Category: Creative - Arimas Arts

Birthday Surprise

12/11/2018

Hi everyone,

I have been very busy with a project over the past couple of months. My eldest son is an avid D&D gamer and commissioned me to make scenery for his miniature models. Well my mind went into overdrive. You may recall I made a fairy house a while back which was a big hit with everyone who saw it. I thought why not make a multi-tiered scene.

I adore trees especially old ones because, as I have said before, they have witnessed the passing of time and generations. How I wish I could pick their brains and find out what they have learned over their lifetime. Also, I love Lord of the Rings and was inspired by Lothlorien, a beautiful woodland valley where the Elves live in harmony with nature. The thought of living amongst majestic trees with the spiralling staircases and bridges linking the different levels, just got me thinking. I could use wood from my garden. We just trimmed our trees and I had some awesome branches drying out for such an occasion like this.

After many sleepless nights thinking about how I was going to do this, I finally came up with a plan. It involved card from empty cat food boxes, clay, paper mache, twigs, leaves, sawdust from my sons wood work projects and last but not least fairy lights, thanks to Christmas. As usual my husband bless him helped me with the foundations, then left me to it. The whole project took just over two months to complete. I have to say I was happy with the end result.

I learned a lot from this experience, for instance, do not agree to do anything like this for my eldest son again as I now have a long list of projects to do for him. Moreover, under no circumstances use tacky spray glue to secure artificial grass, made from sawdust, as it will never dry. Also, a glue gun deserves more respect otherwise you end up burning a hole in your hand. Lessons learned time to move on….

Ok folks enough of my rattling on, here are the stages of development. I have to say the pictures do not do it justice, but, oh well I presented it to him for his birthday present. He was overwhelmed with happiness. His face was priceless when I switched the lights on…. Will they ever grow up?

Much love
Samira 😊

Steampunk- Seahorse

16/7/2017

Well, here is another Steampunk painting to stimulate your receptors. Staying with the theme, I opened up the possiblities of a mechanical seahorse submerged within a fantasy Steampunk ocean world, cool eh!

I used a plethora of metallic objects to compliment and enhance the painting. Many layers were added to make various textures and to add interest. You could be looking at the painting one day and notice something totally new the next... I love a bit of mystery.

So here it is, Steampunk-Seahorse.

Hope you like it.
Samira xx

Highlights of our trip to Granada Spain.

25/8/2016

Hi everyone,

I have just come back from an awesome trip to Granada in Spain. I found Granada to be a very inspirational place, full of design features especially in the architecture in the Alhambra Palace.

Granada has such a rich history. Granada means pomegranate and is situated at the foot of the Sierra Nevada mountains.

The most famous place is the Alhambra a Moorish citadel and palace. It was declared a world heritage cite in 1984 by UNESCO.

There are many churches and a cathedral of Granada built in the early 16th century.

I loved the architecture of all the historical buildings and many of the design features that decorated them. The gardens were especially beautiful with their mediteranean flora and fauna, hidden court yards and fountains found around every corner. A lot of these little fountains were estabilished there for the people for drinking, a perfect relief from the heat of the day.

This place had my favourite things: art, gardens and scenery. So I may do a range of paintings inspired by this trip. Watch this space. Here are a few pictures to wet your apetite.

Bye...... :)

A Moment in Time

5/12/2015

I often wonder sometimes what we are doing here. A few days ago, we went out, as a family to York because my son wanted to buy something for a project he was doing at school. York is a wonderful town in North Yorkshire, full of history and wonder. It was cold and very windy and later in the afternoon it rained. However, it was a beautiful day. It did not matter what the weather was like, what mattered was that we all enjoyed that particular moment in time. Me and the rest of the family.

Life goes on, things come and go, yet we as human beings tend to get caught up with work and the daily chores that come our way.

Take time out, and enjoy life. Don’t let life run you, you run your life. Enjoy every moment because it’s time to live life to the fullest. It’s time to enjoy ‘A Moment in Time’.

My thoughts on my wife’s painting, ‘A Moment in Time’.

Hanif

The Sehran

21/11/2014

I thought it would be a nice idea to paint a long landscape. I was going to paint a sunset seascape, but when I finished painting the clouds, my eldest son, after getting home from work, saw it and suggested I challenge myself and paint a different landscape. You see he loves concept art, the type of art used in PC games. Never played them myself, but that did not deter me. He asked me to paint the ‘Sehran’ his word for the desert. This is a name of an empire ruled by the great family of Abadir in his novel called ‘Harran’. The person in the painting is a weary warrior tired after his struggles, longing to go back to his family. By the way many people have said the guy looks like Hercules. This was not intentional, but oh well, he can be whomever you want him to be.

