New Artwork - Dancing Anna

Sometimes creating art comes so easy...an idea pops into my head and within a few hours it's done...easy! And other times (like with this one) it takes months...I start, then I loose my inspiration and put it aside, then come back to it and try a few things...not totally happy with the result, put it aside again...and so on.

Until finally (and usually with a little help, thanks Janette & Maree) I am happy with the end result. This often happens when an illustration is particularly important to me, and this one is.

This is a portrait of the beautiful Anna, a gorgeous friend of mine's daughter. Anna is 17 and has left her home and family (in Australia) to study ballet in Washington DC. She is a beautiful dancer and an absolute sweet heart, I hope that this illustration reminds her how much she is loved and missed.

Here is a close up

This illustration is the first in a series of 3...hopefully the other 2 won't take as long :)

Hope you like it Anna,
hugs & kisses Suzie.

Girls Room

This is a wall in my girls (Mia & Ava) room, they proudly pin up their art work and treasures on it. I have been looking at it every day for months thinking "we really need to do something about this wall".

So, on Sunday afternoon the girls & I took down their mural and went to work trimming and framing some of their drawings, adding a few extra pieces and tossing some not so loved pieces.












And here is the result...the girls decided where to place all of the pieces, my only suggestion was "let's try to keep everything close together so there is room to add more later".

I think they did a pretty good job don't you?

We put everything up with blutac so we can easily move things around if rearranging is required when there are new artworks to add. They were pretty pleased with themselves!

Finders Keepers

I went to the Finders Keepers markets on Saturday hoping to see some new and exciting designers. And let me say, if you are into woodland creatures you would have been in heaven.

Now I have some deer in my own collection so I'm not at all apposed to them. I just didn't notice how prevalent forest animals are until I checked out stall after stall of woodland creatures (in every form you can imagine). Maybe I've have had my head in the sand for the past few months or more???

The atmosphere is fab & I had a great time browsing while sipping a glass of wine...which lead to a purchase I might otherwise not have made.

I loved the cloud balloons covered in fabric on the stage, they looked great! You can't really see them in my photo though LOL.

I did have a few favorite stalls that I thought I would share.

Kanimbla Clay have the most gorgeous vases and candle holders, their prices were quite reasonable too! I would love to get a few of the tea light holders for my mantel. The photo really doesn't do them any justice.

Now I can't remember the name of this stall, sorry about that, but they had some lovely resin jewellery. Fabulous bangles with lace inside (my favorite) gorgeous colours too.


I have had my eye on these cardboard frames from Lala Land for a while. I am planning on doing an art wall in my girls room and I think these frames make a fabulous statement while being extremely affordable and fun. I hope to show you the art wall soon.

Hope you all had a lovely weekend too!

Suzie xx

The Cielito Querido Cafe

Don't you just love this design!!! The attention to detail in the design of this Mexican chain of cafe's is to die for.

I love everything, the colours, the typography, the layout, the furniture, the packaging...I could go on.

I recently found this great Cafe on design work life blog. The Cielito Querido Cafe has been designed by Esrawe in col­lab­o­ra­tion with Ignacio Cadena and are in Mexico.

I love that floor!

I love the fabrics used on the chairs.

Love the typography and ooohhh those shelves...I am a fan of order!

All photos from design work life

If I could read Spanish I could tell you a little more about them...their web site The Cielito Querido Cafe.

Are you as into this design as me?

Simply Beautiful Paintings

How amazingly beautiful are these double exposure paintings by Pakayla Biehn? I came across her work through myloveforyou blog (fab blog, check it out if you love modern art!)

I would just love to see these pieces in person! These paintings below are for her upcoming show, "Being There" with Jeff Ramirez at Thinkspace Gallery in LA.
























There are so many layers...I just adore them!

Favourite Things

One of my favorite things to do is paint with the kids. I don't know about you, but I think it is so nice when we don't have a weekend of running around from one thing to the next. So Saturday afternoon the kids and I had loads of fun painting together while Dad was helping out a friend with their garden.

Here are Mia & Ava painting pictures for their friends up coming birthday.

Here is Thomas blowing "hair" with a straw.

Ava made a special request, she asked me to paint butterflies. So I am currently working on a new series of butterfly illustrations for Ava. I hope to show you the finished product soon.

I hope you all had a lovely weekend.

Street Art

I have to say, I have always been a fan of street art, now I mean ART not pointless tagging and defacing property.

This piece from Banksy is too cool for words.
Here are some more of my favorites.






Check out www.streetartutopia.com for more street art

Mothers Day Present

I have finally had time to play with my mothers day present...and I just want to say a big THANKS BABE...I LOVE IT!

Here is my new Intuos 4 drawing tablet in it's new home...my desk.



I hope all of you mothers out there had a great Mothers Day!!

First blog

Well I did it...I have finally managed to set up a blog and Facebook page for Urban Road. So look out, I will try not to bombard you with every image I see and love but I do hope to share my artwork, inspirations and a little of what life has in store for me...stay tuned!