Expressionist floral evolution

 Today I thought you might like to go along for the ride as I turn the last odds and ends of my heavy duty acrylic paints into a painting of a vase of flowers while practicing a technique of negative space that creates the vase and flowers by painting around those shapes instead of painting the vase and flowers on top of everything else.

 I often have several paintings going at the same time. The one I'm working with here was going to be part of a series called crossroads.

I never quite know when a painting is going to take a sudden left turn.

I'm continuing to develop the flowers and get ready to finish the painting.

Trying another approach. After many different attempts at painting a background that I liked I decided to collage with materials that referred to the painting.

I chose papers  from drawing workbooks and a garden catalog so that i could slip lots of little messages into the painting to help explain it.

The art page were used in the background and the garden catalog was used on the table area.

I was VERY pleased with the results what do you think of it?

Between projects and thinking of you

 Hello there,

I am sorry that I've been away from you so long this time. It's inexcusable except for the facts that often after painting intensely for a while I find that I'm running on empty and need a certain amount of time to rest and recover.

Once I've gotten a bit of rest and sleep I head to my garden and of course anything can happen there.

The first thing we did was get back to building that large planter box from salvaged building supplies.

Everyone in the garden came to watch.

Except me, this was the view I enjoyed as I tipped my reclining wheelchair back to supervise.

This guy, designed it, built it, insulated, lined it and put siding on the outside of it to match the house.

The reason he insulated it is because Minnesota winters can be unpredictable and I'm growing several special varieties of strawberries in it.

There was also a bit of entertaining. Where better to do it these days than in a garden.

I'll skip listing the number and type of events unless some of you request it. Now, back to the actual garden.

All of the sedum in the front and side yards came from one plant I bought about 15 years ago. It's amazing how much it increases if you divide and move it often. it's an important consideration when choosing and purchasing new plants.

I didn't even wait until the planter was completely finished before I started putting the strawberry seedlings into it. I'm very excited about this project!

The tomatoes were a disappointment and the beets failed but the marigolds did well.

During bad weather there's always drawing or working on the indoor plants. This project started with a favorite garden photo that I took a few years ago.

I did this one with water color but I'm still not happy with the results, each time I  try it, it gets a bit better, as do I. someday it will turn out just the way I want it to, this simply wasn't it

As usual, I do love to spend my spare time "playing" with markers and watercolors  to decorate my letters.

This was a fun project. The image on the left was from a sheet of postage stamp which had it's own adhesive so it was easy to apply to a scrap of water color paper. I did a little gouache painting that I could use as a bookmark if I wanted.

Here's some mail again.

Painting Outdoors

I'm so sorry those dumpsters are in the way. I keep trying to find a way to block them from view.

 

This visit was a chance to show one of my sister's the paintings I'd been working on the last few Months. She'd seen photos but that's just not the same experience as seeing the texture and everything in person.

Excuse the extra pictures here. I just haven't figured out how to remove them yet.

It seems that every time I get used to the way things work the tech people change them.

I hope that everything is running smoothly for you. I'd like your reading experience to be a pleasant one.

 Sometimes get togethers are just to visit, sometimes we paint our own things, occasionally we choose a project and as this time, sometimes we just evaluate the results.

The important thing is to encourage each other and keep the creativity coming.

Celebrating My Veggie Garden

 I often have tea in the garden and on this day I decided to pick a few things for lunch on the way back to the house so I just stuck them in my teacup and saucer and loved the look of it so much that I decided to paint it to remember the day by.

I started by taking a photo to work on after we'd eaten our salads for lunch.

oops!! I tried to
delete this.

I tried drawing and painting it in several types of media but I found eventually that watercolor worked best.

I'm trying to find the photos of the other attempts I made to capture this image I'll add them as soon as I can find them.

I keep the photo handy because I'm sure that I can do a better job of it eventually but this one will have to do for now.