Just making a few new cards for the holidays this year...I need to buy more blank watercolor cards.
Most people get regular cards but I do give family and close friends hand painted ones (if I have enough made).
Starting late again!
But it sure beats going out for Black Friday sales!!!
Darkness below her, and deep blues closing in around her. Dull grey surroundings closing in.
Blue Rain Crow
Watercolor on Arches 140# coldpress paper
15 x 22 inches
Think I'll just draw in the crow in graphite, pale and almost disappearing.
Finished.
Noticed this large box turtle walking in the neighbor's yard about a month ago. Sweetie decided to "rescue" him. He was probably someone's pet that was released. We set up a nice space for him.
He likes boiled eggs and loves strawberries.
Since the weather is getting colder at night, we will release him into the woods and let him find a nice place to dig a hole and winter in before freezing temps set in = better for him than staying here in the cold and trying to keep him warm and healthy throughout winter.
Wavy lines and shapes.
Nothing solid under her feet.
Looks like she might be trying to call out a warning - or sick up something stuck in her craw.
Vertigo Crow
Watercolor on Arches 140# cold press paper
13.5 x 14.25
Another piece of TerraSkin paper (made of stone). Watercolor with bits of watercolor pencil scraped onto the wet pigment for texture.
Slowly adding up texture and shape and darkening some values, adding veins.
A bit more to do and let dry before the end...
We really don't have pretty leaves this year - maybe it was too warm for too long?
Wiped back the top parts so they were not so close to the edge, then rewet and used watercolor crayons to add some texture. I like them more now but still not as nice as the very first effort.
I kept the same size on the blue/green cool one but cut back the size on the warm one.
Both are done on TerraSkin stone "paper" with watercolor and watercolor crayons.
Do you have a favorite?
Life Flower No. 1
Watercolor on TerraSkin stone paper
28 x 9.5 inches
I changed the colors just a bit on this one - the first and best. Then made 2 others that are kind of ugly.
Oh, well. Just playing with colors and since these are on TerraSkin (stone) paper, they can be washed back to white or layered over with other things or whatever.
I used to stand and paint for an hour or more at a time. Now I don't seem to have much energy. No migraines, just low energy. I keep telling myself I'm not that old yet but maybe I am kidding myself.
Here are the ugly ones...
Obviously, no planning - the tops are too close to the edge and the thorns are a bit too big.
This one is 28 x 8.5 inches
It's okay to just play with colors, though, and maybe rework them if I want them to be anything I keep - or wash it all off and start again.
And this one is 30 x 5.5 inches so very skinny.
Happy November
Where did the summer and fall go???
Sweetie bought a kit to dress up our pumpkin. We bought a small one that's very green on one side. Added the bits. And here is Froggy Pumpkin. It should be the only one like this in the neighborhood when the Halloween beasties come out.
Happy Halloween!
A long, thin painting (watercolor) on TerraSkin paper.
Love the way the color separates, granulates, changes as it dries on this stuff.
This is: Life as a Flower
(Life begins so green and fresh, so clean and new...then changes and sometimes there are thorns but look at the end result: hopefully it's beautiful!).
I got up at 7:30 this morning, went downstairs and painted this. Are the migraines over? So far, so good - almost one week without and I'm beginning to see the light at the end of the tunnel and hope it's not an oncoming train! ha ha
Closer view so you can see the colors and how they flow.
Wishing you a wonderful weekend.
September was a horrid month of migraines which laid me low for days at a time - weeks at a time, really. October = 6 so far and that's good news! Had an MRI and it showed "normal" which is all the report I got about it - 35 minutes in a tube with and without dye injected into me and I get "normal" a one word report?? So asked for a copy of the report the doctor got! Maybe I don't want to know...but that just isn't me. I want to know even if I have to look up the medical terms. I know it irritates some doctors who just want you to agree and move on - take this pill and you'll be fine - or whatever.
Anyway, enough whining. I am painting nothing but small cards so here they are...
Pumpkins are everywhere these days - wonder what they do with all those leftover ones in the boxes at the grocery? Have you seen the ones people are carving like our presidential candidates? Scary! ha ha
Some seed pods.
These cards are homemade from 5 x 7 bits of Arches or Fabriano 140# coldpress paper. Which means I'll have to find some envelopes for them.
Just a few paintings on cards = collaged pieces (the mermaid was painted on Tyvek + and bee is glued onto gold gessoed paper that was painted around using a honeycomb stencil).
The other day I looked out my window and saw a sky that could have been painted by Rene Magritte. I looked for the large green apple but didn't see one :)
Magritte seemed to love painting skies - and then putting something surreal into the painting, making us think about what, exactly, he was trying to say or do.
Many of us are familiar with one of his most famous painting, Son of Man, whether we know the name of it, or not.
