More Work Inspired by Garden Catalogs

Still Waiting for Spring

The lettuce has come and gone is my hydroponic planter and I'm now growing basil, dill and parsley.
I've already clipped the dill back once to add to a cream of broccoli soup. And may start using some of the basil soon for a bit of Italian cooking.

As you can see out the window over my work area it will be a while yet before I plant anything outdoors. Believe it or not they've got snow in the forecast for later this week!

Gotta get some use out of the garden catalogs that keep popping out of my mailbox so I've been using them to improve my drawing and watercolor painting skills.

This photo the catalog clipping is at the top, with my watercolor below it and a marker drawing on the envelope. When the card is folded the catalog picture will be on the back of it.

Black Eyed Susans

 I kept adding and changing the washes on the background of this painting and never quite came up with anything that I was really happy with.

I'll be getting some masking fluid to protect light areas and let me be more free and spontaneous with the backgrounds.

Step by Step Watercolor Tulips

As usual it all began with photos of gardens past. Things keep me so busy in the summer that I seldom get a chance to paint things while they're blooming.

I started with a loose pencil sketch of my main subjects.

Here you see the photo I used along with the type of paints and water brushes I carry with me. Water brushes hold water in a compartment which comes through the brush when you squeeze  the handle.

I probably should have left it alone before trying to add borders and outlining it with ink. It looked fine at this stage, don't you think so?

I took this picture so that I could compare the outlined bits with the rest of the painting in case I was making a mistake I figured that It would show me where I went wrong.

  Well, for better or worse, here is the completed painting.

The ink makes it look a bit like a stained glass window and I kind of like that about it.

Garden Photos, Pencil and Marker

  Rather than relying on paints and colored pencil I thought I'd see what I could accomplish with just one pencil. I chose an H to avoid smudging.

The garden photo I'm using was of some petunias I had in the container garden last year.

The first results were nice but I decided to go over it again to darken the background and improve the contrast.

I found that I liked it a lot more after that.

Here are a few envelopes decorated with markers and a fountain pen. The tulips were based on another of my garden photos. 

These cards include photos of flowers cut from my garden placed next to the watercolors that I did from them.

Waiting for Spring

With all of the sun and thawing going on I'm eager to get outside and see how things are coming along but then reality sets in and I realize that I chill much to easily these days and I can't take my big,power wheelchair outdoors until the ground is both dry and solid enough to handle it.

In the meantime there are still those garden catalogs, markers and watercolors to entertain myself and everyone I know with.

Here you can see that none of my markers were the right color so I began to experiment with layering them to get the right effect.

Of course along the way there's always coffee or tea and even that makes it to paper.

Meanwhile, efforts continue to organize the studio wall in my tiny living room.

It doesn't look great but at least things are up and out of the way when I'm not using them.

The Thaw Sets In

Just as I was beginning to think winter would never end a bit of a thaw has set in along with stacks of garden catalogs arriving so it's a good time to start thinking about this years garden.

Somehow I get the impression that the birds are thinking about this too.

Painting this simple card and envelope design just felt like spring. I'll be attaching a photo to the center of the card so that's why it's just a border.

I even get ideas from the junk mail as I grabbed a few markers to think about this design seen on a clothing companies envelope.

It's such a simple design that I think it will work well in watercolor too.

Iris Drawing in Ink, Pencil and Watercolor

This sketchbook project began with a photo of Iris that had been a gift from my Brother. 

Next, I started on the pencil sketch that would help me decide how to go about painting it.

Here you see them all together in the book.

Mistakes were made here by making the teapot more dominant than the flowers.

Other attempts will be made until I get an image that I'm happier with and can take the image to print in my zazzle store.

Card and Envelope Sets: Pen, Ink and Watercolor

I started by  using the same design but different approaches to the card and the envelope trying to decide which approach that I liked better.

Next I did a line drawing and wash version of one of my favorite days on the front porch of my first house.
For the envelope design I repeated the image of the flowers and painting.

I'm trying lots of different things with this latest bunch of card and envelope sets. This one used techniques called negative painting and transparent glazes. Negative painting involves building up a background around an area using many layers of different colors to create the illusion of leaves, stems, and flowers.

This little envelope design was just a drawing enhanced with bits of watercolor.