keep trying

Today I'm continuing to practice drawing with internet videos:

I think I liked the envelope better before I colored it in.

Here's a shot of just the envelopes I did today.

Not every day is going to be an artistic success but each day you pick up a brush or pen brings you closer to it so never give up, keep trying different subjects and approaches until you find something that works for you.

The Last Canvas: Stained Glass Window with Flower

Finally after 5 attempts painting over that canvas, I had another idea.

Here's what happened after that:

At this point I was down to the ends of tubes of blue, red and green paints which can really limit a person.

I decided to take it as a challenge and began working out the idea of a flower sitting in front of a stained glass window.

This is a point in my life when far too many people that I love are facing chronic illnesses and death so the thought occurred to me that it would make a nice sympathy card for my Zazzle store.

Continuing to paint helped me work through a series of emotions as well as using up my paint. And continuing to work began to calm me down again.

Here's what I ended up with. I won't know how well it worked out until I actually go through the design process and see it on the actual greeting card and matching sticker.

Tulips in the Mail

I started on the envelope with watercolor and colored  pencil working from an old photo from my garden.

I decorated the card with the photo, a used postage stamp with one of my paintings on it, and a small drawing.

I did a lot more flowers around the inside but since I did them around the letter I'd written that I didn't take pictures of it.

People are amazed that I'll put so much into a letter but it gives me a lot of  time to really relax and explore my drawing and painting techniques without worrying about results.

In that way it's a gift to both of us.

Small Sunflower Painting

I was pleased with the way this painting turned out and even more excited about it when I saw how it looked on merchandise in my zazzle store: 

I started with a postage stamp and then went on to greeting cards, stickers and address labels to match. I'm back to work now to see what else I can do with it. The creativity just keeps on coming, I can't wait to see where it goes next.

New Pencils

I'm happy to say I was given a new set of pencils and figured that while I was breaking them in I'd try one more version of my sister's happy birthday design.

This will get my pencils sharpened and try them out while giving me another design for my stores.

It won't take much to get the worktable cleaned off after this and I haven't quite decided what project I'll use it for next.

In the meantime I'm crocheting another hat to donate to charity and reorganizing my craft supplies.

I even made a 1.15 royalty on a product in one of my stores today. Who knows? maybe things will start looking up for me.

Hearts and Flowers

I wanted to design something a bit different for valentine's day this year and ended up falling back on some of my favorite designs instead. What's new about it is combining them in this way. I'll be outlining them next to add a bit more detail and then I'll be off to my stores to see what I can make out of them.

Personalized Card Design

As I was cleaning off the worktable I "found" this little scrap of scrapbook paper and I thought I'd do some designs based on it to make a nice card out of it.

This was done in watercolor pencils and ink and was a fun diversion form cleaning and organizing.

Yes, I do plan to get back to work in there but have some floral projects and one painted box to get out of the way first.

There were also 2 crochet projects but I moved them into the other room so that I wouldn't get any paint or floral foam on them.

Painted Daffodil Thank You Card

Watercolor Landscape Card and Envelope Set

Watercolor Thank You card

I'm still working with watercolor brush markers and becoming a bit more used to how they flow. The orange one leaked a bit ads I uncapped it but continued to work fine once I'd wiped it off.

I painted these flowers to go with a postage stamp that I had and added another flower to the lower left hand corner of the envelope to make it look like a matched set.

Did you miss me?

I haven't gotten around to posting because I'm still crocheting that afghan and made a couple of hats while I was at it.
I finally got back to painting again but only enough to make a birthday card with those watercolor brush markers.

I also decorated the senior center for spring and had fun combining all sorts of things( photocopies of photos of my garden flowers,drawings and paintings of flowers. I also used a greeting card, part of a calendar and a bunch of stickers Bernice sent me). This proves that you can have lots of color and fun without spending a lot of money. We even clipped some big photos out of calendars and trimmed them up into decorations.

As always there's been a lot of floral arranging and I'll include photos of that later.

Watercolor Brush Markers and Ink