Back to the brushes but still having fun with pencils and ink

  I'm just checking out my watercolor supplies, trying out some of the brushes and checking out some of the paints while waiting to see where they'll take me today.

Even bits like this aren't wasted. I write letters on them and find that whether they go to painter's or not everyone seems to enjoy the process and it sure beats a lot of things people could write or read about.

I went back to watercolor pencils and ink for the envelope art.

Envelope Art

a "play date" in the studio, drawing, painting and paper cutting

Here's the first bit of outlining and then I began to wonder what else I could do with the design and made a lot of photocopies to draw and paint  on.

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I started by adding another rose and then worked more flowers and stronger colors in.

Somewhere in the middle of it there was company, good conversation and a lot of fun passing things around and writing letters on a lot of them to cheer up everyone we know. Everyone was kind of "doing their own thing", one of us paper cutting lots of fun things to tuck in the envelopes with the letters and the rest of us trying various types of pencils, paints and markers.

We got so busy that we nearly forgot to make lunch or take a coffee break.

 We never did decide which version of this that we liked best so I used several of them to design merchandise with in my stores and I'll let people vote with dollars.

A lot of the time when I'm not sure whether a design is good or not I go ahead and design products with it and wait to see whether it sells or not.

The finished butterfly painting

People may find it odd that it took me 5 days to do this painting but I was working it in between other projects and it's been pleasant to work with, both in doing the actual painting and in using some of the butterflies to design products with on Zazzle.

I'm still not sure what my next project will be so I'm taking some time to clean and organize my studio space while I wait for inspiration to strike.

Painted Envelopes

Bird, white rose and the front yard