Nicole Cadet Fantasy Art

Photoshop, half an hour... looks much better at the smaller size :P Playing around with textured brushes

Digging the sci-fi vibe... need to paint more sci fi!

Copy and paste from someone on the Brisneyland LJ group :)

Today 1st May 2008, Realestate.com.au and Mission Australia launched
their House for the Homeless campaign.

Realestate.com.au will donate $1 for every person who visits
www.housesforthehomeless.com.au up to a total of $100,000.


Contributions will go towards a number of Mission Australia's services,
within Australia which provide 24-hour, support base for the cities
homeless population.

Just log on to www.housesforthehomeless.com.au enter the number you see in the box and press the ‘click now’ button. Easy.

Not ignoring people, just having majorly busy life at the moment! Work again tonight, probably only until midnight (as opposed to 3AM)... At home having dinner and a shower at the moment. Sneaky peaky at what I've been working on... ACEO card to be put up for sale on ETSY at some stage

I'm so tired... worked from 7:30am til 4pm (been trying to get away since 3:30) I'm going back into work at 6:30pm to supervise a code release. I'm hoping for a really smooth release with no dramas and a rather anticlimactic result. Shall be there probably til about 11pm. I decided to come home for a few hours so I could shower, eat a decent meal, and get away from the phones and emails! OMG, I need the silence :P

I think I want more four day weeks :P I had Friday off because I had some flex hours I needed to use. I did absolutely nothing that I had planned, instead, I slept in, answered some emails (damn, just remembered one I needed to do!), then bummed around until the guy mum had organised to put in an automatic garage door came. I loves it :) No more getting out in the rain! Yay!

Anyways, so Friday was a complete write off. Saturday was a long day. I had a medieval event which involved eating great food (we had a medieval picnic - everyone had parcels of food - pies, pieces of fruit, cheese, fresh bikkies), watching my friends fight in the rapier tourney, watching the 'wheel of doom' tourney (heavy fighters randomly had weapons chosen by spinning a wheel ... lots of fun with spear and two handed axe vs Great shield and really small short swords). I got sun burnt though... we got rained on in the morning, I froze half the day, and blinded by the sunshine in the arvo - need to make a hood or something decent for my head that will actually stay on without giving me a headache!

Sunday we had a working bee... much rooting around in boxes and cupboards (earning us official 'bitching rights' - because we've dug through the SCA hall's crap, we can now complain when people put things away incorrectly or things are broken and manky. I think some stuff had been there since the hall's creation, even got to through away bottle of stuff with a used by date of 1999... seriously icky! But I managed to get some help with the newcomers event that I'm running in July. So there will be a heavies tournament, a rapier tournament, archery games (including like a popup shooting hall), and what ever other crazy things I can think of! Someone suggested bobbing for apples, but that would be too cold in the middle of winter. I'm also taking over the Webminster duties so that I can tidy up the barony's website :) Should be fun!

But I have been working on some medieval 'stuff'... my blackworking for the collars/ sleeves of my 16th century chemise :)
 

Today is not a day for typing out important stuff :(

weclome = welcome
forgotted = forgotten
imformation = information

*sigh* thank goodness for spell check!

And this is cute :P
Safe bedside table - for great peace of mind and occasional overnight beatings :)
http://www.ohgizmo.com/2007/08/23/safe-bedside-table-great-for-peace-of-mind-and-occasional-overnight-beatings/

Copied from my Part Time Painter blog...

Recycling in the art studio - mistakes in watercolours

You've sketched out a watercolour painting, you've slaved over it for a while, and then your cat/ child/ dog/ {insert unpredictable being} had brushed by and made a mess all over it. What to do? What to do? (Well what to do that doesn't involve strangling said being!)... here's some ideas so that you don't just throw away that painting.

1. Lift the colour
Using a damp tissues, cotton bud, or water loaded paint brush, gently apply clean water to the paint to be removed and blot off with a clean tissue or cloth. Some colours like Veridian green or Pthalo blue have high staining ratings and will never come clean.

Look up the watercolour's maker site for details about light fast and staining qualities.

2. Incorporate the mistake into the painting.
Some mistakes can't really be masked, like a fluorescent pink mark across a regency lady's white chemise. But many times you'll find that with some creative thinking, that black streak in the sky could be a bird, or that red spot in the grass becomes a ladybug. Put the painting aside if you can't think of anything at the time, you may be surprised that the 'mistake' isn't as big as you think it is when you come back.

