Useful painting tools?

These painting tools look useful, I'd like to try them:

Lisa Schmitz, the owner of Whispers From the Moon, shows us how to use Catalyst Blades and Wedges with heavy body acrylic paints and mediums. As an artist and clinical therapist, Lisa draws upon a variety of body-centered modalities, indigenous ceremony and creative expression. Lisa loves using heavy body paints and mediums to cover large areas of canvas, then working back in with color & texture detail. Located in the Historic Oak Park Art District, Whispers From the Moon is a haven for creative expression and personal awareness.

Untitled painting, for Brigalow Arts Festival

I like to put at least one painting in our local annual Brigalow Arts Festival each year. This year I procrastinated so much that I didn't have the painting started before entries closed, so it's "Untitled". Not only that, but I finished this painting Friday morning, before delivering it to the Biloela Civic Centre just a few hours later! Tsk tsk.



Yes, it's not like anything I've painted previously. This was an experiment.

What's life without "having a go"?

Painting: "Preston the Pirate"

This is for my nephew's, Preston's, bedroom wall. He's the pirate in the middle, & those are his parents on either side! My sister likes it, so I'm happy enough, but it was darn hard to try to get a likeness in the faces at that size!

Painting: "One Magical Day"

I painted this miniature painting over two days, for our local art group's Christmas break up dinner's lucky dip type swap:


Last year names were drawn by chance & each recipient got to choose from the wrapped gifts, one by one, which is a system I prefer.

This year our most famous local artist's husband chose a wrapped gift to hand to each recipient, & recipients just took their turns according to where they happened to be sitting.

Each attendee brought either a piece of their own art (or craft) or art supplies, for the Christmas gift table.

I hope the recipient of "One Magical Day" enjoys having it in her home?

Here is a detail:


Can you tell me what type of bird this is? Yes, it is a real bird, which exists in our real world.

The other bird, on the jersey cow's head, is a Gouldian finch.

The tree is a bottle tree, in case you're wondering why it's a peculiar shape. Here in central Queensland, Australia, we have bottle trees. I hadn't seen any until I moved here (from south east Queensland). I think bottle trees are cute, do you? Here's a photo of a young small one, from my own garden:

Article: Acrylic Painting on Paper

Winsor & Newton offer an article by Derek Massey, on Acrylic Painting on Paper:

Derek Massey has been a full time professional UK artist since 1987.

Mr Massey states in his article: "The end result is as good as a traditional oil painting, with the added advantage of a very fast drying time...plus little or none of the odour one associates with oil paints...has all the qualities of a water colour and the added dimension this paint has to offer..."

Click here to have the artist guide you with step by step photographs of his works in progress, explaining his techniques throughout.

Painting: "Stoney Creek"

"Stoney Creek"
34.5cm x 22cm (13.6" x 8.7")
Acrylic on 300gsm watercolour paper


"Stoney Creek" is one of a series of paintings inspired by prints for sale at the Etsy shop "smallstump".

A creek winds through my parents' property. When we were children, we were allowed to 'swim' in the waterhole only when the creek was flowing with clear water.