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The Blog of Lynn Adams

This is the blog of Lynn Adams - I'm an artist, an illustrator, a doodler and a scribbler and occasionally some of it will make sense.

Tuesday 30 April 2013

The Urge to Paint

This may sound a little odd but I have a real urge to paint a picture - the trouble is it's not a picture that I should  be painting - I have portrait commissions and illustrations to paint and these are the things that my head is telling me that I need to get done but I want to do something purely for me - I suppose this is the problem when you are doing something you love as a job - it takes so much of the fun and spontaneity out of it and you are just doing stuff on a production line and thinking all the time ways of making money from it. So now I'm faced with a dilemma - do I do the painting and get it out of my system so I can move on or do I shove it to the back of my brain and accept the fact that life isn't all about what you want to do but what you need to do!! I suppose it's all about being a grown up and at my age I should have learnt to cope with these sorts of decisions years ago but I don't really feel much like a grown up. Maybe because most of my time is spent thinking about cute creatures and children's stories - switching between that and paying a gas bill isn't always so easy so I tend to stay in my little world of cuteness and only daring to go out into the real world in times of crisis.

The only real conclusion I can come to is to try to divide my time and maybe allow myself a couple of hours a day to do the 'me' painting and the rest of time on everything else - so tomorrow I'm going to buy myself a canvas and start planning!

I've added this purely because I needed a picture of some sort and I though 'Pigs in.....Muck' would nicely illustrate what i'm saying :)

Sunday 28 April 2013

Just a Quickie

The first of my 'Colin' illustrations - would really appreciate some feedback on style - is it too boring or predictable - should it be a bit more crazy - is it flat or dull - any comments help and I can assure you I won't be offended :)


Friday 26 April 2013

Colin the Sheep

Colin The Sheep is just a working title of a children's picture book I'm working on at the moment - as you can probably work out it's all about a sheep....called Colin - Not sure I will stick with this for his name but it was suggested by one of my kids and I'm not sure I would dare to change it now even if I wanted to.

I'm not going to tell you what it's about - that's a secret until I can find someone to publish it - I think it's a nice story that I think kids will enjoy - but I'm bound to say that!!

Whilst I was away on my 'mini-cruise' I had lots of time to story board my book and write out the words for each page so I'm now a little closer to getting it ready to show to publishers. The next stage is a bit of media experimentation - there are so many books out there now that are produced almost entirely on computers but that really isn't my thing - my Photoshop and Illustrator expertise is a little lacking so the art work will be pretty much all done with traditional methods and just finished off on the computer.


Here is a sneak peek of a couple of ideas for the book 

Thursday 25 April 2013

Cruising on a Shoestring

Although it is advertised as a 'Mini-Cruise' I do think this is maybe more wishful thinking than an appropriate label - now don't get me wrong - I was under no illusions that this would be anything like a 'real' cruise - after all it cost us just £109 for 4 people for a 2 night cruise - but in reality it was just a super-long ferry crossing. After booking the 'cruise' I discovered that you were not allowed to take your own food on board this - fact alerting me to the chance that eating on board was going to be expensive and how the company made their money!! Well I'm always up for a challenge so loaded out suitcase with numerous bags of crisps, biscuits and pouches of drinks and hoping that any sniffer dogs at the port wouldn't be trained in detecting Cheesy Wotsits  (after all this was a main link from Amsterdam and I doubt Wotsits are the usual substance smuggled on this route)

Once safely on board we were directed to our cabin or as Louie christened it 'cabinet' - It felt a bit like being on the Titanic and we were definitely in  Steerage - we were so low down in the ship we had to decompress in the lift to prevent getting the bends on the way up - Our cabin was compact and with folding bunks that we thought probably best that the smaller kids don't sleep on (a) the risk of falling from quite a height could result in multiple breakages and (b) I suspect neither of them would have the weight to keep the bunk from folding up with them should the sea get a bit choppy.

As we were even way below the car decks I suspect that our value is considered less than that of an average Vauxhall Astra in cruising hierarchy - demonstrated by the fact that the door next to our cabin was the only thing preventing the sea from entering our level!
 