3. Fix the problem with another art medium
Change media and turn it into an acrylic painting. Try ink, charcoals, coloured pencils
Kinuko Craft is an amazing artist who paints oils over watercolours - see here techniques here The Art of Kinuko Y. Craft


4. Prime over the top of the piece of paper and use as a ground for another painting/ drawing
No reason to throw away good paper! Use if for experimentation! The Sentinel is acrylics on watercolour paper.

5. Cut it up and use it for a collage or assemblage piece.

6. Flip the paper over and paint on the back (this will depend on how buckled the paper is and how heavy you are with the washes.)

7. Scan the painting and fix it digitally.
Ok you're not going to have the original, but it may be the beginning of a beautiful new painting. My piece Contemplation was rescued after I made a number of errors in the watercolours. I've now started working digitally in a way that allows me to use scraps of sketches as the basis for paintings like Teal

8. Cut out unpainted sections and use them for small artworks such as ACEO cards or OSWA paintings. ACEO's are 2.5" x 3.5", while OSWA normally are around 4 x 6".

What a dunce. Now I remember what I was supposed to do last night. I was supposed to go to my medieval dance class... how did I forget that? 

How to avoid bringing more work home! Separating the day job from your work at home.
http://parttimepainter.blogspot.com/2008/03/separating-day-job-from-art-job.html

Fracking work people! What's the deal with making meetings start at 1pm? Hello? Lunchtime? I will be sooo glad when we go back to non daylight saving time (then we only have to worry about Perth being 2 ours behind us)

So much for my holiday over Easter. I got back to work today and it feels like I never left *sigh* Answer emails for an hour, then training for 4 hours, eat lunch while organising more meetings and trying to hunt people down, two more meetings, a dozen more phone calls, and finally a chance to speak to my staff that I haven't seen since last Wednesday.

Life is never dull!

Just a quick note to let people know I'm still alive... I'm just on holidays with my family over Easter so I shall be answering things when I get back to proper internet access (and not gadding off aournd the country side :P )

Hope the Easter bunny has been benevolent in your households!

Another elf boy. The dragon around his arm is from Greek myth (I think this is the one from Jason & The Argonauts - dragons don't always have wings).

Painter & Photoshop

I forgot.... new post about organisation tricks - the to-do lists this week - what are the benefits of a to-do list, how do you implement them, do they work, and are there any secrets to using them effectively. A really long post since I've been practising a range of strategies the last few weeks.

http://parttimepainter.blogspot.com/2008/03/organisation-1-todo-lists-and-part-time.html

Hi all!

Well it's been some time since I've updated my site, but I have still been painting. I'm trialing a new HTML newsletter format so please let me know if things have gone awry!

New Art

 

 

 

 

 

http://nicolecadet.com/DarkBrand.php

Dark Brand: A cover commission for Robert C Fountain's Dark Brand: Book 1 of the Forge of Atuma. The book is available from http://www.lulu.com/content/941988 and is a fantasy novel set in a dark, Industrial Revolution world where beasts, sorcerers, shamans, warriors and rogues all walk side by side. I will hopefully be releasing prints of the cover. 

http://nicolecadet.com/Eir.php

Eir was a Norse goddess of healing (Viking). She's sometimes attributed to the Valkyries, as well as being a hand maiden of Freya. A common herb used for healing by the Vikings was Angelica. Reference used - the lovely Ida Mary Walker

http://nicolecadet.com/Eriu.php

Ériu is the namesake of Ireland, one of the Tuatha Dé Danann (Irish gods). Currently standard prints have been released, however I will be releasing Large prints soon.

http://nicolecadet.com/Chaenee.php

Chae'nee is another character in Gary Allen's series. She is an assassin who has been possessed by demonic forces. Prints available on request.

 

http://nicolecadet.com/GypsyLightsSketch.php

A sketch for a painting featuring a gypsy seated in the forest. Prints available on request.

If you want a print and that hasn't been released, just reply to this newsletter.

