we wish you a merry christmas .....

eat, drink and be merry ..... so i did what i was told.  prawns, salad and sauvignon blanc ....m.mmm

thankyou Miss Blu ...

today i was just sitting here thinking about how much my life has changed this year in so many ways.  the most positive is that i am now totally absorbed in art and so so loving it.

earlier this year i decided that i could no longer not do art, so i decided to start from the basics again and do a drawing class at the local community college.  mistake. big mistake.  the teacher was woeful. woeful. i won't bore you with the details, but basically she didn't teach, just put an object in front of us and said draw it, whenever a student asked for guidance she seemed quite taken aback.  odd.

i wasn't giving up.  so I turned to the good ole internet in search of instruction and found the divine miss Suzi Blu.  what an inspiration. what a teacher.  what a wonderfully kooky girl. what an artist!! her art is unique and magnificent.

i have learnt so much from her classes apart from art that I can't begin to tell you.  mostly though i learnt that yes, i am an artist (suzi says so).  suzi has also given me the confidence to open an etsy shop (no one has bought anything, but that doesn't matter, i opened an etsy shop!!!! yay to me!).

suzi taught me to paint backgrounds and beautiful girls. how to blend to make their skin look divine, how to make their eyes pop and their lips luscious.

not long after i started my first suzi class one of my friends had just been diagnosed with cancer and was looking to do some art, i sent her suzi's website and she too enrolled in suzi classes. we spent many an hour talking about how much we enjoy suzi and how much we love painting the girls! also how much we felt encourage by suzi and how much confidence she instills, and i think that is the key to suzi, she is genuine and authentic and truly wants you to succeed in your pursuit of blissful art.  i know i might sound like some crazy groupy nutcase, but she really is wonderful.

i really thank suzi for re-igniting my creative spirit and i hope that one day i can meet her and give her a big squeezy hug and say 'thanks suzi blu - you're great!'. 

so if you want to be an artist, a suzi blu class is the place to be!


here is one of my first girls, just love her ....if i can do this after a few weeks, so can you. Bliss.

trees heart hearts

beautiful sunday morning and took my new camera down at the park with miss macool and we found some tree love ... quite amazed as I had not noticed them before, surprising what you see when you are looking!!

... and the biggest heart of all  ::  this is the one. the only. the magnificent and divine Finn Macool II and her favourite stick of the morning. true finny bliss.

garage sale bliss bliss and more bliss

i love a garage sale. absolutely. no denying it.

it is quite difficult to find a really great garage sale where you want to buy everything they have.  my theory  ...having been to many many many many .... is that every 5th one is GREAT!!!  that doesn't mean you get through 4 horrid ones and the next is vintage bliss.  it means that if you suffer through the greasy old bbq's and disgusting plastic garden pots for long enough you will hit heaven like i did on saturday (see below photos for evidence).

there was so much great stuff that i didn't buy (no room, have enough already).  the best bit is that this wonderful woman that was having the sale has just moved into the area and does this as a hobby.  collects vintage goodies from charity shops and garage sales then every few months off loads what she doesn't really want in a garage sale.  Love that woman! Bliss.

The white table is in great condition and most likely from the 50s or 60s.  the brass trolley's top shelf is a removable tray - love it.  Not too sure about the oil paintings, but i loved the colours, may take the frames off and take another look at them. the mirror is deliciously dilapidated and i thought it needed a happy home for its final days. Happy girl!  And it was my birthday on Saturday, so doubly happy girl.

just remembered .... a few weeks ago at a garage sale i found a 5 arm vintage crystal chandelier for $3!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Yes THREE dollars.   I grabbed it and didn't let go of it until I got to the car.  What a beauty!

Bliss to all.

musical trees and curly trees :: loving trees

i am still trying to find MY style of painting and collage.  i do love my Wilhelmina, Millicent and the gorgeous Prudence, i really do .... but i am finding great bliss in trees also.

here are a couple of my latest tree paintings.  think i'll keep going on the tree collage theme for awhile and see where it takes  me.  what do you think??

i will get prints into my etsy shop soon and hopefully someone will love one enough to purchase. Bliss to all!

my leonard, yummy pinot and how I got the irishman to tassie

we are just back from a four night trip to tasmania. i have wanted to visit tassie for as long as i can remember but have never been successful in getting the irishman down there.  then it came to me .....

we both love leonard cohen ...well, i didn't until last year when the irishman dragged me kicking and screaming to a concert (his sister was visiting from ireland at the time and an hour before the concert i was pleading with her to take my ticket).  i left the concert madly in love with the seventy-something year old leonard and don't know why a hadn't been lovin him for years! i now refer to my leonard as, you guessed it, my leonard. the most magical and spiritual and blissful concert I have been to in my life (and i've been to too many to remember).

anyway, this year he was playing in a massive arena as sydney had realised how fabulous he is, and we didn't want to experience the magic of my leonard in that environment, so i thought - lets see him in little ole tassie where there wont be a huge arena.  genius, yes i know!

so that is how i got the irishman to tassie. here are some photos from the adventure.

 the really really old and magnificent bridge in new norfolk ... i think it may be the oldest in Australia even.

 a wine dog ... pooley wines

had to stop to let an echidna cross the road ....aww

another divine wine dog that autographed my 'wine dogs' book


we had a magnificent time.  visited wineries and tasted far too many divine pinot noirs (is that possible?), experienced the divine mr cohen, walked through forests, drove around valleys and generally had a blissful time. 

the best thing ... the irishman wants to go back!!! Yay to me!!