The painting is in acrylic, 24” x 72”..... yes it is LONG but looks awesome on the wall.

If you would like to purchase this painting it is a PAY WHAT YOU WANT offer so go ahead 'make my day' or yours depending on which way you look at it. Just email me at arimasarts@gmail.com with your offer and I will get back to you. The postage and packaging is not included in this offer and will be calculated according to your destination. Don’t be shy try me you may be surprised at how accommodating I am.

Here are the stages......

I have named this painting, 'The Sehran'.

Love and Peace

Samira :)

Beautiful Butterflies 2

5/7/2014

As you can see I have carried on with the same theme painting butterflies from last week. Here are the stages of development as I painted them. They are 5” x 5” acrylic on canvas. I hope you like them. As always they are up for sale and you can email me if you would like to purchase any of them at arimasarts@gmail.com .

Butterflies are very beautiful and delicate creatures which I love to watch fluttering by, like specs of sunshine flitting amongst the flowers. When you see butterflies you know summer is here. Here is a lovely Irish Blessing that caught my eye.

May the wings of the butterfly kiss the sun
And find your shoulder to light on,
To bring you luck, happiness and riches
Today, tomorrow and beyond.

Purple Butterfly

Red Butterfly

Here is a treat for those of you who like sweet things and butterflies. I have found a fantastic video on Youtube showing a tutorial on how to make chocolate butterflies. Sweeeet (sorry couldn’t resist).

Love and Peace

Samira :)

Not Another Painting - I'm Having a Break

18/4/2014

Hmmmm, what shall I write about.

I thought I would do something a bit simple than the usual lengthy blogs. It has been a loooong week. Lots of things going on. Most importantly though, I became a grandma again for the second time, a wonderful blessing for our whole family. I was honoured to be present at the birth, but boy was I tired afterwards as you can imagine. It was great not to have to be the one having the baby, but it was mentally draining watching someone you love going through so much pain. Anyway it was worth it in the end, both are doing well thank you. I have a gorgeous grand-daughter to show for it. She was born on Wednesday night and that is why I couldn't do my blog on Thursday because I was brain dead.

Today I will upload some photos of rings that I made last week. I hope you like them as I have taught myself how to make them. It was a fun project to do, however I need a manicure now as the wires left tiny tears in my fingers and my nails had scratches all over them. The things I have to do for art ;)

They are really simple to make, you can do it too, just be careful with the pointy ends of the wires, maybe wear old leather gloves to protect your hands. I have a video tutorial made by Rachel Murgatroyd, thank you Rachel, from Youtube showing you the method. This is a great place to start and then you can go crazy and make up your own ideas by using different wires and beads or twisting the wire into lovely shapes, oh the possibilities are endless.

Must go now here are my rings.... enjoy!!!

Love and Peace

Samira :)

Beautiful Things

23/1/2014

I usually blog about natural things such as countryside, trees and flowers, but this time I will talk a little about man made objects.

Firstly I think I must have been a magpie in a previous life because I love shiny, sparkly things like crystals, lights, diamonds ( I wish) and so on. So one day I decided to take photos of objects that I thought look beautiful in the sun. I decided to name this collection 'Beautiful Things'.

I thought these photographs would look lovely on a wall as individual photos or as a calendar, especially if you want to add some colour to a room.

I purposely used bright, vivid colours for the backgrounds to add more oomph to the photos. I particularly love the gold jewelry against the burning red, in the photo image 1, which reminds me of the sun. Oh by the way this image was also featured on a group called 'Bold Colours' on Fine Art America.

In photo image 4, I experimented with cold colours against the warm red background. I think it looks gorgeous. I also love the texture of the silver bead against the smooth blue beads, which incidentally remind me of tiny blue universes as they have shiny speckles in them.

Photo image 11 is another favourite of mine as the bright blue makes the red appear even more brighter. I also like the way the silver/gold detail separates the two, just enough to prevent clashing and promote harmony.

With photo image 21 the pink beads have a hint of purple/blue sparkles in them that show up beautifully against the red background.

The next image 27, tones things down a little. Again you have cool blues and greens harmonising against the warm coloured beads. The shapes and textures look amazing together too. The details on the metallic beads add another dimension to the photograph.

