The Dark Side

It's been nice to take the last few sheets of watercolor paper and just play with them. No real plan in mind, just relaxing, letting go and sliding into the paints and process.

 Now that I made it up into cards I may add bits of paper or acrylic paints, whatever suits my mood or the materials at hand. It should be interesting...

The Warm End of the Paintbox

Here's a little watercolor in red, orange and yellow. No plan to it other than to relax and get a brush in my hands again.

The next thing I did was to hack it up and make it into note cards. It's interesting to see it cropped and take more notice of what's going on in different areas of the painting and it will entertain the people that I write too as well.

I added this little sticker to create a little planet and make my friend laugh. 

Blue Jay

Look who was waiting for me when I opened the blinds this morning! This time I am really going to try to draw it. I'm headed to the worktable now...
I grabbed a cup of coffee and a watercolor envelope and here's what I came up with. I ran out of room for the tail because I did it on the lower left corner of the envelope.

The wildlife take over the garden and I settle in to paint

 I enjoy watching the birds but have never tried drawing or painting them. This may be the year. So far I'm just re-organizing the art supplies and kicking the idea around a bit but you've got to start somewhere and this is as good a place as any.

This white squirrel seems to appreciate the fact that we leave a lot of the leaves and plants for them.
We have an untidy yard but a busy one. the trouble is in trying to get good photos whenever anything interesting turns up. My husband took today's photo's.

There were a lot of different birds on the feeders this morning but they scattered when we pulled up the blinds. They seem to startle easily. There have been a couple of woodpeckers too.

Letters In Collage and Pencil

 Becca drew the outlines for these letters and I drew the designs on them. I've still got quite a few to finish but I thought you might and to know about this project because it will make personalized products in my zazzle stores more interesting.

To take a break from drawing I grabbed some old magaizes that Becca brought and started to make collages on some letters too.

I kind of like the way this one turned out.

Changing Seasons

You know it's fall when the leaves change color but in this part of the country you don't get much of a chance to enjoy the show of reds and gold. The leaves are falling so fast that about half of my birch leaves have already blown away. I'll layer up a few warm clothes and head out to the garden to see if there are any plants that still have leaves that are flexible enough to use with my paints to do some leaf printing on cards or fabric.

I got carried away with other projects and haven't gotten around to those pottery paintings yet.

 

It was exciting to see how well that last sunflower painting looked on products on zazzle. I couldn't resist ordering it in on a few greeting cards to send out to friends and family. So far everyone's loved it so I'm feeling really good about that.

A lot of little drawings and paintings come and go on my letters and I've been designing a lot of new art lettering to use on products on zazzle.

Now that I'm not out in the garden there seem to be a million other things to do, one thing's for sure-there hasn't been time to get bored.

keep creating and have some fun, I plan to.

How to Recycle or Repurose a Lumpy Bed Pillow

I forgot to take photos all during the process. These just show pulling the stuffing apart and using it to stuff throw pillows. I got 3 out of the stuffing from one old bed pillow.

1. Wash and dry the old bed pillow
2. Cut open one end and reach in to make sure it's completely dry.
                             a. if not dry pull the stuffing out and spread it 
                                on a table or someplace to air dry.
3. Purchase or sew cases for throw pillows.
4. Pick the stuffing from the lumpy pillow apart until it's light and fluffy.
5. Stuff throw pillows
6. Close them up.
7. Get comfy and enjoy.                           

A Look in My Paintbox, out with the old and in with the new

It's been a very long time since I've bought any new tubes of acrylic paint so I'm planning projects for the colors that  I've got on hand:
                                                      white
                                                       burnt sienna
                                                        cadmium yellow
                                                        bronze yellow
                                                         prisim violet
                                                         light portrait pink
                                                         burnt umber
                                                         payne's gray
                                                         cadmium red
As you can see it's mostly browns, yellows and a bit of red and purple. I had painted sunflowers until I ran out of anything to make nice greens for the leaves.

Now that I'm about out of everything I'll finally get around to painting the still life of all of the pottery that my sister and I made years ago.

A few versions of that should polish off the end of those paints and I'll be able to start fresh with a full set in new colors.

Clearing the old paints out of the way first is the best way to make sure that you don't accidently put a thickened or lumpy paint  into a new painting and spoil it.

I've been meaning to paint that pottery for years, now I'm out of excuses and more or less forced to get it done.

It may not sound like it but I'm actually excited at the prospect of it.

Red Roses in Watercolor and Ink

  You can see at this point how much difference there is between adding the ink or just leaving the watercolor alone.

Once I'd added the ink  I grabbed a blue pencil and started to work over part of the background.

 Here you can see it before and after. It didn't matter either way. I wrote a letter on it and sent it out within minutes of finishing it.

Denim Slipper,Christmas Curtains and Dala Horses

I sewed denim slippers in various sizes until I ran out of "slipper gripper" fabric for the soles and elastic for the backs. Results were slow but I managed to make enough for myself before I started running out of things.

I'll need a lot more practice before they turn out nice enough to sell or donate anywhere but I'm proud of the effort anyway and got compliments on them at a couple of appointments that I wore them to.

While the sewing machine is out I'll move on to sewing up some valances for the windows out of that red and green fabric that Mom gave me years ago. They should brighten up things around here for the holidays.

The weather is getting too cold to work outside so I've stopped carving,sanding and clear coating wooden horses for the season.

The next step will be selling the wooden horses on http://www.etsy.com/SewUpaint

There are many products available with pictures of the dala horses on them too, they're at  http://www.zazzle.com/dalahorse*