First Things First, New Floral Paintings in progress

So Many Projects, So Little Time

I'm still working on that painting and Christmas card design but as you can see behind it a friend brought flowers yesterday and I need to get to drawing and painting them while they last so I'll have to take a brief break from Christmas.

Perhaps walking away from this right now is a good thing because I'm having a bit of trouble coming up with just the right background as well as a technique for painting the crochet and knit items both in and on the stocking.

Here's a long shot of the mess I've got going on in here today where I'm also embroidering some flowers over the stains on a pair of pants for another friend.

A neighbor dropped these off  this morning for me to paint so I guess I'd better get set up and started on these. I haven't really done anything this morning besides this blog and already my day feels busy.

A few more steps

5. Feel free to turn your work to avoid touching areas of wet paint and to make it easier to paint in small details.

6. Keep inspiration handy so that you can see how well you've captured the item that you've decided to paint. As you can see here I've decided to use a black background and a small bristle brush (the coarser the better) to tap in Alizarin Crimson and Cad Red Medium to get the look of the old red wool stocking.

7. As long as you've got the reds laid out on your palette you might as well get out a small bit of white and add small dabs of the resulting pinks to the background that you're building. (With the price of good paints being what they are we don't want any of it to go to waste)

8. I've added the black to the are where the Granny Squares are going to be (I'm much more accustomed to crocheting them than painting them so this should be interesting). As there was a small amount of black left on the palette this was a good time to add the stitching details to the stocking as well.

Step by Step with Paints for Christmas

1. Start by laying out the items you want to use and sketching the basic shapes in pencil on a canvas panel.

2.  Lay in a muted background with the acrylic paints of your choice. A one inch hardware store paintbrush is inexpensive and works well for this pat and tap technique.

3. When you're ready to take a break from the background you can start laying in your other areas of color to get a feel for where the design is going. In this case I found it helpful to keep the garland on my easel so I could see how the beads should look when the light hits them.

4. Remember to take a break whenever you need to. Here's where I left the project today.

Pencil Designs for Christmas Cards

The best place to start is with the things you have so I grabbed this Christmas stocking I made from a lot of scrap items that were given to me (and which hasn't sold on eBay or etsy) and then I started pulling other items out of boxes of old Christmas decorations and arranging them in different ways to get the creative process going. All you really need is a good idea so just jump in and try something. 

The next decision of course is which media and surface you're going to work on. I selected some 140 pound watercolor greeting cards with lighter weight envelopes and colored pencils. What you see here is the design for the corner of the envelope. The beauty of working this way is that even if I don't get a design that will work for publication or production, there's always someone special that will love a hand drawn card and envelope. Most of the people that I write to say they have great conversations with their mail carriers over my work and that adds even more fun to the experience.

Here's a close up of the envelope.

...and here's the start of my design for the card.

What I really like about this design idea is that it works in either a vertical or horizontal format and leaves lots of room for text boxes, calligraphy or any other way that I'd want to add a greeting to it.

Today's Watercolors

Yes, they're on cards and envelopes. I just LOVE mail, don't you?

1960's Raggedy Andy

I came across this today while sorting through things and as you can see by looking at it I've always been interested in arts and crafts. Believe it or not this little doll combines a lot of them. It started with a store bought doll, I replaced the hair with a latch hook and yarn. I sewed the little jeans and embroidered the suspenders and trim on the sleeves. It was the 1960's so I couldn't resist sewing some little patches on them as well. Silly, maybe but it was a great way to learn and improve on skills which is probably why I've kept it all these years. You never know where a project idea will lead you.

Today's Garden Photos



I'm never quite sure what color to make the background on a pencil drawing. As you can see here I tried just about everything before finally blacking it out.

Having done the background I realized that I wasn't quite sure which end I wanted to be the top of this image. With the design work I'm doing these days I may try turning it a number of different directions depending on the shape of the item I'll be putting it on.

Yellow and Blue

The Day of Sunflower Paintings

All set up and ready to start.

We had a light turn out for painting group today so I set all of my work in progress at the empty seats so that I could go back and forth between projects. This has 3 major benefits. 1. It keeps you from getting bored. 2. It gives you a fresh perspective on the work. 3. It saves on paint because any leftover bits you've set out can be used on the other paintings.

I found it helpful to have both a live sunflower and a photo to look at as I'm working. When you approach a subject from several different angles it seems to make your painting more alive and vibrant.

The ideas keep coming...

Altered Sunflower Photos

I love to collaborate on photo effects with my husband. We used to have a regular dark room years ago but are doing it all digital these days. In this case I grew the flower and took the original photo and Doug took it from there as we discussed the changes along the way. I'm seeing a LOT of possibilities for inspiration from these when the last Sunflower dies.

Photos of the last Sunflower

Outgoing Mail

Here's a little drawing I did on the corner of an envelope I was sending to a friend. I've been sorting through the rest of my art supplies and trying to organize my work space. I'm hoping to start several new projects and finish up some old ones as soon as I get a bit of sleep. Keep reading and watching...there will be new work soon.

Butterfly House, Birdhouses and yesterdays watercolors

I repainted the roof to the butterfly house, (Minnesota weather isn't kind to things like this and it's been out there for years.)

Yes, this arbor is a pretty busy place and I like to think that it brightens up the neighborhood a bit.

I was pretty surprised to see how well the new flowers I painted on it matched up when we put it back together.

I forgot to add this photo to yesterdays post. I had wet and salted watercolors EVERYWHERE !