Watercolor Wednesdays - Flowers

5x7 Watercolor on Canson 140lb cold press paper

Welcome to Watercolor Wednesdays!  This week I haven't had much time to paint as I started a new job (as a cake decorator at Walmart).  I was originally only scheduled a few hours a day for this week but they changed it so I was only to do a small painting for now.  I wanted to just play with the watercolors and not think about correct technique or any kind of detail and this simple flower came to mind.  I did some wet on wet and some wet on dry washes and think it turned out not so bad.  I would extend the muted background out past the foliage if I were to do it again, but other than that, I'm happy with this little painting.

If you would like to share your watercolors for the week, sign up with Mr. Linky below.  Please be sure to enter the url for your post as opposed to your blog homepage to make it easier for any latecomers to find your post.

Read more...

Watercolor Wednesdays - Morning Glory

'Morning Glory' Watercolor on Canson 140lb cold press paper

Hello and happy Wednesday!  I hope you all had a wonderful Easter.  My very patient Honey endured shoe shopping, three different stores and about 20 dress changes, including purchasing one dress, then changing my mind and wanting a different dress so I would have the perfect look for Easter brunch.  Let's just say by the end of the day he wasn't quite so patient with me.  But...I found the absolute perfect dress and he agreed that it looked better than the original one I picked and it's a great summery dress so I can wear it again without feeling overly dressed. And...it reminds me of a watercolor painting! I'm not much of a girly girl so dress shopping with me is pretty much a nightmare.

Some Easter photos:

Me and my Honey at brunch

Me and my bestie Heather and her daughter Brooke

Anyway, this is my Watercolor Wednesday submission.  I found the pattern in the April 2013 Paint Works magazine and immediately fell in love with the look and I got to try a new technique, pouring, which I found pretty exciting as the paint just kind of does what it wants.  Then you background paint the leaves and stems.  It's not perfect but it's not bad for my first try.

If you would like to link up to Watercolor Wednesdays, just add your info to Mr Linky below.  Please be sure to link to your blog post and not your blog home page.

Read more...

PPF - Tuscan Window

11x13 Watercolor on Canson 140lb Coldpress Paper

So much has been going on the past few months.  I feel like I've been gone forever.  Christmas was absolutely wonderful despite having bronchitis.  My wonderful boyfriend gave me a plasma tv, a kitchenaid mixer and a $100 giftcard to Michaels! Yes I am spoiled! I used my giftcard to purchase my Bob Ross oil paints and have been painting away.  I hope to share those over the next few weeks.

The new year brought the flu, I feel as though I have been sick more often than not this year, ugh! Two rounds of bronchitis, the flu, the stomach flu and just recently a cold.  I'm thinking it's because I'm not typically around little ones until meeting my boyfriends very large family.  Every time one of the kids has the sniffles, I get sick.

 February brought the death of one of my boyfriend's brothers. My boyfriend is the youngest of nine children and they are all very close.  It was hard to watch him go through that kind of pain.  It also brought my birthday and more spoiling from my boyfriend in the form of Kohls and Hobby Lobby giftcards. I got some great clearance deals at Kohls and a wonderful Wilton cake decorating kit along with some painting supplies from Hobby Lobby.

So far March has proved to be following along with the previous months bad luck, my bf's family dog got very sick.  I spent a week there caring for him.  Poor thing could not eat, barely walk and was having a tough time breathing.  After several vet visits and a misdiagnosis it was determined that he had metastatic cancer and we had to put him down.  One of the hardest things I've had to do.  The good news so far this month...my daughter got engaged!  They just moved into a new townhouse and needed some artwork for their walls so she came over and 'stole' some of my oil paintings for her bedroom and has asked me to do an acrylic painting of Ganesha. He's a little Indian elephant god, yikes!  My experience with acrylics has not been the best so far, but it's a pretty simple painting so hopefully it goes well!

Also hoping that April will finally bring some good news as well as some spring weather.  Can't wait to open windows and feel the warmth of the sun.  Hope you all have a great weekend, please stop by Paint Party Friday to see all of the wonderful artists and their creative works!

step one

step two

Step three

The finished piece

Read more...

Sunday Sketches - Daisy

'Daisy'

I'm back!!! It has been a very long few weeks but we are finally moved in and believe it or not, everything is unpacked!  We found some very good families for the dogs.  We couldn't keep them together but they did get taken in by two wonderful families and both have kept in touch to let us know how they're doing. 

We moved in a week ago Friday and I have been busy unpacking as my mother flew in from Arizona on Thursday and will be here until the 19th.  This is the first day I've had a little free time to do some artwork so I decided to go with something quick and easy and did another addition to my flower series.  I went with a simple daisy and think it turned out pretty good seeing as I worked all day and get distracted by my mother every now and then.


