Leaves Falling

I was out in my yard yesterday and noticed the birds leaves falling…

After all, it is FALL!

Several birds were in a tree and it got me thinking about my weird birds.

There is such a variety of leaf shapes much like birds!

Perhaps there is a leaf bird? Have you seen any lately?!

Happy Weird Bird Wednesday!

Cheers! 🙂

A Marvelous Maple

The maple tree in our yard is turning many marvelous colors!

I took these photos on Wednesday when we had our first SNOW of the season…

It was a shock to many trees in our area that still have their leaves…

Many people woke-up to fallen branches and trees in their yards as the branches could not hold the weight of this unexpected snow. Always so sad to lose a lovely tree!

I experimented with my Gelli-plate a little more. This time I printed on a couple of garden magazine pages.

I will use the negative and positive shapes of this oak leaf in my art journal:

May you have a marvelous weekend!

Cheers! 🙂

Outside A Window

I love the view of this crabapple tree outside my kitchen window:

This photo was taken in May when the tree was showing its spectacular pink blossoms!

I decided to add a photo of it to my mixed media sketchbook as the tree inspires me all four seasons!  I colored the photo with color pencils so the flowers stood out.

And below is the Robin that I painted and showed you in my last post:

Inspiration of place can sometimes come from what we see outside a window in our home… Below is a photo of both pages together in my art journal.

What view inspires YOU, outside a window?  I hope you share it with me!

Cheers! 🙂

Drawing From Memory

I prefer to draw from a reference photo but yesterday, I decided to try drawing from memory:

It helped to have a good teacher.  The teacher was Jeanne-Marie Webb from the online class:  Paint Your Heart and Soul 2019.  This year the theme is painting loose.

I drew two faces with charcoal pencil, Derwent Inktense Blocks and chalk.  Next, I fragmented the faces by cutting up the eyes separate from the nose and mouth.  I glued the features so they didn’t completely match on a separate piece of paper.  I collaged my Gelli-Plate printed papers with my drawings.

I am starting to see improvements in my face drawings… Hoorah!

How about you, do YOU enjoy drawing from memory?

Cheers! 🙂

Trees, Unicorns And Vino…

Continuing with my Alphabet watercolor and collage series for the month of July…

Letter, “T” is for trees:

Do you see a couple of birds in my tree?  😉

”U” never know when a unicorn will show up!

Especially when under a sun umbrella! 

And no, I wasn’t sampling the vino…

Just drawing with my eyes closed!  (Yes, my eyes were open for the painting, lettering and I did cheat a little and add a few extra lines to the wine bottles with my eyes open…)

I have decided to spend a few extra days enjoying the lake this week.  Temps will be in the high 80’s and low 90’s…

Summer is so short here that it is nice to enjoy when the weather is good!

There is something about the water that is so soothing…

Cheers to summer! 🙂

Hot And Cold

My sister-in-law made us these beautiful potholders that arrived in the mail yesterday… just because! ❤️  A wonderful surprise. 🙂

 

I just love the colors and patterns and stitching… I’m not sure I can use them for hot foods as they are too pretty!

And speaking of cold… we woke-up to 8 inches of new snow yesterday morning! 😮

I guess winter isn’t done with us in the Pacific Northwest.  Time to make a homemade pot of hot soup on a cold day!

Cheers! 🙂

A Button Tree?

Carla Sonheim’s assignment for her online 365-day video class was to plant something other than a seed… and describe what would grow!

So I wrote a sweet poem and created A Button Tree:

Maybe it could be a song for a child’s book like this one?

I found this joyful “Thanksgiving” song in it that you may enjoy:

I like that last line, “Happy hearts and thankful…” may this give you the reason why.

Cheers! 🙂

Nature’s Confetti

I took these photos, last Saturday when I took A Walk In The Park

I hope to paint some of these trees in watercolor but work has been extra busy this week …

So for now, I wrote a haiku to share with these photos:

Things are looking up!

Fall leaves scatter unaware…

Nature’s confetti

Isn’t it wonderful how nature helps us notice the simple pleasures in life and celebrate its beauty?!

Cheers! 🙂

Crabapple in Opera Rose

I just love Winsor and Newton’s Opera Rose!  Such a brilliant pink – a perfect color to paint my flowering crabapple in watercolor that I drew previously here.

I tried to paint it looser and added a few splatters at the end.

Now, our second crabapple tree in our yard is blooming… with all the rain we had this Spring, it is “buzzing” with new growth!  I have never seen this tree so full of blossoms.

I have a new subject to paint.  YAY!

Cheers!  🙂

A Snow Glow

We had several inches of snow this last weekend which made for this perfect photo opportunity:

When I went outside to take this photo at night is was so very quiet…It made me stop and just enjoy the “glow in the snow!”

Nature always has a way of making me stop and enjoy its beauty!!

Happy Monday!!  🙂