F....uschia. Floral.

Yesterday was busy... my hubby and I took my pet praying mantis (one of them) to the county fair to compete in the "Novelty" category of the pet show.  She got 3rd place, and it was a lot of fun.  Then we went over the Cultural Arts center to check out the lots of stuff I entered over there... 1 piece of jewelry, 3 paintings, my famous French bread, and an assortment of canned goods -- I just started canning this year and I kind of went hog wild.  

The results:  not bad!  I was really excited that, unlike last year, this year I had to compete in the Professional category (woot!), and still got 2nd in the Animals category with my painting of my little dog Dink:

And 3rd in Still Life with my violin painting.

I got first place in Jewelry with my wire wrapped turquoise ("Anshar" on this page), and a 1st, 2nd, and 3rd with canned stuff.  And my pretty dried hot peppers got Best in Show in the Miscellaneous canned goods category.  Sweet!   

At the pet show and later that evening at the Western Horse Show, I sat and practiced drawing from life (oh my god, do my skills at that need work....!!)

So that was yesterday.  Needless to say, I didn't get a chance to paint, but I drew a whole lot, filling pages and pages of my little sketchbook with gesture and contour drawings and quick sketches.  

So back in the studio today, I finished up a couple of paintings I'd base coated.  It's back to oil with the henna impasto for these.  I'm happy with one of them.  Guess which?

I might like the hibiscus better after it dries and I can make the central stamen more interesting.  We'll see.

By the way, these are 4x4 on hardwood panels.

I thought about doing journal pages with watercolor chronicling my fair adventures... that may be tomorrow's (or the next few days') painting.

Oh, almost forgot!  The fuschia is my "F" painting for the alphabet challenge with Crystal Cook., and I'm officially caught up for the 30/30 challenge  :)   Progress!

Art Therapy

Calla

I go through phases with my jewelry making... I want to do chainmaille for a while, then I want to play with wire, and sometimes I want to make things out of tiny seed beads.  I am certain that it'll be the same with painting, and I'm currently in a knife painting (impasto) phase.  In some ways it's great because it keeps me from getting too obsessed with details, which is pretty easy for me to do.

I wanted to do a flower with a knife, and decided that the smooth lines of a calla lilly would be fun to paint.  I was right.  You probably can't see the texture from these pictures but there are subtle leaf shapes in the background paint on this, which is why impasto is so much fun for me.  I did this in two phases; I did the background one day and finished it the next.  Have to love quick-drying paint (but not TOO quick...).

I had so much fun doing this... I want to try impasto on Gessoboard to see how this works without the texture of the canvas peeking through. 

Mini Paintings

I got the awesome news yesterday that my friend from high school, Monica, is stopping by to visit on her way from an archaeological dig in Arkansas back home to Cleveland, and staying a few days.  I'm so excited to see her, it's been 20 years!

BUT... that means it's likely I won't get time to paint Tuesday or Wednesday next week, so I want to get a couple ahead.  As a result I worked on some small paintings in oil today.

I love minis and ACEOs because it's an affordable way for anyone to collect miniature original works of art.  If you'd like to purchase any of these, check out the ACEO/Mini Page.

Stop and Smell the Daisies, 3 x 3 mini canvas

I roughed Stop and Smell the Daisies in ages ago, and then misplaced it in all the confusion of my son moving out for college, back home, then away again, and then back home again.  I found it this past weekend and put some more details on it, but it's not done yet... close, but not quite.

Joy and Friendship, 3 x 3 mini canvas. Click picture to purchase.

This one, however, I started and finished today.  I left the charcoal outlines in it a bit because I decided I like them.  This is a 3 x 3 on a mini canvas.

What Cheer? 2.5 x 3.5 oil on ACEO card, for sale here 

And I roughed in this little oil ACEO at the beginning of the month and got around to finishing it today.  I was trying to remember what the birdwatcher people say the cardinal says (they have words to match the calls of a lot of birds, which is why Chickadees are named chickadee-dee-dee), and I looked it up.  What cheer, cheer, cheer?  And then as I started to type this paragraph I realized I was hearing a cardinal outside my window.

I love these little guys... they sure brighten up a dreary winter.  I was washing dishes this morning and Mrs. Cardinal paid a visit to my garden, which is right outside my kitchen window. 

I have a fascination with painting birds lately... and I just got a book on painting wildlife, so expect to see more of them :)

Watercolor Exercises

A little practice with washes and values...

And an exercise.  This is Project One in Step by Step Guide to Painting Realistic Watercolors by Dawn McLeod Heim, another book I adore and recommend and have been planning on using for ages. 

By way of self-critique, I need more control with my edges and my charges aren't blending as well as they need to.  I learned a lot from doing this.  (It is done from a traced drawing out of the book, then painted per the author's directions). 

I was going to do a watercolor horse ACEO today but I thought I'd buckle down and do some learnin' before I tackle it.  I also am going to need to seriously work on my drawing skills if I'm going to do any serious watercolor.

Challenge! Day One

 

I finished the cherry blossoms. Yay! So this is my painting for the day, but because I did most of it last month it feels sorta like cheating... I really need to chill, I guess.  

 So, since the Sakura painting went very quickly I thought I'd play with some alla prima (wet into wet) painting, just to see how the paint behaves and how to get it on the canvas without muddying it.

This is the result. I pretty much hate it. But, I did learn from the experience, and that was the point. I want to let it dry and paint on it some more, but that kind of defeats the purpose of the exercise... I might do it anyway.

I painted in the background, then the tree, then used a dry brush to try to create the effect of wind in the branches, which succeeded for a while but then looked like I just smudged the paint (which... I guess is what I did). I'll come back and look at it tomorrow and decide what is to be done with it.

I made a page on my website for this month's Challenge paintings! 

Sakura Sakura

A little more definition on the foreground blossoms. I'm headed to Hobby Lobby to spend my Christmas gift card from my son Brandon on painting stuff, and maybe some fiber stuff.  :D

Sakura

A little work on my cherry blossoms. I darkened the lower corner of the sky, defined branches, filled in some background blossoms, and defined the shapes of the foreground flowers a bit.