Watercolor Landscape Note Card and Envelope Sets

                                                                                                                                                                        I brought a lot of blank watercolor cards and envelopes to group this morning to hand out to everyone so they could share the fun of painting instead of working on a big, serious "works of art". I thinks it's a great way to relax into the process and get creative as well as have something nice to pop in the mail to surprise friends or relatives.

Plenty of choices

There are lots of choices today. Plenty of things blooming so all I've got to do now is decide what to reach for first, pen and ink, watercolors, colored pencil or acrylics.

My First Zinnia

This is my first Zinnia. I grew it in the dining room over the winter and now that it's bloomed I'm seeing just how many ways I can capture it in various media. I started with watercolor but plan to draw it in pen and ink or colored pencil next before heading to the studio to see what happens with acrylics.

First time for second chances

I'd read that you can wipe out or lift the color from watrcolor canvas panels so I took a damp rag to that Iris painting I'd been working on and scrubbed it. This is the result so far and still shows enough of the image that I could simply rework the image in colors and techniques that I like better.
I'll add pictures as it progresses.

Making Arrangements

Watercolor Iris

I've been working on this for about a month so far  and thought I'd better scan it in now in case I overwork and spoil it. A couple of interesting areas are beginning to develop so we'll see where it goes.

Still at it

Step by Step...and a little side trip

Some basic work with the first of this years daffodils:
1.grow the daffodils
2.shoot a photo of the daffodils
3.do a drawing of the daffodils
4.do a watercolor of the daffodils

The next step of course will be an acrylic painting which I plan to start sometime in the next week or so.

I got carried away making a bunch of notecards from photos of the project so far...which of course became a project of its own...

Gardening in the dining room

I just shot this photo and will haul the planter to the table to do some pen and ink or colored pencil drawings from it and may even get out to the studio to take a crack at it with paints.

Prosperity, Luck and the attempt to bring it about

I'm trying to decide if I've overworked this little painting by making the table area more intense. What do you think?
The colors in this are supposed to bring prosperity and good luck so I'm hoping they will.
It's hanging in my kitchen now.

Comparisons

I did the drawing on the left last night on the envelope of a letter to a friend and then out of curiosity I pulled up one that's about 15 years old to see if or how much my style has changed over the years. I'm not sure what to conclude from this but it was an interesting excercise.

Share the fun of recycling your art

Sometimes I lay the paints out on paper while working on paintings, sometimes it becomes a painting itself and other times I cut it up and use the bits to decorate notecards. None of the paint goes to waste and there's always something for everyone to enjoy.

Extreme Scrapbooking

This poject started last summer when I grew this sunflower and shot the photo of it. Next I mounted it in my sketchbook and drew leaves around it in pen and ink.That was going well until some jello landed on the page and left a stain I decided to work over in colored pencil.This probably would have worked out fine If i'd stuck to one or 2 colors of pencils instead of the 14 I managed to get my hands on.
I think this one was saved by scissors, all I need now is a nice mat and frame to finish it off. Was it worth al those months of work? Probably not but each stage of the project was a good experience for me and I'm sure someone else will like it now that it's Jell-O free.

Last of Winters Garden

As the weather gets warmer and there are sunny days ahead the flowers I've been tending in the dining room this winter are finally beginning to bloom and yes, they'll probably lead to some drawings and paintings but most likely they'll be around the borders of "snail mail" to fill my afternoons and the mailboxes of a few of my favorite people. I also had a lot of fun painting the chest that the planter sits on and may be doing more of that sort of thing soon as well.

Inspiration, Process and Prosperity

I've been working on the house again and reading a book called "Move Your Stuff, Change Your Life. How to use Feng Shui..." and it turns out that The messiest corner in my kitchen is supposed to be my "prosperity" corner so in addition to cleaning it up, repainting and putting new shelf paper in the cabinet I decided to paint a little watercolor in "prosperity" colors to hang on the wall based roughly on a small photo I'd taken of flowers from my garden in a small vase that I shot last year. In the first picture you see me getting started on the painting, in the center I've thrown coarse salt into the wet paint to draw off some of the color and produce the textured look you see in the finished painting. (yes, most of the salt shakes or brushes off as soon as the paint is dry) it's a bit messy to work with but the results are interesting. I tried it in the background of a painting the other day and will post a picture of that one soon. Anyway, I'm thinking it works for me-we sold 3 DVD's today and are hoping to see more improvement in all of our efforts soon.

More Fun with Garden Catalogs

I'm still getting a lot of garden catalogs in the mail and really enjoying clipping out a few flowers and rearranging them into letter paper. The rest of the catalog goes into the recycling and I often use the stationery I create to write and answer that days letters on so it all works out really well and everyone I  write says they're enjoying it a lot so I consider it a win, win situation all around, don't you?

Garden Plans

The only garden I'm likely to be able to control this season is the small hydroponic planter in the dining room so I used all the garden catalogs I've recieved for "art supplies" to keep my letters bright and interesting.(that way even if they're boring to read they're fun to look at). Oddly enough this is progress for me because most years I order all kinds of plants that run amok in the yards and gardens here. This time I'm making life easier and putting in more gravel and wildflower areas. I figure that the parts of the yard I can't quite manage will look a lot nicer that way. Why dig and bother when you can just cover it with something pretty? The other benefit of this plan is that more flowers mean more choices when I want to draw or paint something so I'm really looking forward to seeing hoe this all works out.

Watercolors

I sat in on a watercolor group today and found myself at a loss to explain the fact that I've been painting for 43 years and never gotten around to learning watercolors or trying other subjects besides the florals that I enjoy so much. Also knowing that I do paint, people expect you to be good so it's been quite an experience on a number of different levels. That's the trouble with being in a rut, you only notice that you're in one when you poke your head up and peek out of it.

Daffodils

As you can see from the first photo it's going to be a while before there are any real daffodils here. Luckily there were some old, nasty silks from some cemetary arrangements that I'm pulling apart to redo this year so I really loved the idea of taking this old, dead energy and trying to spin it into something positive before they're disposed of. This bright little painting was the result and of course the money from it's sale will buy new and better flowers for my Mom & Dad in laws graves ...and the cycle continues. Somewhere in the back of my head old songs play "the beat goes on" and "will the circle be unbroken". Art, music, memories and life that made my week intersting and left me smiling.

In The Bag

Yes, I had quite a bit of fun with this bag. There are 10 pockets on the inside and 18 different fabrics on the outside . No real plan, just grabbing bits of fabrics and sewing them all toigether at random. So far, I'm pleased with the results and enjoyed the process.

I'm working on 8 by 10 inch panels these days because they're cheapest and easiest to mail and it's quite a different experience from the things I used to do (some of them were several feet across) . The days go so quickly when I'm really "into" a painting and it was nice today that along with the sunshine out the window the birds are back. I'm starting to think about what sorts of things I'll paint when the summer weather allows me to work outdoors. I may actually go back to doing landscapes, haven't tried any of those in years...