all that glitters...

So the final week of my challenge came and went! It was a great experience and has given me confidence and structure that I don't think I would have gained, certainly not that quickly. Day 23: Gouache Day 24: Ink Day 25: Pastel Day 26: Acrylic Day 27: Acrylic Day 28:Acrylic Day 29: Pastel day 30: Acrylic Most of the pictures from this series are available for sale. If you are interested, please message me for details. So now for a short time to reflect on what I have learned and where I want it to take me.  You can follow my progress here, or on instagram @hrequineart

August is whizzing by and I can't quite believe I only have one week of my challenge left. I will miss it in some ways, but won't miss the struggle of finding time to paint. Some of these have been very late night sessions. Day 16: Ink Day 17: Graphite Day 18: Pastel Day 19: Ink Day 20: Gouache Day 21: Graphite Day 22: Gouache You can follow my progress daily on instagram  @hrequineart

August is flying and I am already past the halfway mark of my challenge! Day 9: Pastel Day 10: Watercolour Day 11: Ink Day 12: Graphite Day 13: Acrylic Day 14: Graphite Day 15: Pastel You can follow my progress daily on instagram @hrequineart.

Time to challenge myself! 30 paintings in 30 days. But there are more rules to make things interesting 😈 1. One subject. For me, horses obviously. 2. Six mediums: Watercolour, gouache, acrylic, ink, pastel, graphite. 3. Only 5 paintings in each medium. So... I have put the name of each medium on a straw, to be drawn each morning, so I never know what I will get! Once I have drawn/used a medium 5 times, that straw will go in the bin so potentially the scope could narrow fairly quickly. Time will tell. Day one was graphite. Not my favourite medium and one of the reasons for the challenge; to get me out of my comfort zone and try different things Day two was ink and another medium I don't usually use, talk about in with a bang! I thought I would try my hand at zentangling for this one. It hurt my eyes! I now have to wait and see what tomorrow brings! You can follow my progress on instagram @hrequineart

The title of this post refers to how I am going back and forth between mediums. The theme between them remains constant though, as I am exploring ways of getting texture into my painting. The trick is to open up the imagination - push paint through material, sand, salt and break all the "rules" :) Back in Black Acrylic on stretched canvass Buckskin Watercolour on 300gsm paper You can follow me on instagram @hrequineart for regular updates on my work

A winter sunset I actually like the days between Christmas and New Year. Christmas is done, the planning, stress and everything that goes with it is finished, I am off work for a few days and finally have time to come up for air and clear my head. It's a good time to reflect on the year gone by. So much happens and is forgotten in our busy lives, so its nice to have a chance to revisit and mentally digest everything; the good, the bad, the ugly and to realise how far I have come and how lucky I am . Whilst it's human nature to remember the bad stuff, it's so important to remember the good and to turn what you thought was bad around into something positive. From this reflection, I can set my goals for the coming year. I believe very much in constant development and evolution. Stand still and this world will leave you behind. Listen, learn evolve and grow! I will endeavour to record some of my progress here as well as my Facebook page http://www.facebook.com/hrequin...

Yes, Autumn is pretty much here. The days are getting shorter, the leaves are fading from green to gold, and the breeze is fresh. Another summer is departing and leaves me wondering where on earth the time goes! Then I look back to the Spring and it feels like a long time ago, so I think it's just a sign of how much we seem to pack into our lives that makes it feel like the time evaporates. This watercolour was inspired by one of my sunset rides. I love how the light turns everything golden and my horse seems to enjoy it too! Wherever you are, I hope you can find time to enjoy a sunset or two this week. Heather You can follow me on facebook: www.facebook.com/hrequineart and instagram: hrequineart.

It's funny, I was a salesperson for 17 years but self promotion just doesn't come easily to me. Still, necessity breeds action (or something like that), so in addition to my ramblings here, I have a facebook page for my art: www.facebook.com/hrequineart and I have joined instagram as hrequineart. Feel free to visit, like, follow or whatever. Meanwhile my collections All that Glitters and Silhouette are available. They come mounted and framed and ready to hang for £35 + delivery. This is Sapphire - My thoughts are now turning to my next collection, plus I have a commission to get busy with, but first a little special canvass I think! Watch this space to see what I do with it. :)

This week, thanks to enjoying some discounted bottles of iced latte, I thought I'd do something different with the empty bottles. Following the excellent tutorial from Gabrielle Pollacco, I altered the bottles. It was an easy, fun project. I thought I would share my step by step photos to show what I did with the bottles. First, I took the labels off, washed and dried the bottles, then added 2 coats of gesso to each. When the gesso was completely dry, I gave each bottle 2 coats of a pale yellow acrylic paint. When the paint was dry, I went over the necks, base and edges with brown ink, smudging it and blending to give the paint an aged look. Next, I mixed a watery blend of brown and black acrylic paint and splattered the bottles, using a dry brush dipped in the paint. I stamped randomly around the bottles with black ink before adding my decoupage from the first edition Rose Garden pad, plus some of my own had made flowers and tied ribbon around the neck. Et Voilà!

Just a short, sweet update this week as I have had to work (day job) for 6 days in a row, so this is my one day off before I'm back to work tomorrow :( Still, I have made time to finish a couple of wip's so I feel that I have accomplished something! These are 2 more in the All That Glitters series. These are such fun to do. Twinkling water colour backgrounds, bordered with texture paste. The horses are painted in gouache. I love the contrast of the shimmery background and flat mat subject. It shouldn't work, but it does!

Mid summer! My favorite time of year. All the blooms are in full swing. The meadows are full of poppies, dog roses are flowering and raspberries are ripe for picking. I guess that's why my palette has been influenced by pinks, reds and greens this week. The week's medium of choice are the Derwent Inktense Blocks. A wonderful birthday gift :D, along with some other inks and texture paste. Meanwhile, I am not so delighted with the gouache experiment, things didn't really go the way I'd hoped, so I changed direction with it. The oils have now come out to see if they will give me the look I'm after....