Tidy ?? Untidy?? Hmm

is it possible to keep a tidy art room if you are a perpetually untidy person?   My husband says no.


i am an untidy person! i can't (naturally) keep anywhere tidy. i always have papers, paints, canvases, finished paintings all sitting on the floor.  My desk is always a hodge-podge of stuff just dumped onto it (please refer to evidence in below photo)  it gets so bad that sometimes it even annoys me!  but somehow i manage to get stuff done. and believe it or not a tidy it up weekly and put stuff away.

my honey-pie's theory (and i believe he read an article about this that got him mentioning it) is that if you are a naturally untidy person, no matter how frequently you tidy up, you will be back in a big untidy mess before you can say "blissful brush", because that is how your brain is wired.

you know, I think he might be right.  just take a look at the desk in my art room in the photo below.  i know i tidied this up on friday.  really, i did. honest.

maybe i need to make a concerted effort to keep things tidy?  prove my honey-pie wrong.  nah, why would i want to do that? let him be right.

Yellow Beetroot & Purple Carrots ... are you serious???

I was at the growers market on Sunday morning and one of the suppliers had the most amazing veges.  I bought some yellow beetroot and purple carrot. Such amazing colours, especially when they were cooked.

The carrots were purple on the outside and yellow on the inside.  Seriously - they were. I roasted the carrots and both coloured beets.  The taste of the yellow was out of this world.  It didn't have the earthy taste that the red usually does.  And it was so golden yellow.

This same supplier also had really fresh garlic, still attached to the stems.  It was the really really really fresh stuff that when cut is snow white in colour and totally drips in juice everywhere.  Mmmmmmmm, love my garlic. 

Ah - fresh live food. You can't beat it can you??!!

Prudence, Wilhelmina and Millicent

Yes, the girls all have names.  I thought it is the least they deserved as they have given me so much pleasure and happiness creating them.  They are lovely girls.  Very friendly, amiable and would bring great joy to any household.  So I know they won't last long in the shop window before they are snapped up.

I have listed prints of the gorgeous girls on Etsy - http://www.etsy.com/shop/TheBlissfulBrush and also on Made It - www.madeit.com.au/TheBlissfulBrush

This is a really big thing for me, I can't tell you how thrilled I am with myself.  Yes, alot of patting myself on the back. It is a small step I know, but a big one on my journey to living the creative life that I dream of.  Yay to me!!!

Now get back to work Jennifer and bring some more crazy haired girls to life!!

Etsy here I come ....

Am finallly finishing some paintings ready for Etsy and my new life with an Etsy shop - woo hoo, very excited.  I am not even contemplating that they will sit in the shop gathering dust.   I am expecting success!! Huge success!

So here they are - two of my gorgeous girlies!

I am getting quite attached to these unusual creatures, having spent so much time with them recently, and have only just this minute realised that I should name them. They deserve unique and unusual names to match their appearance don't you think? What about Methusla, or Gwendolyn? Hortense... Constance ... Lucretia?  ... Wilhelmina? ... Prudence? 

Really need to give that some proper thought.

Spring has sprung .... sprouted .... surprised me.... ?

Sydney has just been through the coldest winter in 13 years.  That isn't really saying alot, it just means that I wasn't imagining how cold it was.

Then last week I look around there are flowers everywhere. Yay -SPRING!!!! My garden went from drab to fab in a few weeks.  Wonderful.  Colourful. Weedful! (I think if I spent 8 hours a day for the next month weeding my garden, I wouldn't be finished.  Well maybe, but you get my point - too many weeds for one girl to cope with).

So I thought I would take some photos of the first flush of flowers and brighten my life and my blog.

Incomplete Art

One of my many unfinished art pieces.  I just get so excited about starting a new project, work away at it blissfully and then cannot add those final touches to complete it.  I then usually put it aside.  Start another project.  Find the old one after a few days. Do some work on it. Look at it lovingly wondering how to finish it.

Here is one of the latest that is waiting for it's final bits to send it off to completed art heaven.  Any ideas?  I think I need some inspirational words cut out and pasted on? Or maybe I just need a holiday in France to think about it.  Bliss.

Woo hoo - my first blog post!!

Hi, it's me .... Jennifer with my first blog - woo hoooooooooo!!!!

Finally have taken the first step and started a blog. I've only talked about it for more than a year (can't believe how fast the past year has gone by the way). I am expecting REALLY big things to happen.   No clue what - but BIG BIG BIG things!!!  But really ....anything would be great.

I have far too many questions in relation to my blog though:

• Will anyone ever read it?
• Will anyone ever leave a comment?
• Does it matter if no one ever does?
• Will I totally freak out if someone does?
• Can I really be authentic and say what I want in my blog without caring what others think?  (now that's a hard one).
• Will I love writing in my blog?
• Will I hate writing in my blog?

Who knows .... but here goes hey!

Welcome to Blog World Jennifer - scary and exciting as it is, I am sure you will love it!! Woo hoooooo!