Red Nose Day Art Auction

Last week, I picked up a paintbrush for the first time all year.

After the epic "52 paintings in 52 weeks" challenge, I was put off painting for a while, but this week I found the passion again. Last year I donated a few pieces of art to a Red Nose Day charity event, and I managed to sell three paintings. This year, I designed four pieces and sold two of them!

Photos of the art to follow

Charity Art Auction

This week at work we had a charity art auction, in support of the SIDS & KIDS Foundation. For the cause, I donated some of my art pieces to be auctioned off. I'm pleased to say I managed to sell 3 out of 5 of my original paintings, and we raised a ton for our charity. The paintings that I donated were all very different, and one of the paintings I was particularly pleased about. I painted Stonehenge this week, which was kind of fitting with the summer solace going on, but unfortunately this piece didn't sell. So now I get to keep it! Here's a few photos of how this painting came to be.

My sketch. Yeah, drawing really isn't my strong point.

Doesn't quite look like Stonehenge yet.

Sky time.

Mixing white and blue to create the sky.

Green. For grass.

Work in progress.

Adding some white and brown into the mix.

It's almost staring to look like a painting.

Grass finished. Not a bad effort.

Now to paint the stones.

Working on the shadows.

Almost two hours later.

Adding details.

Almost three hours later.

My wallpaper.

Finished! I wrote the title and signed the back of it. A funny note here is that while titling the piece, I misspelled Stonehenge and wrote "Stongehenge." Yep. I'm unique in every way.

The final product along with three other paintings I donated to the cause. The sunset desert and cherry blossoms sold, and Stonehenge and the flowers did not. I also sold another three piece canvas artwork featuring gold and blue branches, but it is not pictured here. That particular artwork proved to be very popular, and there have already been requests from friends and co-workers to paint the same thing using different colours.

Download To Donate: Tsunami Relief

Like music? Got a spare ten bucks? I urge you to click the link below. Download To Donate is a charity album run by Music For Relief, and they are responding to help the earthquake/tsunami relief effort in Japan. Every cent counts, and we can help those in need. There are some great artists on this compilation - Linkin Park, Slash, Hoobastank, Angles and Airwaves, Staind, Enrique Iglesias etc.

So please, download to donate.

http://www.musicforrelief.org/profiles/blogs/new-download-to-donate

Queensland Floods

It's hard not to watch the news at the moment.

The amount of devastation caused by those floods - it's like something out of a science fiction film, or something you dream about in your worst nightmare. I've never seen anything like it. The worst part is, it's not over yet. The rain continues to fall.

To all those affected, my thoughts are with you.

I'll be making my donation this week, and if you can, you should too.

www.qld.gov.au/floods

http://www.redcross.org.au/

http://www.musicforrelief.org/

- JD