I'm not sure surrealists want you to figure out what they are saying - if anything. Magritte said he covered the man's face so we think about how we always want to see something behind what we actually see. The bowler, which he wore, could be a self-portrait aspect or not. The sea, the stormy sky, who knows??
Hoping your day is NOT surreal. And hoping all along the eastern coast of the US can rebuild and gather their lives back together after Hurricane Matthew. So sad to see the news reports from Haiti where almost 300 died turn into 800+ recorded dead there.
Just another quick one done on TerraSkin paper using watercolors and watercolor ink. Trying to keep my brushes wet in between migraines...
18 x 8.5 inches on TerraSkin paper
Blue Tree, Yellow Sky
Hope your month is going well - for me, the weather has turned to cool mornings and nights, misty daybreaks, dew on the grass, the crows have returned and are calling, some weekend hours spent watching the grandkids play soccer, long-sleeved shirts and jackets coming out of the closet, leaves just beginning to tease us with changing colors. I love autumn.
15 x 5 inches, watercolor and
watercolor ink on TerraSkin paper
Bee World
For the entire month of September, I was fighting migraines - 8 total, which means 16 days in pain. Not plesant. During this month, I learned that I am not capable of dealing with chronic pain without becoming a wimpy woman who cries when she sees puppies, little piglets, sad dogs and cats, kittens, even while watching a program about a wonderful woman who quilted 100 original (no pattern, free style) quilts in her life who was a sharecropper's wife. Yep, made me cry. So my emotions have been put into some kind of blender and are just raw - because of the pain.
In between migraines, I painted this. 15 x 5 inches, watercolor and watercolor ink on TerraSkin paper.
Migraines September 2016
I am hoping October is a better month. Until then...
Another in the Bee Series paintings. Haven't used the painted rice paper yet but thinking about how to incorporate that into another painting...
For this one, I copied some materials I got through the mail and then collaged the copied paper onto the watercolor paper around the painted bee.
Not sure what to name it - so the working title is just Pesticides Kill.
If I am going to have a show using these, I need to start making some in other sizes. Right now, the majority of paintings are fourth sheet (11 x 15 inches). Maybe next one will be a full sheet or half sheet again.
I haven't had a migraine in 4 days. For every day of migraine, the next day is also bad - I feel drugged (whether I took anything for the migraine or not) and achy from the tense muscles. So 14 days so far this month and I am hoping October is better.
Added some rice paper (white) to the edges of the "quilt" pieces and then added white gouache to that to make it stand out more. A bit of texture to add interest. All done.
Fourth sheet (11 x 15") Fabriano coldpress watercolor paper.
Bee Quilt
I stained some of the white rice paper with Quinacridone Gold to use in the next painting...
Not sure how it's going to be used, but I like the organic look of it...we'll see...
Started another in the Bee Series paintings. This one, called Bee Quilt and I haven't decided yet what to add to it within the "squares" but I'll come up with some collage or something...perhaps add some texture with string? Ideas will be percolating for a while.
I haven't been painting much at all this month - migraines coming 1-2 times a week have kept me off kilter. Because of that, I'm limiting my time on the computer down to just a couple times a week for short periods of time.
I'm trying many things to help get rid of these blue meanie migraines, and hoping they go away soon.
Hope you all are enjoying your September, and are being creative this month.
I've got the blues...
What colors do you have
and love?
I have begun a new painting in the Bee Series.
Will share it later.
Hawks are coming to are area. I have a lot of feeders so I have a lot of birds - cardinals, bluejays, nuthatches, goldfinches, house finches, chicadees, mourning doves, etc. It's a buffet for a strong predator. Everyone has to eat.
Aren't they gorgeous creatures?
This Cooper's Hawk was taking a cooling dip in the water standing on the swimming pool cover (we put mosquito dunks in there so the neighbors don't burn us at the stake about breeding mosquitoes; tablets tossed in once a month gets rid of the larvae). It is being drained today since we are going to have more rain this evening. Anyway...
When I glance outside and see no birds at the feeders, or hear the bluejays squawking, I know a hawk is close by. This one was right on the deck railing, turning his/her head to stare at me when I looked out. Big Red-shouldered hawk.
Notice the different back feather patterns and the difference in the color of the eyes to help distinguish between the hawks that come to our area = Red-Tailed, Red-Shouldered, Cooper's, etc.
Going from big to small...
We have a family (or two) of hummingbirds. I've seen two males, one (or two) females, and a couple of smaller young ones, all coming and feeding at the two sugar water feeders I've put out. Set out two if you see them fighting over a single feeder and make sure the second feeder is out of sight of the first = on the opposite side of the deck = cuts down on the territorial behavior and everyone gets to eat.