 Deviant art painting - prints available from http://nixjim13.deviantart.com/art/Dragon-Sidhe-73913100

Also check out my Deviant art account as there are a few unreleased paintings in there: http://nixjim13.deviantart.com/

Zazzle Store

I've opened a store at http://www.zazzle.com/nicolecadet - at the moment there's only a few designs, but I'm hoping to add more in the future. Currently there are t-shirts, cards, magnets and stickers with designs from the 'Cats knows best' series and some fairy paintings.

Etsy Store

I'm in the process of working up some smaller format pieces to release through Etsy (such as ACEO cards and OSWA paintings). I'm also looking at some limited edition prints of a few of my ACEO cards that have been sold in the past. Due to changes in Ebay policies I probably won't be selling through EBay for a while. Etsy is different to Ebay in that it doesn't have an Auction function, but it has all the other features of feedback ratings.

Portrait Adoption

I'm finally a member! If you're on the lookout for a character commission, but don't want to go through the commission process, you may be able to pick up a suitable character portrait here. The pricing may be cheaper in some instances, but that's because I'll be painting characters I want to paint (without any structure/ restriction/ direction). There may be some aspects that can be customised, however they will be fairly minimal. You can also submit descriptions that a number of artists may choose to work on (no guarantee that I'll be one of the artists doing the work). Then you can choose from the selection.

Go to Portrait Adoptions for more information [Please note I haven't got anything available there yet! I'm working on it!]

Commission Status

Closed until mid March 2008.

Part Time Painter Blogs

How do I start the new year? By starting a new blog of course! What do I hope to achieve with this blog? Inspiration, creativity, diversity, world peace... um, yeah. The truth? I want to be a testimonial (maybe more a mark on the page) that you can work full time, and still carry on artistic endeavours professionally, and with some modicum of success.

You see, I'm an artist. A part time artist. Some weeks a very, very part time painter. I'm also a software developer, working full time for a government agency (.NET for all you geeks out there). I've been straddling the two careers for several years now, sometimes successfully, other times not.

So with this in mind, I intend on focusing on

* productivity - balancing time, life and art
* creativity - how you keep your 'muse' in check
* being a microbusiness - will I have a life and keep my sanity?
* being an online artist - galleries, products, marketing oh my!
* reducing stress - yes, having multiple hats can be stressful!
* reviews of books, products, websites, tips & tricks related to art and creativity
* any other related tid bits

Part Time Painter RSS Feed

Until the next update

Keep smiling :)

Nicole

http://www.nicolecadet.com

I did a friends clean up the other day - basically removing people that could see my friends posts but I couldn't see theirs. No offence, but I feel a little uncomfortable with people being able to access my friends only posts (which are quite often general rambles or are not meant for the public in general) when I can't see theirs. I have no problem with people reading public posts - that's why they are public! And I intend on making the majority of my posts public anyway (including some of the WIP posts).

I'm probably going to be cleaning up my f-lists further to make it more artist only as friends with everyone else being able to see my public posts (except for the few people who are friends/ or I read their journals). I simply don't have time to read, let alone comment on friends posts and I feel uncomfortable having to moderate some of my thoughts. I thought I'd just give people the heads up if you suddenly find yourself off my 'friends' list. It's not meant to be personal, it's just the list has grown beyond what I can handle.

In all honesty it will only probably be maybe a dozen names... but I thought this was the polite way to do things!

Image from Penny Arcade t-shirt ... sums up my thoughts on how some people treat the internet :)

New blog on how to recognise the different types of critique - snarks, trolls, fauns, and critics. (Everything is personal opinion so take with a grain of salt).

http://parttimepainter.blogspot.com/2008/02/online-critisism-trolls-fauns-snarks.html

New post! This one's about Style!



http://parttimepainter.blogspot.com/2008/02/style-guide-how-do-i-get-one.html

The first in a series of posts on ‘shortcuts’ - This one is about ‘taking inspiration from other artists’.
P.S. This isn't about ripping off other artists either - that's what bad artists do! It's about learning tips and techniques from other artists and growing as an artist through copying, analysing and acknowledging resources...

Read more here:
http://parttimepainter.blogspot.com/2008/02/artist-shortcut-1-copying-great-artists.html

Am still yet to do my monthly website update... but I've officially been given my promotion on work... starts in a month's time (8 months and  4 days after I applied for the job :D )

Be on the lookout for some ideas on art journals, relaxation techniques for boosting creativity and general well being including meditation and acupuncture, and some more organisational tips :)