EASTER

Watercolor on all media art paper with a tiny bit of collage.





Calling this one 
Easter.

ACRYLIC AND COLLAGE REVISED

Another one - revised.  On all media art paper using acrylics and collage.  

LAST REVISION

The last revision of the acrylic and collage on all media paper.  

SPRING ABSTRACTION INTO BITS

Abstracted painting cut into pieces, then laid side-by-side to create something else entirely.  I could glue it all to a support but I just pinned all the pieces to the cork board in my little art room.  May use some of the pieces for something later.  

BLUE BIRD

Blue bird waiting for spring.




Painted on Stonehenge Aqua hotpress 140# paper.  

MIXED MEDIA PAPER AND WATERCOLOR

Wet and windy day...

ANOTHER ACRYLIC PAINT AND COLLAGE

Acrylic painting, then collage on top (cut from a pretty paper napkin), some Japanese art paper (dyed) added and finished with dark graphite stick (water soluble).  

HAPPY PI DAY!

PAINT AND COLLAGE

Acrylic painting, then collage pieces added (from magazine and the Japanese art paper I dyed with watercolor).  Then finished with some dark water soluble graphite stick. 

Still going into my little art room and just pulling out bits and pieces and doing...whatever. 

MIXED MEDIA PAPER

Watercolor on mixed media paper (not sure what brand).  The paper is a bit slick but not like Yupo - the paint doesn't sink into the paper.  Just flinging paint around with no plan when I go into my little art room.



Weeping Willow

IS IT BLOGGER OR ME?

I have had some issues with posting on friends’ art blogs recently - namely, Lisa, Bruce, Jennifer Rose and Myrna.  I post my comments and hit the send...and it just sits there OR I get through the send part and I have to pick the bus, the traffic light, the crosswalk in a set of photos OVER and OVER and OVER.  Don’t know what the deal is but just know that I do see what you’re doing, dear art friends, and I do want to comment but blogger is giving me fits.  And it’s not all blogs, just some, so what is that about?

Oh, well, just saying hello and loving your recent stuff Lisa and Myrna.  And saying hello I’m still reading your posts Bruce and Jennifer.

Have a good weekend - we Spring Forward here so everyone’s complaining already about losing an hour of sleep this weekend.  Well, guess it’s better than complaining about the state of U.S. politics!

JAPANESE ART PAPERS

A friend of mine (thanks, Jane W!) gave me some Japanese art papers she purchased and couldn't use (she's a colored pencil artist and these papers are too thin and porous for that).  So I have 3 rolls of interesting paper.  I've used them for batik in the past but don't do that anymore so...just decided to dye a few sheets using watercolor.  

Not sure what the papers are called - there are so many names of the art papers.  These first 2 have fine little bits included and the last 2 have larger threads.


I will probably use them in collage work at some time.  

Right now, I'm not really painting.  I think it's the usual winter blues that's got me down.  Not feeling very creative so burying myself in books for a while.  


I did order some new supplies from Cheap Joe and that may perk me up when they come in.

Sweetie likes this last one the best (this one is made by pouring acrylic ink from a pour bottle).  Sweetie says this reminds him of ice frozen on a window :)  If ice on a window was this colorful, I might not have the winter blues!




I hope you are all feeling well, healthy, and thinking about spring.  We're having snow again - Mother Nature doesn't know (or doesn't care) that it's almost spring.  Until then...stay warm and safe.

STONEHENGE

On the Stonehenge Aqua hotpress paper.  Just an imaginary thing.  Not crazy about it (looks too childish), but sometimes it's okay to just get paint on paper.

7 x 10 ROUGH BUT NOT A BIRD

Still playing in my 7 x 10 Arches 140# rough block and my Stonehenge Aqua 140# hotpress block.  


This one is in the 7 x 10 - but not a bird.  Just an imaginary landscape of sea and sky and grasslands.




I know Jennifer hates the pushpins in the edges but I'm no longer pushing them through the paper, just letting them touch the edges to hold it on the corkboard so I can photograph the paintings when they are done :)  

WELLNESS

Well, it's migraine season again for me.  So I'll be off painting for a while.  Just trying to get myself well.  Seems like this happens every spring but it's early for spring here with cold weather and snow flurries still happening daily.  So...I'll return when I'm feeling better for more than 1/2 day at a time.

MERMAID SONG

Mermaid, full length, not just the tail.






I used to love the Shel Silverstein mermaid song:

When I was a lad in a fishing town, an old man said to me
You can spend your life, your whole damn life, fishing in the sea
You can search the world for pretty girls til your eyes are weak and dim
But don't go swimming with a mermaid, son, if you don't know how to swim.

Cause her hair is green as seaweed
and her skin is smooth and pale
and her face it is a work of art
and you'll love that girl with all your heart
but you'll only love the upper part
you're not gonna like the tail. 

7 x 10 ROUGH SERIES

A white pelican from Florida.  
Backlit and shadowed.

