Thursday 23 February 2023

New Painting: Wild Flowers by the Sea

This digital watercolour looks more like a traditional one, showing a path between a green wildflower meadow and the splashing sea or ocean. The path leads up into soft green hills...
"Wild Flowers the Sea," by Clare Walker

Hello there

Hope that you've had a great week and are thriving.

This week's post is all about giving you a chance to breathe, relax, and take a stroll along a deserted coastal path, bordered by a wild flower meadow, and leading into soft green hills...

I hope that you enjoy this as much as I loved creating it, and it gave me a sense of peace (and mojo) that have been missing for a while, all-in-all. It is a digital watercolour (in Rebelle 5...But somehow, it came out looking surprisingly traditional.

So please do watch this space for more like it, and for the final destination for this painting too.

In the meantime,  please relax into this image if you'd like, and have a lovely week.

More soon.

Thursday 16 February 2023

Here's A Free Floral Animated Gif to Share...

Gif shows pink watercolour flowers that "shower" splatters, follewed by the words Sending this...With Lots of Love and Hugs
Click, right-click  or tap here
to download

Hello there

It's a quick check-in with you today, but hope all's well and that you're thriving.

I made this animated gif to cheer up a friend...and then realised it would be a lovely thing to release to help you share some cheer and joy around as well.

So, feel free to download and share this image to cheer up anyone you think might like it.

 (As ever, copyright remains with me, and credit is always appreciated, but never required).

And other than that, this has been one of those "in-between" weeks where there's plenty going on, but nothing that I can share yet.

Take care, and more soon.

Thursday 9 February 2023

Announcing: New Spring Daffodil Craft Sheets (and the Story Behind Them).

Image shows a mock-up of three sheets of yellow white and orange paterned daffodils, a card front sheet, inserts and verses and a daffodil-vase patterned background.
Click or tap here to see the Spring Daffodil 
card sheets in more detail.


Hello there

Hope all is really well with you. And yes, as you've probably guessed from the picture above, it's time for the unveiling of three more sheets for card-making, papercraft, scrapbooking and all similar tasks.

These ones feature bright spring daffodils (about which, much more below).

There's a main card front sheet, (which lets you make decoupage daffodil layers if you'd like) an insert sheet (plus bonus daffodil-related verses) and a background daffodil-vase patterned sheet. The sentiments and verses will work for any occasion from St David's Day on 1st March, to birthdays, Easter, and even anniversaries.



The story...

But in any event, thought you might like to know the story behind this design.

It started in the depths of winter a few week ago, when some friends (you know who you are, and thanks *so* much again) were kind enough to send me a surprise bouquet of flowers...

Photo of a bunch of mixed daffodils



The flowers were so stunning (especially at this time of year) that I got rather more excited about taking pictures than worrying about the background :-) ... But am sure you get the idea.

The whole thing was so inspiring, in fact, that I also *finally* got around to painting an empty jar that had been hanging around, with yup, daffodil motifs...


Photo of Daffodils Painted onto a Jar
A painted jar...


(I'd never used acrylic paint pens before, and let me tell you, they were *fun* :-) ).


The next step was to fill that jar with tiny LED fairy lights.

Photo of the daffodil painted jar filled with lit-up fairy lights, shining in the darkness
Daffodil light jar...



The next project was the rough sketch that morphed into the "Daffodil Vase" pattern (eventually).

Watercolour sketch of daffodils in a blue vase
Rough Watercolour Daffodil Sketch



And then the motifs for the main designs of the sheets from the start of this post...

Watercolour Daffodil Motif



I guess I'm telling this story because so much joy came from that one bunch of flowers...Just as it can from any act of kindness, really.

Time to leave it there,  and to wish you a lovely weekend when it comes.

Thanks so much for reading down this far, and more soon.

Thursday 2 February 2023

It's Groundhog Day All Over Again: Free Marmot / Groundhog Background

Cute watercolour/watercolor marmots ort groundhogs play hide and seek behind rocks in this cute free background.
Free Groundhog/Marmot Background
Click, right click  or tap to download

Hello there

Hope you're thriving and ready for today's free download: Cute groundhogs, in a printable that you can use in lots of different ways.

The sheet prints out well (300 dpi) at ordinary A4 size in a home printer, and is based around a pattern that's also on lots of cute stuff in the shop...

A confession...

I would have got this to you before today ('cos as I type, it as already Groundhog Day, Feb 2nd).

But for reasons best known to myself, I only realised this morning that marmots and groundhogs are the same animal...

Anyway, you have them now (and let's face it, cute marmots/groundhogs help to make life happier at any time of year, don't they?). (Here's the download link again, if you need it).

Hope you have loads of fun with this.