Hibiscus on my walk...

This beautiful Hibiscus flower was lying on the ground and he looked very forlorn so I decided to pick him up and take him home and paint him.  I used the Hydrus Magenta and some sap green and blues.

I was just about to paint the background sparkly blue with my new Twinkling H20s but the ink I used for outline wasn't water resist so I decided not to try it this time. Next time.

We are heading up to Greenville for a couple of days for Baby Marc's birthday. Can't believe he is already two.

I just had to see what it looked like with a blue background. Not bad.

Journal Page in the big journal...

Well, I finally got back to my favorite big journal. I have been busy with the studio tour and the online class and all but I think I am longing for my journal entries. If you read any of this one you will see that our daughter, Macaulay, is pregnant again and due October 14. We are extremely excited but have been cautiously hopeful because she has had lots of trouble since baby Marc with numerous miscarriages. She and Daddy Marc are strong and know that whatever happens is in the Lord's hands. She is 15 weeks and so far so good.

Oh, also I wanted to say that I have no way to respond to some comments about the Color Drop class but I have gotten these two questions which I will answer now: All of the 7 video Lessons will be sent together so it is not a week by week thing. You get them all at once. Thanks, y'all!

Color Drop Flowers Growing Fast

The flowers are blooming all around me here in Jacksonville and these flowers really are growing fast. The Color Drop workshop starts May 16th but the supply video and the supply list are up at Creative Workshops.

I am starting to work on the Poppy class now.

Have a great day, bloggy buddies!

More happy flowers...

I hope everyone had a wonderful Easter Sunday. I have been busy filming the color drop watercolor class and I actually finished the filming this weekend. I had fun filming the flowers but I was having the right brain left brain switch conflict as I was painting. I can't talk and create but I did the best I could as my brain switched back and forth. I decided to put some stamps in the back of this one to distress it up a bit. The class will be available at Creative Workshops on May 16th!

Unfortunately, I could not include the Poppies in this watercolor class because the Poppies are another class in themselves. I will use some of the color drop techniques for the Poppy class and also the oriental brush. Not sure when I will have that one finished but hopefully not too long. Stay tuned.

Happy Poppies

Before going to bed I just had to paint some poppies. I have been working on my Color Drop Flower Class and it will be finished pretty soon. I hope everyone has a wonderful Easter.

The Home Tour

The Tour of Homes was so much fun! We had a total of about 1200 come through the Red Door Art Studio on Saturday and Sunday. The weather couldn't have been more perfect because it was calling for storms on Saturday but it was clear. 

I did make a video but I left my camera at home thinking I could edit the video on my laptop but I no firewire plug on my laptop. Maybe I can do that later. I wanted you to see the darling angel that I just couldn't live without for the front porch. She is fairly tall as you can see. And the pictures are a few of the ones I had framed for the Art house on the tour. These didn't sell but I did have one Poppy piece that sold. 

Now, my concentration will go to filming my Color Drop Flower class. If you don't see me with a blog update you will know where I am!

I've been extremely busy!

I have been asked to put some art in the art house for the home tour which is a house on the tour that is for sale and no furniture in it. There will be several artists displaying art work. At first I was told that I could put 6 pieces in. But in the last few days I was told that I have the whole 3rd floor! Yikes! So I have been creating some "She Art Girls".  Christy Tomlinson has a great workshop and if you have ever wanted to create a background--she's the one! I have had such fun creating these girls. I since I don't have to paint the face the pressure is off and it's a background free for all! Here they are.

                                    She is 8x24 and there is collaged Scripture around the sides.

Just one more below. You saw her a few posts back and she had another background but she just didn't look right. Everything was too busy so I added a blue background and she stands out better now. You can't really see them but she does have wings I cut from transparent film. The Scripture is about remembering to be kind to strangers because they just might be angels. That might be cheesy that I did her wings that way but I did it anyway. Couldn't resist. I will try to take a video of the studio tomorrow if I can. Whew!!!!!