I really didn't want to risk getting drunk on board and opening this one by mistake!!

On the upside of being this low down we had the drone and the vibration of the engines to soothe us sleep as they seemed to be on the other side of the wall - pretty good central heating source too ;)

Amsterdam was pretty fantastic though - I've been to Holland lots but it was my first time there - will definitely be heading there again but maybe not via a 'mini-cruise' ;)

Monday 22 April 2013

How Much to Charge

Recently I have had a few people surprised at what I charge for my paintings - for a basic pet portrait in watercolour I charge just £80 - when I tell people this they seem to think I'm ripping them off!! So I feel I need to explain how I came up with this figure. The average pet portrait takes anything from 8 to 10 hours to do sometimes more - I use quality paper that costs anything from £5 a sheet - brushes and paints are ridiculously expensive and though I may not use a whole set of paints or need to replace my brushes often, I have still had to invest heavily to get them. I also offer a satisfaction guarantee that if they don't like the painting they don't have to buy it - although I have never had one rejected yet there is still the possibility that I may one day and will have worked for nothing. So I don't think I'm offering a bad service - I don't know many people that would be satisfied working for £8 an hour for skilled work. So please don't expect me to work for any less or in some cases for free - I have bills to pay just like everyone else and I'm not doing this just as a hobby.



Sunday 21 April 2013

Mostly Amelia

I've been up to all sorts this week - although I've not got as much completed as I would like there has been a litte bit of everything - I now have a self imposed deadline for Amelia and The Mental Elf and that will help me to focus - I'm rubbish without deadlines - so easily distracted......oh look it's a squirrel!!! I'm also doing stuff for the Amelia website (which I'll link as soon as it's done) that is going to be so much fun - you will even be able to adopt a Bok-Bok (small, hairy critter with an insatiable appetite)

On Tuesday I'm off on my 'jolly's' for a few days - a mini-cruise to Amsterdam - how good does that sound - though we only get 5 hours in Amsterdam and you have to buy all your food on the boat (extortionate prices) so got to try to smuggle food on board to save a small fortune - hopefully we won't get keel-hauled if we get caught - but it will all add to the excitement - I'm thinking of doing a series of pirate pictures while on board just to add to the ambiance :)

Here's a few pictures from this week just to show I've not been totally idle ;)

black and white illustration for Amelia

Page of Bok-Boks for the website

Map for the website



Saturday 13 April 2013

Another Giveaway

Feeling very generous at the moment and have decided to give away another little painting. This little chap is just so damned cute but he needs a name so to make this giveaway a little more interesting I'm going to get you to name him and the one that comes up with the name that suits him best gets the painting (though I'll probably get someone else to pick the winner). So you have until Monday 15th at 10pm to either suggest a name here or on my Facebook page for a chance to win him. So... on your marks! Get Set!.............GO!!!!!


Sunday 7 April 2013

Little Mini-Message ;)

Just want to add a little mini-message here - it would be great if anyone fancied making any comments about anything I've written at any point - just to prove that I'm not talking to myself - or if anyone has any questions I'd love to answer them ;)

It's Been a While

It seems ages since my last post - though in reality it's only been about 6 days - but it has been a stressful 6 days and that's stressful with a capital STR!!! Being creative when you are stressed is never easy - I'm never satisfied with anything I produce and just want to throw it straight in the bin - people will say it's fine and looks great but I think they are just being kind because I know it really isn't and I will never be happy with it - unfortunately this just adds to the whole stressy thing and I end up getting worse - so in future it's mini-hibernation time until all the stresses are gone and I will allow myself to paint again.

This does however affect this blog because I've got nothing interesting to show from the past week - I have been doing some media experimentation for Amelia but haven't got anything I'm particularly proud of so I'm not going to put that on here. So just to add some pretty pictures I'll show a few pictures  of things I've made that aren't paintings - I suppose it shows a bit of diversification ;)

 
These are little raggy dolls I make called Jeffreys - They are all made from old jumpers and shirts and give me an excuse to collect all sorts of odd buttons  - If you would like any more info on them why not pop along to  Jeffrey & Co on Facebook