Watercolor Wednesdays - Sunflower

Watercolor on 140lb Canson Cold Press Paper

Welcome to Watercolor Wednesdays! Hope your week is off to a good start.  This has been a very good week for me so far, I got the job as a cake decorator at Walmart.  Not the perfect job but something that I love to do and in this economy, I'm just happy to be employed again.  I did a watercolor sketch of a sunflower in my field sketch book the other day and I didn't hate the outcome but wasn't happy with the background.  I tried doing another on Monday and it was a complete disaster.  So I figured I'd give it a go one more time.  There really is something to be said about the whole practice makes perfect.  Not that this is perfect by any means, but it's the first painting I've ever liked enough to sign (yay me!).  And the best part is....I've sold it! The very first piece of art that I've ever sold!  To a family member, but it still counts!

The colors are slightly more subtle in real life but I love it. I think I need to play with the white balance on my camera as most of the pics I've taken recently seem a little too dark and I've been taking them in indirect light outside so they should be slightly brighter.  I really need to get the book out and learn alot of other things about the camera too but you know how that goes.

If you would like to link up to Watercolor Wednesdays sign up with Mr. Linky below and be sure to post the link directly to your post as opposed to your home page.  Don't forget to grab the button on the right and share with your blogging friends.

Read more...

PPF - Nightfall

'Nightfall' Acrylic on 12x12 stretched canvas

I painted this the other day and it is finally one that I absolutely love! After seeing so many holiday related paintings last week it put me in the mood to do a winter scene. Our weather has been unseasonably warm and I figured if I can't have real snow, I'd make my own!  My family is all fighting over who is getting it for Christmas but I'm going to have to keep this one for myself.  Again, sorry for the bad pics, but I have found a fairly reasonably priced new battery for my digital camera but it may have to wait until after Christmas. Linking up with Paint Party Friday, click here to see all of the other wonderful works of art.  Happy Friday!

Close up of the cabin.

Underpainting.

Read more...

A New Medium

Well my trip to Hobby Lobby paid off.  I got so many neat things yesterday.  One of them being a set of pastels, which produced the above image.  Few things about pastels, I love them!  They are a little messy and it's a little awkward at first but I had a lot of fun playing with them.  I have a book from the library and decided to go for one of the larger images, you know, the whole learning to walk before I can crawl.  I realize now that I should have done the little exercises first but I still enjoyed working on this.  I also realized that I need larger paper for an image like this. It was hard getting the detail in a small space.  But that brings me to one of my other finds, pastel papers in an assortment of colors.  I also got a set of Watercolors in the tubes, a super neat spiral bound watercolor field journal, a book on watercolors, some watercolor card papers and envelopes and a tiny little sketch book.  Everything was either on sale or on clearance and the one item that wasn't, the pastels, I used their 40% off coupon for.

Now, if I could just get up the guts to actually use the watercolors we'd be all good!

Read more...