Hope you all had a wonderful Mother's Day and I hope to be back more often although it won't be easy until my mother leaves.  Not as much free time.  Hop on over to Blue Chair Diary to see more Sunday Sketches.

Read more...

Inspiration Avenue - Hello Spring

"Hello Spring"

Watercolor on Strathmore Coldpress 140lb 300gsm watercolor paper

With a little help from Photoshop I actually like this one. lol.  I tried the salt for the background effect and as you may see on the right hand side, the salt spilled out so fast it covered the entire section so I had to go kind of heavy on the rest of it.  The original is lighter in color but I really like the Photoshopped version better.

Check out more Inspiration Avenue submissions for this week's challenge here. 

Read more...

Daffodil

"Daffodil" Pencil and Sharpie Pen

I did another flower at work yesterday.  These are kind of fun and I'm thinking of doing a little series on different flowers to hang in my studio/bedroom.  They're quick and easy and quite pretty.  Still having tummy issues, although I looked for herbal remedies online and tried some chamomile tea and ginger root and had a reprieve for a few hours and was even able to eat a little.  Yay!  Gotta love the internet!

Thank you for the kind words and well wishes yesterday.  :)

Read more...

Columbine Flower

Columbine Flower

I sketched this at work last night and while I don't hate it, I know it's not my best work.  I haven't been feeling well since Saturday afternoon.  Extremely nauseous and haven't been able to eat much because most of it comes right back up.  It was so bad at work last night I was sketching just to try to keep my mind off of it.  Not sure if I have a bug or if it's my GERD, change of seasons is typically bad for my tummy but I haven't been this sick because of it since I was first diagnosed.

Ok, enough whining.  I tried my new Prismacolor turquoise pencils and while the graphite is definitely softer, I did notice some scratching just like with my cheaper set.  It's much easier to get the dark colors with the new pencils though, which leads me to wonder why anyone would need a 9B and why they didn't include and H or an F?  I'm happy with the color I get from them  though.  I added the black lines with my new Sharpie pen, which again, I absolutely love.  

I was trying to keep this short and sweet and I've rambled on again.  Happy Tuesday!

Read more...

Let Your Inner Child Out

 

I wasn't in the mood for serious drawing yesterday yet I wanted to sketch.  So I just went with the first thing that popped into my head and sketched this young girl tending to her flower as she looks off at the swing she is longing to play on.  My puppy looks like a cross between dog and squirrel, but that's all right.  I had so much fun coloring her in with my Prismacolor markers.  I felt like a kid again, just coloring away.  :)

Off to Hobby Lobby to see what kind of deals I can get.  I have some birthday money I haven't used yet so I think I'll treat myself to some new art supplies.  Hoping to find a good watercolor instruction book so I can actually participate in Paint Party Friday!  Have a good one!

Read more...

Dreary Monday

 

I look outside and all I see is gray.  A very dreary Monday indeed.  It feels like Spring will never come.  So I decided to draw some Spring!  The image on the left is the unaltered image done with Prismacolor colored pencils.  The one on the right was brought into Photoshop and had a watercolor filter added to it.  I was having some trouble getting this to scan.  It was coming out so light that you can not see the highlights as I had hoped.  I broke out the camera to try to take photos only to find the battery is dead.  So I did what I could in Photoshop to try to get it as close as possible to the original.  I kinda like the filter effect.  Seems to give it more life.  This piece was one of the exercises in my Lee Hammond book.  I'm so new to the colored pencil media that I was having a hard time with highlights.  I love my Prismacolors (they came with a kit for my graphic design classes and I've noticed they're quite expensive to purchase in hobby stores so I really want to use them properly) but I think I may pick up some Col-Erase pencils as they may be easier to work with.

I loved looking at all of the Sunday Sketches and would like to thank Aquariann as her wonderful dragon piece gave me the inspiration to break out the colored pencils.  I'm still hoping to do a watercolor this week but I am in the process of rearranging two bedrooms which includes all of my craft supplies.  After my boyfriend passed away, my youngest son moved back home with me.  I used the spare room as a studio/computer room and am now trying to squeeze everything into my bedroom so he can officially move all of his things into his room.  It's been slow going as I have a hard time going through all of my boyfriend's things but I know life must go on and he would want me to continue with my artwork.  The only way to do that is to clear out some things and create a new studio space.  Luckily, I have a rather large bedroom and I should be able to cram all of my crafty things into the space I have available.

I hope you all have a good week and can't wait to see more Spring inspired artwork.  I'm so done with winter!

Read more...