We've Moved House

Dear All, If you've stopped by for an outrageous amount of fun and teapartying please, please, please come by and visit us hereLux Etoile

We've had a change of address since invites went out, but rest assured much fun is to be had in our new abode and we're waiting ready to greet you.

See you soon xxx

A New Home

Dear, dear friends, thank you so much for all of your support during my very first tentative steps into building a computer 'presence' - gosh that sounds ridiculously grown up - and trying to be just a little but professional. I realised quite quickly that having various different accounts in various different places with various different names really wasn't going to work for me.  It doesn't take much to confuse my poor little brain and having many different identities was a sure road to disaster for me.  So I have taken the leap and chosen a whole new identity, and that will be my name from now on, everywhere that I am, and I shall be sticking to it, to avoid any confusion - mainly mine! :)  I didn't want to depart too far from the real me and so I've chosen to be Lux Etoile ! Lux because it is from the same Latin root word as my name and because it means light and Etoile because I wanted something french, as I spend so much time there, and it means star, and stars and light go ever so well together :)

So I am working on building an actual proper website, it will take time, but if you stick with me I'm sure I shall get there.  I have started blogging anew here and it would thrill me to bits if you would stop by and say hello some time.  Also, if it would amuse you, you could drop round and have a poke about in my library of inspiration, you'll see some things that are incredible and beautiful and make me want to be a better artist, I might even make you a cup of tea while your visiting :)

See you soon lovely people, stop by and say hello any time, you're always welcome, xxx

A Happy Ending

Yay! A Happy Ending for those little kiddlies, although sadly not for me yet.  I still have another six pictures to complete in this series and my attention is starting to wander.  I have so many ideas that keep bubbling up and so little time to draw them in!

So the poor lost children have finally found their errant parents and the family is reunited, I'm very pleased for them, I felt very guilty leaving them wandering about in that scary chapel for so long.

I stepped out of order because I desperately wanted to draw something happy and I'm pleased that I did, but now I have to backtrack and finish off drawing the rest of their trials and tribulations!

Even More Technology

I have been doing my very best to get my head around coping with two things that scare me - technology self promotion!  I have been busy creating profiles for myself, and I would love, love, love if you would follow me.  

There is of course the ubiquitous facebook page here - LucieDiamonds

And there's twitter here - LucieDiamonte - because someone had already taken my name!

Then there is DeviantArt - LucieDiamonds

And the BetweenCreation network - LucieDiamonds

And lastly there's Flickr - LucieDiamonds244

Is there anything I'm missing?  I have created an etsy sellers account but I'm kind of at a loss as to what to do next, I've dealt with enough scariness today, and I shall leave that for another!

I would be ever so happy if you stopped by and said hello to me in any of these places :)

See you soon xxx

Senses

This is something I've been reworking this week, an old picture that I was inspired to go back to by this months Creative Every Day topic which is 'Senses'.  I'm still not entirely happy with it, the squint floorboards are driving me nuts! 

Into the Ossuary

Well, number 3 is done and I'm totally dissatisfied with it, it's not really how I wanted it to be at all but hey ho, onwards and upwards and all that.  The children have found their way into the ossuary to consult the network of spirits with the problem of how to find their parents, poor little things!

It also seemed quite appropriate for this weeks Illustration Friday topic, 'Linked', I sort of see it as being to do with the exploration of family 'links' and the 'links' we all have with our dead ancestors.  And the Creative Every Day topic this month is 'Senses' so maybe it fits in there too, there's definitely a bit of sixth sense going on there!

I've finally resigned myself to the fact that there's no way on earth I'm going to finish everything on time.  Last week it seemed as though everything was conspiring against me to prevent me from working at all and that put paid to any lingering hopes I had of completion.  I'm still going to finish the whole series , if only for my own peace of mind but it gets harder to work the warmer it gets and the more time the children want to spend outdoors, and both their birthdays are coming up, and we're going back to France soon so who knows when I might finish.

Anyway, it's Sunday afternoon and it's sunny and there's no way I'm sitting inside today so I shall forget it all for the moment, we're off to the park to play football and embarass the children :)

And With The Dawn Came The Inky Black Ducks

Well I'm glad someone came along to rescue those poor children!

Part 2 done! Yay! Relief:)

Must crack on with Number 3 now!

Very, very considerately Illustration friday decided this week that their topic would be 'Rescue' , now that's synchronicity in action.  Just as well really, it's not like I have any spare seconds to draw anything else right now.  