SWIMMING ALONG

This one is on Stonehenge Aqua hotpress paper with watercolor.  Added a bit of silver and gold acrylic pen marks to make the scales and outline some areas.  The words are in silver acrylic pen. 


Time to get back to the 7 x 10 Series of birds...

RAIN OFF A MERMAID'S BACK?

With the words added.  Hard to see in the photo, but it says

Just keep swimming!


(I softened out the tailfin.)  This is on Stonehenge Aqua hotpress paper (I'm liking it more, the more I use it.)


And we can use that tagline now because we are having rain rain rain and more rain.  The Ohio River is at flood stage and overflowing streets in Newport and Bellevue on the Kentucky side.  

And more rain predicted this week.


So, keep your head above water (unless you're a mermaid) and more mermaids and birds to come...

UNDER THE SEA

Just another mermaid.

STONEHENGE AQUA HOTPRESS PAPER: MERMAID IN DISGUISE

Walking on the beach on Anna Maria Island, I saw this slender girl in white with bright red (mermaid) hair.  Had to snap a photo and then try to capture her.  Her shadow shows some of her "real" shape she's hiding by walking among us.

A real mermaid?  Or just my imagination?  

7 x 10 ROUGH SERIES: HUMMINGBIRD

Back to the 7 x 10 Rough series of birds in between other things. 

I enjoy switching back and forth between the rough paper and the hotpress paper.

This little hummingbird is from a photo Sweetie took from his trip to Costa Rica last year.

FLUID ACRYLICS ON GESSO BOARD: MERMAID

I thought I'd paint a mermaid on the gessobord I have in my art stash.  I like some things about it, but not all things about it so...

although I was going to glue the scrabble tiles down on the mermaid painting and call it finished, it just wasn't good enough for me to use the only scrabble tiles I have so...

it doesn't look like this because the tiles are just sitting on top of the painting.





Instead, it looks like the last painting and I'll do another on gessobord (I have 2 larger ones I'll try), and hope to be more pleased with the outcome.

The finished piece has some good sections (the blue looks fishy because I made a scale pattern in it: while the paint was wet, I dabbed with a textured paper towel and got the scaled look and the merge from golden to blue created a nice green at the base of the tail before the fins).


The writing was done with a gold acrylic marker.


I'll let this sit for a while and if I really don't like it, I can cover over it because it's gessobord for use with oils and acrylics.  I have a lot of fluid acrylics and regular acrylics I hardly ever use but this seemed like a good time to try them out - I obviously need more practice with the medium.

I should be outside because we are having a heat wave here after our Polar Vortex.

MANGROVES IN AUTUMN COLORS

The bright colors of the mangrove leaves are always interesting and tempting to paint.  I started this one on my hotpress to get the colors to bleed and run and mingle.  

(Not sure why the background looks violet because it's not - it's white paper:  Stonehenge Aqua hotpress paper, 10 x 14, 140#.)

SCRABBLE TILES, ANYONE?

First, another mermaid tail.  "Just Keep Swimming" is my own saying, and I put them on all my mermaid tail paintings.



This mermaid tail was painted using a photo from the Newport Aquarium mermaid visitors we had last year (the mermaids visit every year at the Newport Aquarium and you can get some good shots of them coming into the tank, leaving it, and swimming around.  It's pretty cool if you like mermaids - which I do.

And what does Scrabble tiles have to do with this?  Well, when we were in Anna Maria at a flea market, we saw vendors with loose Scrabble tiles for sale.  Then saw that they glued them to the little Scrabble boards to spell out Anna Maria or AMI or Beach Days, etc.  Cute idea.  But it gave me another idea - one I haven't seen.  Stay tuned and you'll get to see it soon.  I bought a few of the tiles and I'll show you how I'm going to use them.

I had a birthday day this month and got a lot of really great presents, too.  So happy to have my Sweetie, who treats me like my birthday is some kind of national holiday - only better!!  And family who knows I am happiest with books and art supplies (or gift cards for the same).  So another January, another New Year, another Birthday...here we go, 2019!!!

7 x 10 ROUGH SERIES - BIRDS

These white ibises have such long, curvy beaks.  Interesting creatures who can be found by the water or in a field, they aren't choosy about their food, it seems. 


My photo reference was taken in a field but I put these two in the sand by the sea because an artist can change their surroundings however they want to do so! 

7 x 10 ROUGH SERIES

Back (for a while?) to the 7 x 10 Rough series of birds.  This one is a great blue heron.  Got his neck a bit thick (perhaps he's been working out??).

ONE MORE TURTLE AND THEN...

This was done on a scrap of the 7 x 10 rough paper.  Just a little bookmark size painting of a turtle.  They have turtles come up on the beaches to lay eggs on Anna Maria Island, but only during the season of May - October.  

And then it's time for mermaids :)  

FROM 65 DEGREES TO 15 DEGREES?

Sweetie and I returned Saturday from Anna Maria Island (two warm, sunny weeks) to a snowstorm.  Not a big snowstorm in our area.  But enough to drop 3 inches of snow and drop the temperature down to 15F degrees - Brrrrrr!!  So snow and ice covered everything for a couple of days.  But I have paintings to share which I did while in AMI.  And I'll get back to my series of 7 x 10 Rough paintings of birds soon.  Until then...