I feel like I have created a work of art, but without paint brushes. Thinking about composition, mixing colours together, as well as textures and design, gave me an opportunity to expand my creativity.

I hope you like this little deviation from the norm, I just thought it would be a nice change. If you would like to see more then you can visit my photo gallery, you will find them under 'Beautiful Things'. If you really love them then you can purchase the prints you can click on the photographs in this blog which will take you directly to them or click here Fine Art America where you will find all of the other photos in this collection and much more. Do not forget to leave a comment, I would love to hear from you.

Love and Peace

Samira :)

Sell Art Online

Photography Prints

Photography Prints

Sell Art Online

Art Prints

Computer Art

9/12/2013

It is amazing how art has developed over the years. Look at the use of computer art for example, graphics have transformed the film and marketing industry to name a few. I know very little if anything about computer art. However my eldest son studied graphics design and animation for four years and is an expert. I am proud to say that he is now a teaching assistant studying to be a qualified teacher, and in charge of the graphics and media studio at his school. As a hobby, to help friends out, he has created amazing posters like this one for instance, that he made for me in minutes. I would not know where to begin with this, but he put layer upon layer and came up with this beautiful poster with the 'Inspired by essence' slogan. Simple yet effective.

Even my husband teaches, from time to time, students basic computer graphics using a specialist computer software. So you can see that computers have a big influence in our household.

Me on the other hand, I look forward to holding a brush in my hand and standing in front of a canvas waiting to swish my arm around and see what comes of it. On many occasions I have spent hours creating a painting, looked at it , said 'nah don't like it' and then painted right over it. If I had a computer then all I would have to do is press the 'delete' key. I still prefer to use my friends the brushes, rather than the keyboard. Having said that I really rate people who create art using computers. Some are extreeeeeemely amazing, and take a long time to create.

Anyway, my husband strongly suggested that I get with the times and try. So I reluctantly got on the computer and opened up 'Microsoft Paint'. You should have seen the looks and heard the comments from my kids when they were watching me use it. I can relate to the woman in this video.

It was soooooo complicated, I did not know where to begin. I could not get my hand eye co-ordination with the mouse, (why is it called a mouse anyway). Well it did seem like it had a life of its own, because it was going in directions I did not want it to. I had problems mixing the colours to my taste, but I managed by some miracle to produce two images. Here is my attempt. I don't know maybe I should auction them off, I bet I could make a mint, what do you think?

he, he, he ....... wink, wink.

The picture above is lovingly called 'My first sunset on computer'.

This totally awesome piece of art work on the right is called ' Through the forest'.

Do you think I have a future in computer art?

With love

Samira

Encaustic Art

28/11/2013

Encaustic Art is an ancient form of painting using pigmented beeswax. It is heated and the paste is applied to surfaces such as canvas, wood and more recently card, glossy paper as well as pottery. Since the 1990's encaustic art has made a comeback and developed to include tools such as hotplates, heated stylus and mostly electric irons.

The first time I ever encountered this art was 20 years ago, when I was shopping with my family at a newly opened shopping centre.

Photography Prints

I managed to frame and sell quite a few of them, all mostly postcard size. I did however, sell a few A4 sized ones too. The feedback was really positive, as people loved the idea and the unique designs I had created.

Crafting these paintings, using this method is quite addictive because each one in individual and you never know what to expect, so the finished product is always a surprise. I remember when I first started I spent two whole days from morning till night making and experimenting.

Sell Art Online

Photography Prints

The artist was demonstrating how to make the paintings using a hot iron and pigmented wax. The designs were more like fantasy landscapes and abstract colours each one unique. I loved them very much and bought a couple to put on my wall.

The second encounter was three years ago at a local festival, where I was given the opportunity to create one of my own. I remember the artist was amazed at my skill level considering that it was my first ever attempt. This was around the time I started painting. A year later my father gave me a small iron which he bought from the local market. I decided to try my hand at this art using the small iron, and got carried away with the immense variety and use of colour, that I destroyed the iron. Nevertheless I created some awesome pieces, here are a few examples.

Photography Prints

I completed around fifty, some I kept while others were just trials which did not work out so good.

I am not making any presently, however I will be going back to it in the future. In the meantime here is a video, of another artist demonstrating the art, to whet your appetite, you may want to give it a go. Good luck :) :)

See yeh
love
Samira