Tulip Series

I have been painting some mixed media paintings 

and decided to do as Robert Burridge always says--paint in a series!

 So here is my series of "Tulips". 

They are 16x20.

And they were fun to paint.

Spotlight Artist for DLP!

Hi Everyone! 

It's me, Martha, in my favorite hat. 

I just can't express my excitement for being a

Documented Life Project Spotlight Artist

for this week!

This month's theme has been "Making Your Mark"  (Doodles and Mark Making). Goodness, how can you not love that one!!

The art challenge this week is "Create a Custom Element" and the prompt is a great quote by Gabrielle Roth--
"Ride the Energy of your own unique spirit."

As I thought about making my custom element within the mark making month I got to thinking about what a custom mark or element could be. I first thought I would make a rubber stamp and go with that which would have been fun. I love making custom rubber stamps! Then I thought that I really wanted to try and make a unique mark that I hadn't done in a while.  So I rummaged through all my ancient supplies in search of this soda pop folded pen that I made at a calligraphy conference many many years ago.  I hadn't used it since then so I decided that the marks this pen would make would be my unique calligraphic marks.  By the way---ANY mark that YOU make whether made by a brush, a pencil, a marker or whatever is your own unique mark.

I love the quote so I decided I just had to make some word marks.

So I just started marking while still thinking about where my quote would go.

Sometimes trying to figure out the layout with lettering can be quite challenging.

I also added some water to make the ink flow and run a bit to add some unexpected excitement!

As you see in this one I did use a regular calligraphy pen and a Tombow marker brush pen.

I was thinking about what type of layout would go into my journal so I decided to try and find some interesting 3x3 squares to cut out that might work.

Pretty cool!

So I guess it's time to show you how I made the marks. I used different colors

of fountain pen ink. Did I mention that I LOVE fountain pens?

So, here goes!

Making My Unique Marks! from Martha Lever on Vimeo.

Here is what finally came out. I had so many marks that I loved it was hard to choose so I did two layouts.  The one on the right was rather "energetic" so I decided to just write the quote

out on the left using the Italic calligraphy hand with a Speedball C-4 nib with red gouache.  

The paper has gesso on it to make for a better writing surface. 

It was so much fun to make my own unique marks for this week. 

Just remember--you are unique so every mark you make will be uniquely your own.

On your mark,

 get set,

GO!

(I just couldn't resist that one! :))

Day 9 of Painting Challenge

These are the same tulips as yesterday in a different vase. The tulips were beautiful and lasted for two paintings.  It was fun and challenging to paint them. Flowers are always a challenge and the challenge is to not put in every detain you see. That's actually hard!

Orange Tulips--Day 8 of 30-30 Challenge

These beautiful daisies were fun to paint and with each still life I think I am improving in my quest to paint from life. Sometimes it works and sometimes it doesn't. I think I should paint these flowers one more time before they die maybe with a lighter background. I am watching Hedi Moran videos and I think she is one of the best teachers out there. I love the way she paints. I watch her then go try to do it and mine just doesn't do it like hers. She sometimes uses a little cheap .99 brush. I think there is magic in that little cheap brush.
I did use all transparent colors as a underpainting like she does---and this is how it looked. Maybe I should have left it. I think I might like it better.

Aged Photo Process

I'll explain how I did this tomorrow. It's a very neat website that makes a picture or photograph look aged. Pretty cool---but you have to read Japanese. Good thing I can do that.

Just kidding! :)

Tulips in the Raffine Journal

This is quick watercolor in a Raffine Art Sketch Journal. I think that the paper in these journals are about as versatile as any. It takes watercolor really well as well as pencil sketches. This one is 6 x 6. One of my favorite journals!

Just a few more hours until Mr. Random. org picks his number for the drawing at 8:00pm EST. Check here if you would like to win a sursy.

Tulips in Bloom

I am playing around with some graphic edges in a program that I have just purchased. So here are a few different edges on a little acrylic ditty. Believe me, the edges go on and on...more later with the edges. Have a great day.

More Tulips

Well, hummmm..maybe it's better, maybe it's not---read below the post first---above is the updated inked Tulip. 
Ok, well, so I don't have my Tulip book yet and as Julie said yesterday, they are harder to paint than you would think. Tulips have pedals that are virtually nonexistent here in this painting. I probably could have done that with ink so I will do that and post it later today. When all else fails---INK! They are simple lookin'--hard paintin'--I guess until you know what your're doing. I love Tulips so we will see where the Tulip journey takes me. I want to also do some more acrylic painting of still life in the New Year. Maybe I will take another class at the ______ Gallery here in Jacksonville. I am a glutton for punishment! Nuff said. :)