This one was done when walking through the Coquina Beach Market.  An artist had trays of shaving cream mixed with acrylic inks in various light colors.  You took a sheet of the cardstock and put it down in the mix, let it sit for about a minute or two; then lifted it up and you got a mix of colors.  This one looked like a turtle from the start but I did add a little watercolor to reiterate the form a bit.  Cute.  But it still smells like shaving cream! ha ha  

I'd never seen that done before so was pleased to try it - she had beautiful acrylic pour paintings, too (that technique lends itself to sea and sand scenes so well and there are many artists doing that in Florida).  (Didn't think I had the artist's name but I found her card.  Her shop is called Everglades Eclectic and the artist is Jeanne Dee Mason.  You can find her on Facebook and she sells on Etsy.)  

And while on the sea turtle theme, I did a couple others.  

This one is not finished - just a start - in my Stillman & Birn watercolor sketchbook.

And this one was done in watercolor in my 7 x 10 block of Arches rough.  Guess I had turtles on my mind for a while!  Plus they are easy shapes to do.  Just have to add some more detail for interest.

HONEYSUCKLE BERRIES ON STONEHENGE AQUA HOTPRESS

I like the outcome of this enough to try some more using this paper.


Have you ever tried it?  

STONEHENGE AQUA HOTPRESS

I bought a block of Stonehenge Aqua Hotpress after seeing a lot of work from an artist who uses it well.  I'm not usually a fan of hotpress paper so we'll see.  I want something that gives me interesting texture without being a fussy as Yupo and something that's still paper.  This might be it!

I like the texture it gives me and the way the paint doesn't soak in and can be pushed around.  I can also lift out a little and reshape areas after it's dried.  

Interesting so far...


And not a bird but some red berries (probably honeysuckle berries) beside the house.

OOPS, FORGOT THE THEME

I forgot the theme and painted this on the 7 x 10 Arches 140# rough block of watercolor paper.  Not a bird.  An interesting plant.  It was not this color, being just mud-brown and dull.  A printout that was running low on certain inks caused it to look blue and silver so I thought I'd use those colors and try for some pen and ink along with the watercolor.  


I'll get back to the birds on the 7 x 10 rough after this - but I also have some totally different and interesting paper I want to try - stay tuned!

GREAT BLUE

Again, part of the 7 x 10 Rough series of bird paintings for 2019...

The great blue heron is a beautiful bird, often showing blue-grey and violet, sometimes just a dull grey color.  This one (from a photo taken during my recent Anna Maria Island trip) was in the evening and he looks very blue.  He (or she?) was fishing for little things beside a running stream inside Perrico Preserve.  

I know herons and egrets are found in the Ohio River Valley area, but I've rarely seen great blue herons around here.

WOODY

Another in the series, 7 x 10 Rough...

The pileated woodpecker comes to our suet feeders once or twice a year, but never stays.  He's just passing through.  

This woodpecker is the model for the Woody the Woodpecker cartoons - you can see why with that red topknot!

THE FINCH THAT ATE CHRISTMAS

I think he ate too many Christmas cookies!


This is watercolor on an Arches block of 7 x 10, 140# rough paper.  


New Year = New Birds :) 

The next few will all be on this block of rough 140# Arches so I'm calling the series

FINISHED ABSTRACTION

I started an abstracted painting - just putting down paint and letting it go.  Then reinforced the idea of the water, sandy shoreline, and grassland.  And added the great white egret.  

Still have AMI on my mind.  

UNIDENTIFIED PLANT

While in Anna Maria, I often visit The Olive Oil Outpost for a scrumptious cafe con leche.  It's my routine to stop once a day - yes, I'm addicted and like the people there a lot.  

On the way to the OOO, beside the walkway between streets, was this strange plant that had red pods growing on a tall red stem (it stood about 4 feet high).  It also had a single white flower blooming, which I did not paint.  

It caught my eye and I had to try to paint it when I came home.  

Some impressionistic greenery around it and another stem without the pods.  


Wonder what this plant is called?  I was going to ask someone, but forgot to do so while I was there.


This is painted on a scrap of 140# Fabriano Artistico cold press paper.  

ANNA MARIA AGAIN

Another on the slick mixed media paper using watercolors.  

Blue skies, sunshine, walks to the beach, and the date palms outside the house where we stayed on AMI.  

LIVING ON ANNA MARIA TIME

This was painted, while I was on Anna Maria Island in December, with watercolor on a slick paper (actually, a mixed media block of paper I thought I'd try).  The paper causes the paint to sit on top, creating some interesting textures.  It's not like Yupo since it is paper, but even more slick than hot press watercolor paper.  

Playing around with, but still using watercolors (tubes, crayons, pencils).


This is my impression of the two weeks in Anna Maria and all I saw there in December.

And Happy New Year 2019!