3 months of Elliot - 2.5 years of Dylan & new art!

Well hello there faithful reader. :) It's been a while, I know, but what can I say: things have been busy. :)

I'm sitting here, unwashed with my trousers inside out. True story that. This be life with kids under the age of 3. Things like showering and wearing your trousers the right way out become lower on the list of priorities. Haha. Also, you become a bit frazzled and absent-minded on very little sleep. I didn't notice until quite a bit after I'd put my trousers on, that they were -in fact- inside out. But I'm now just deciding it's a fashion statement. Ha.

So, Andy is back! Yay! All is well in the world again. Dylan was over the moon to have his daddy back and me too! Elliot didn't really notice it much though he smiles big grins whenever Andy holds him.

Elliot was 3 months old this weekend! (And Dylan 2.5 years old! Eeek, time goes by so fast).

So, 3 months of Elliot. A huge smiley baby. Started smiling pretty much the first week he was alive. Doesn't like lying down much, wants to see things and get going, stands on his legs and kicks them hard if you hold him upright. He's already trying to roll over (Dylan couldn't be bothered at this age). Sleeps pretty well, though lately wakes up more at night. Has a droopy eye lid (or the other eye lid is open too much, not sure). Likes chewing on his fist. Is happy to lounge in the baby björn, as long as you face him outwards. Needs entertainment. Is very alert, takes everything in. When he is unhappy, he lets us know through either squealing or screeching. He's very good at expressing his unmet needs at this point. ;) His skin is soft and beautiful and his head smells of daisies and snowflakes, they should bottle this stuff! ;) He's pretty much the best, awesomest addition to our family. :D

Art Stuffs:

I've been working on a new portrait which may or may not be added to my Life Book, I might mount it onto wood and put it up for sale if it doesn't go into the Life Book. If you follow me on Facebook, you would've seen the progress shots already, but here they are again:

This piece is still not finished yet, but I was much happier with the 3rd version. The 2nd one was much too busy! Will post the final piece soon. I was very happy with the shading on this portrait. I feel like my shading skills are developing more and more. :)

I was also very inspired by something Alissa Burke did, she posted it HERE. She'd basically done this creative doodle and then pasted a picture of her baby in it! Awesome idea, so I did something similar and pasted lil Elliot into it:

Very fun to do! :) Here are some more detailed photographs from when I was working on it though it was mostly finished at that point and I used another pic of Elliot. The paints you see there are gouache. I used gouache, watercolour crayons and some of the letraset watercolour markers (which I've not found as great as everyone else seems to find them! They're ok but I was expecting them to be more watersoluble, anyhooz):

 

Lastly, I'm super excited because I found this AWESOME art journal! It has actual hot-pressed watercolour paper in it! I've been looking for a journal like this forever and could never find journals with watercolour paper in it (so I bound my own, but it's time consuming), but I found one now! It's the "Saunders Waterford Series" (tried to look for a link online, but can't find one, I bought mine in my local art store here).

I love the size of it and it's got these awesome frayed pages at the edges. I'm so glad I found this journal because I've not had one that I liked recently which means I don't do much journaling and therefore less emotional processing. Glad to be able to start journaling properly again!

Anyhoo. That's me for today. Ta-rah lovely people! <3