Quickie Watercolor from my Imagination

I have been watching Charles Reid's watercolors and I am fascinated at how wonderful his watercolors are. His techniques are quite different. I'm going to practice his style. I need to be doing some leaves for DLP before the week is up and I get behind!

Day 13 of 30-30 Challenge

Snow Cones

I felt like throwing some watercolor on my Arches 140 lb rough paper. Sometimes I just have to do that and see the color disperse and move around. Ahhh..it's wonderful. I can't get too far away from the watercolor. I sketched them out then added the blue background. Then added the color for the flowers and outlined with Sumi India ink. I think I might do another one and paint them pink. This is painted in this journal.

Acrylic on Watercolor Wash

I love to disperse colorwashes on watercolor paper--I guess you could say it calls to me---"Martha, Martha, come disperse us---we're waiting for you!"... and I have to jump up at that moment and go disperse!!  Yes, my paints call to me and talk to me. Sometimes they say, "no, no don't put us here in the mud--we don't want to get dirty," and sometimes they say, "ahhhh...that's better..."

I could never be lonely--if I have my paints--and I always encourage people to start to paint even if it is just putting some color on paper--it doesn't have t0 be anything--just color...any color. It's therapeutic.

I had dispersed some watercolors on paper last night and decided to try some acrylic "dry-ish" brush and see what happened. I probably should have added mat medium first so the paint would go on better. Actually the second image of the Tulips is not dry brush only the first image. I like the top one better. The orange and the pink don't go that well together but all in all it was fun and I do like the combination of soft watercolors in the background and harder images in the front.  

Calligra-FUN--student update!  Check out Debbie Goering. Scroll on down and you will see some great practice pages.

Great job, Debbie!  All my students are doing so well and having fun and... oh, how happy that makes me!!

Two more Little Snippets

Here are two more little snippets with original calligraphy. You see I like that quote about the artist not failing---well, it's one I have memorized so it turns up all the time. I must get my sheet out and find some more quotes. The images are a hand carved stamp. The larger flowers were stamps I carved many years ago and the other stamp is one that I think went awry--I think it was actually suppose to be dragon flies but I guess they turned into flowers--of a sort.

I like the way this Arches paper tears--if you tear it in the right direction it makes a very cool torn edge.  I am enjoying doing these little snippets. Thanks so much for all your suggestions as what to do with them. I have many little pieces of un-purposed art. 

Watercolor "Wash" Day

Just playing around with some watercolor this Sunday afternoon while my mounds of clothes are washing. (My mama always said you shouldn't  wash clothes on Sunday--and she never did) I never understood that unless it was an old Baptist Sunday day of rest thing that she learned. Anyway, Mama really wouldn't mind if I was washing. She probably be glad I was tackling these growing mounds. 

These are just little quickie things and here at the house my scanner isn't very good so they really do look better in real life.  Excuses excuses....

Getting ready to paint

Just a few sketches in my journal getting ready start my Michelle Brown class and paint. I'll have to see how I do before I blog any.  Yellows are more difficult to paint with for me so-- I am not sure how this will turn out. I also think the daffodil is a hard flower to draw with all the wavy ruffles.  Oh, but what a wonderful flower!!  My mama had them growing the the back yard when I was a little girl and I loved to go and run through them and pick them. What wonderful memories I have of little Mattie Lou happy girl (that's me) growing up in that sleepy little Georgia town of West Point. I am smiling now with the stinging of a little tear.

Show Me Your Ways

I try to do some calligraphy as often as I can. It used to be all I ever did and my letterforms were better then---but they are just different now-- much freer. (I didn' say better--just freer). I started out with the intention of getting it all straight and keeping to the lines but after the 4th line I said to heck with it and just wrote. It's ok--I wouldn't enter it into a juried calligraphy show or anything. I am into---write it once, and let it go.

Calligraphy is an interesting art form. It requires exactness and many years of grooling practice-but oh, the agony and the ecstasy of it all! Sometimes I just have to go and write something---kinda like sometimes I just have to just go and paint a Poppy.

I do love this Scripture so much that it is one of the very few that I have memorized. I try so hard to memorize Scripture but most of it won't stick (I guess it's a 50 thang...) but this one stuck and I pray it most every day.

THREE SUNFLOWERS

I moved out of my comfort "Poppy Zone" tonight and painted some watercolor sunflowers. I used some black sumi waterproof ink to lightly outline the shapes. I painted it on 300lb arches and it wasn't even a scrap. I am getting very brave. I went through all my papers today at my studio and I convinced myself that I have plenty of paper--no need to use scraps. So the moto for today is...just get you paper out and go for it. It's just paper. (How many times have we heard that??)

"TWO MINUTE FLOWERS"

That's about all the time I had today was about two minutes to create something. When I have a day or two where I can't create something I get very antsy. My niece and her three small children have been visiting for a few days. It has been a fun, busy time with them. My daughter was also here with her dog, Dixie. The kids created great art at my studio. I should take a picture and post it. Maybe tomorrow. I love children's art. So creative and free!

AHHHH...I love to paint pots. Love it love it. This is actually watercolor gouache which allowed me to lay the red and the yellow in after the leaves since it is an opaque watercolor. It blends great. I just might start to incorporate gouache for all my watercolors.  It's brighter and I really like it. We calligraphers, use gouache a lot for adding color to our letters because it is opaque and can go over backgrounds (as long as it is not watercolor--it bleeds).