The adventure continues...

Still Painting

Dala Horse Design Worksheets

 I'm enjoying trying different colors and designs on paper before I go to all of the work of painting the wooden horses. It eliminates a lot of mistakes and speeds things up a bit because I can refer to my designs instead of creating each horse from scratch.

 Some color combinations work better than others so it helps to make several copies of the black and white page so you can try each design in different colors.

New Dala Horse Designs

More on the cigar box disign

Recycled Cigar Box

Blues in the night

 I'm not sure where this painting is going but I worked on it off and on all of last night then shot these photos this morning to take advantage of the light. Shooting acrylics is difficult because of the glossy surface so I usually try it with and without a flash.

What do you think off it do far? I've been working this particular canvas for a number of years now. It even had a happy life in a nice frame for a while before I got my hands on it again.

People keep bringing me new canvases hoping I'll leave my old work alone but my paintings are part of my life...sometimes my whole life and they continue to evolve as I do.

The dish on the new painting

Before and After

Asiatic Oops! Those Lilies are Peruvian

 Whatever you call them I enjoyed doing the pencil and ink drawings and finding fun ways to put them all together.

 It reminds me of the rose by any other name in Shakespeare's Romeo and Juliet

New projects

Some of the new projects I'm planning will help organize some of the old ones. This cigar box is going to be painted up like the dala horse wall art I did recently and it's just the right size to store all of the little wooden dala horses that we're carving and painting in when they're finished. Making or having a boxed set of wonderful ornaments appeals to me and it could be left on display year around.

The partially painted box behind it is going to be done up to store, display or give the last of the miniature furniture that I paint from time to time.

 As I plan my design I try to work with the embossed and burned areas to disguise the flaws and make it work for me.

More sorting, rearranging and card making

 Still sorting things out and getting ready to do a bit of ironing as well. It's hard to imagine that there's actually a dining room under all of this and that I'm hoping to find it before I have company coming in on Saturday.

 I rearranged some scrapbooks and trimmed up a lot of things to be put away.

 I wasn't sure what to do with this photo so I decided to make a card out of it. Look how much difference it makes whether or not I draw a border around it.

I'll probably us this to answer some of tomorrow's mail.

Works on Paper

 I made a few "discoveries" while sorting through things today. I had thought I'd given all of the loose drawings and watercolors away but I found one here and there and began to round them all up in a portfolio that a friend had made for me.

 I was surprised by the number and different types and sizes of the work stuck into things around here. There's not much of it but it does span about 2 decades so seeing it together is kind of interesting and should stop the people that go around calling me the "Iris Lady". There's a lot more to this little 'ol grey haired lady than you might imagine...

 Paper cutting, water color, pen and inks drawings and colored pencil were among today's "finds".

Painting Road Trip

Well, I guess that title sounds a lot better than this post is today. I never really go anywhere so the most excitement I get is packing up my supplies and going over to the "Painting Pals" group at the senior center. It's nice to have lunch with the gals and see the projects that everyone is working on. My plan for today's session is to come up with some square designs that I can put on throw pillows in my Zazzle store. There are so many people that live in places where they can't hang art on the walls, I think that pillows are a great solution-don't you? What could be better than art that can make you comfortable and happy?

I enjoyed painting this watercolor and I imagine that you'll find it hard to believe that it took me 3 whole hours to do it but now the real fun begins as I put it into my design program and see how it looks on different colored backgrounds.

Living Space

 I finished hand quilting this table runner before shifting things around in the house again. The dining room table has gone back to the dining room and my work table is serving as a desk. The sofa is back too. Things change around here to suit the projects that I'm working on.

 We still like doing the computer work on the big TV but it helps having a 19 inch monitor next to the desk as well because we're often working on several projects at once.

 I'm re-working a few furniture pieces and that blue painting in the living room while I get things sorted out and set up to use the dining room as studio space again. A lot of this is seasonal and has to do with making the most of the windows and natural light available. My friends say that they never see the place the same way twice and they're probably right. I'm too "into" my projects to notice.

This little stand had a lot of paper cut outs and things on it along with all that paint. I'm in the process of removing all of that and coming at it with a new approach. No idea for a theme or anything yet but I'm really enjoying the work. Sometimes destroying a piece can be a very intense process-it helps you relax and think. Often the re-imagined piece is better than the first attempt ever was.

The Big Finish

I'm not sure whether this painting is actually done but I do know that I've finished working on it and will be sending it out the door in a few minutes to it's new home.

At this point I was afraid to keep working because it's so easy to spoil it and it was just too risky to continue trying to improve it.

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Exploring the possibilities