I have my fingers tightly crossed that I will have a huge spurt today and that number three will be done by tomorrow evening at the latest, it's absolutely chucking it down outside and I think that's probably greatly beneficial.  I'm not going to get distracted.  I've even managed to wriggle out of a birthday party tonight so nothing to do now but focus, FOCUS!!!!!!

Here's my new baby, I've decided to call him Hewy, he arrived bright and early on Saturday morning weighing in at a whopping 3.2kg! and measuring 17inches across his screen.  He's settling in very well with all the family.

Of course, I'm not wholly sure that he's going to make me draw faster or give me more time in which to do so but he is definitely going to enable me to start trying to accomplish my second goal of this year which is to begin understanding digital art a bit better and to use a tablet on occasion instead of a pencil.

Now if I could just figure out how to reinstall photopshop!

Part 1 - Lost At Sea

 Well finally I have managed to complete part 1 of 10 and I am very relieved to have done so!  Only 9 more to go now and a little under three weeks to complete the whole project...how do I get myself into these things?  Time management clearly isn't my strong point, I've been prevaricating about these pictures for weeks and now that I've finally got my arse in gear I've put myself under so much pressure through lack of time.  I'll probably never learn.  I was one of those kids that finished homework an hour before it needed handed in!

So this picture is 'Lost At Sea' and although it's the first and I'm calling it number 1 I don't think it will be first in the finished line up.  They are going to sort of tell a story about these two children, who look remarkably like my children, strange that.... In this picture they are lost at sea...in a giant gravy boat.  I don't really have any reason for that other than it seemed like a good idea at the time :)

So, they're lost, I think they're probably searching for their parents who will hopefully show up in the tenth picture.  In the next one I guess someone or something is going to have to help them back to shore but I'm not sure who yet, hopefully that will all become apparent later today :)

HAPPY FRIDAY!!!!!!

Illustration Friday - Subterranean

This is my drawing for this weeks Illustration Friday, the topic is 'Subterranean' which immediately brought to my mind huge underground caverns full of criss-crossing tunnels, stalagtites and stalagmites, a very elaborate landscape.  Of course I didn't have the time for all that, and once I had my editing brain into gear I realised that.  I'm working on several pictures of my children just now so I thought it would probably be best to stay on theme and get in some practice drawing them and so that led me on to.... subterranean children.  Yeah, bit weird, but I'm going with it.

On another note, a little while ago I was lucky enough to win six prints from IsabellasArt . They arrived here yesterday and they are absolutely beautiful.  An absolute must-see blog for anyone that loves fairytales and pen and ink illustrations as much as I do.

HAPPY FRIDAY!

Prevaricating

It's absolutely gorgeous outside today, one of the first properly sunny days this year, it's calling me to go outside and play...or maybe thats the children :) I have so much painting that needs to get done and at the moment I seem to be finding any excuse not to do it. I've committed to finishing ten paintings by the 15th of April and so far not a single one is and I've just discovered that my original paper choice is really awful so even the ones that were started are going to have to be done again! AAAAAAAAARRRGGGHHH!!!! On top of that I spent all weekend working on a drawing only to go far to far and totally ruin it. It feels sometimes that the moment just isn't right and that I should just not bother picking up a pencil for a few days. So until tomorrow I am not even going to try, I'm going to bake bread and go for a walk and read and then tomorrow I shall be refreshed and ready to start again. That's bound to work right?

And here's yet another project that I still haven't finished.  This was my Mum's birthday present in October last year and ever since I have been meaning to make a bigger version of it and put some colour into it, maybe the background.  So 5 months later and have I even begun? no of course not!!!! I even frustrate myself sometimes.

Getting My Head Round Technology

It's been some time coming, but recently I have realised that I can draw and draw and draw until the cows come home, but if nobody ever knows about it I will never, ever be as successful as I would like to be. I know that it is obvious to everyone else but it has only just occurred to me that art with no audience is really such a waste. And so, I am very gradually conquering my long list of fears and trying to get my pictures out there into the world. This blog feels like one of the very biggest steps to me and I'm quite scared. Any words of encouragement would be extremely gratefully received. So to complete my very first blog post ever I think I should probably include at least a tiny sampling of my art.



This is my most recent creation, worked on for far too long, it ended up being totally season inappropriate by the time it was actually finished. The idea was conceived in the dark depths of an icy French Winter but I've finally given birth to it amid daffodils and sunshine. I think the next fear to overcome should be deadlines!