Color Drop Flower Workshop

The class will be hosted by Creative Workhops . l will elaborate more at a later date. This might be my last post for the week since I will be getting everything ready for the hour tour this weekend. I will try to find time to video a little update tour of the studio before this weekend. Y'all have a great week!

He has made...

It's a strange thing for me as a calligrapher. Every piece I paint I look to see if any words can go on it.
Sometimes it works with words and usually if the painting is fairly simple and there is room I will add a Scripture or quote. I am planning a mini class on these color drop flowers. I will have a video up on Monday about it. I really would like it to start May 15th but it will probably be more like June 1st. But don't hold me to that. Who knows what life is going to through at you! But, God willing...June 1st. Oh, and here is another girl that recently had surgery.

She really does look better although I need to fix the glaze in her eyes. Maybe she is just thinking about something really hard. All my girls seem to be pondering something. The Scripture on her right is about being transformed so I am sure she is thinking about that and how her life has been transformed---and is continuing to transform. I think that I might be done now with the surgeries. I think I have actually run out of time before the tour next weekend. This week I will be cleaning the studio. Maybe I can do a little video tour update so you see see my pretty flowers out front.

Pears, Grapes and some Flowers...

I love to paint pears and I have always thought pears were very hard to paint. So I decided to try the pears with my color drop method and they were surprisingly easy to paint. Pears have a bumpy irregular shape so the dropping in of the color helps accentuate the irregularities of the pear. The watercolor does the work for you. I did go back after it was dry and glaze in the deeper shadows of the pear. I did very lightly outline a couple of them but I decided that sometimes the outline might not add anything. These were actually three different pears that I combined together in Photoshop. The shadow on the pear on the  right isn't correct. That bothers me. Ok, now for the grapes. Pretty good but actually I am not sure if the black line helps or hinders. I'll try some more.

These are some color drop flowers with a script stamp in the background. Fun!

More art surgery...

She is also resting quietly after her surgery. She said she was in no pain and that she really liked her new look. I like her better also. She got a completely new mouth too. I think I probably painted her over a year ago. It's nice to see that my face painting skills have improved. I am using Shiva on their faces. It blends really nicely. There are a few more that I am thinking about improving.

The surgery has begun...

She is recovering very nicely after her nose job. As I look at her before she was very sweet looking but I do feel better about her now that she doesn't have such a amateurish nose. It wasn't really that bad but I just needed to fix it. She has just matured a bit it looks like. And I tried to soften some of the hard marker edges she had on her. More surgery tomorrow.

Gerber Daisy-I think

This is one of those flowers that started out looking very sad before adding the black outline. It's amazing how the black outline can save it. I was looking at a gerber daisy in my coloring book. I am experimenting with different papers to see which disperses the color better and the hot press papers definitely don't do the trick. Strathmore 400 cold press does pretty well and that's really affordable.

A fun Saturday...

 We had a fabulous one day workshop at my studio with Eliza Holliday learning graphite techniques with different letterforms. Everyone is working so hard in the picture. Lori is down at the end creating something fabulous as always. Eliza is looking at the camera with a pretty smile and Rynda is on the left and Denice is on the right. We always have such a wonderful time when we get together and Eliza stoked the lettering fires within us and gave us some wonderful instruction and wowed us with some of her finished pieces... which are nothing short of genius.

Just look above at this wonderful piece that Eliza lettered on fabric. Although she said this piece is not finished, it looks pretty fabulous to me so far! And below is a little sample I did in the workshop. My right brain doesn't work too well in workshops setting  (I am too busy talking with my left brain) so the technique needs lots of work but I see great potential in this fun technique with the Neuland letterforms.
The word love is suppose to be there too but I couldn't figure out where to put it. Hopefully Lori will post some pictures of what she did because hers was really great.

Be simple...

After battling the large girls on the canvas I just decided I needed to paint something simple and childlike. I did drop in the color and even used some Hydrus colors that I have which I  love to use. There is something I really love about childlike art. Maybe it's the simplicity or the memories of childhood or the colors but whatever it is... I love it. After completing the girls on the canvases with hours and hours and layers and layers, sometimes it's really nice to just be simple and let little Mattie Lou artist come out sometimes.