My Lucky Bamboo

A friend bought me a houseplant. I tend to forget to water them so I figure this one must be lucky… it is still alive!

My lucky bamboo collage, cut with scissors and paper:

I like how bright the colors are, how about you?

The second “houseplant” was from my imagination:

It was fun experimenting with positive and negative shapes.

Do you like to grow houseplants? What do you like to grow?

Happy planting!

Cheers! 🙂

10 Watercolor Squares

I am experimenting with watercolor and gouache for my “Square-A-Day” project for July since it is World Watercolor Month at Doodlewash.com

Charlie at Doodlewash has excellent creative prompts for each day but I decided to go with the flow and allow my brush (or imagination) tell me what it wants to do!

Below are my first 10 watercolor squares for the first 10 days of July:

Perhaps my inspiration will spark an idea for your art too:

1. New watercolor brush – #4 Raphael Kolinsky from Blick. First expensive watercolor brush I have purchased. I like the fine tip for tiny details like the petals on my imaginary flowers. I used gouache and added a few details with a black Micron pen.

2. Used dip pen with Saji nib to draw my sunflower and colored it with watercolor. Inspired by Susan Feniak’s  post on July 2nd.

3. Painted background in watercolor – looks like summer colors to me! Drew leaf with black .01 and .03 Micron pens using inspiration from Peggy Dean’s book, “Botanical Line Drawing.”

4. 4th of July! Ate corn-on-cob for dinner. Started by painting paper yellow, drew corn with a black Micron pen by looking at an online image. Added a little watercolor to some of the kernels. The actual corn was delish!

5. FINALLY a sunny day at the lake! I splashed in the lake and watercolors on paper. 🙂

6. Inspired by a pattern I saw in Uppercase Magazine. I painted in watercolor and added doodles with black Micron pen and a white Signo gel pen. This reminds me of summer camp and a badge earned… I never got to go to camp as a kid but I always thought it would be fun.

7. Eating creamsicle popsicles on a hot summer day! Watercolor and Signo white gel pen. It always amazes me how color and patterns takes me back in time…

8. Blueberries ripening in my yard. Love the sweetness of these blue gems! Messed up a little on the shading so added dots with a Micron pen.

9. Daddy Long-Legs – see my previous post. Nature inspires a lot of my art!

10. Wings from a Common Buckeye Butterfly – thanks Mike Powell for your awesome photo to inspire me on this one!

I hope you enjoyed reading what inspired me to create my first 10 watercolor squares!

I will post the rest of my squares at the end of July…

Happy Painting!

Cheers! 🙂

Daddy Long-Legs

When I was at the lake over the weekend, a Daddy Long-Legs spider crawled on me… like this one I drew:

Other names for this spider are cellar, granddaddy long-legs, carpenter, daddy long-legger, vibrating and skull.

This spider is actually a Pholcidae and a family of the araneomorph spiders with 1800 species and found in every continent in the world except Antarctica!

I’m not afraid of this spider as it is harmless yet it’s name inspired me for today’s weird bird:

Birdy Long-Legs

Like a Daddy Long-Legs, this bird often hangs out in undisturbed areas like under rocks, loose bark or tall grasses and occasionally a lawn chair…

Perhaps you have seen one?

I hope you enjoyed learning a little about Daddy Long-Legs spiders as much as I did… However, I would rather enjoy them from a distance than on my neck!

Happy Weird Bird Wednesday!

Cheers! 🙂

A Friendly Collaboration

Sharon Mann at Make Art Magic Happens and I recently shared a friendly collaboration with art cards.

It was fabulous fun! We each started artwork on six cards (4″x6″ in size) and mailed them to the other person so they could complete and mail back!

We thought you’d enjoy seeing our results…

These are the cards I started and how Sharon completed them for me:

And below are the cards Sharon started and I completed them for her:

(Sorry some of the completed ones are not in the right order)

I loved the surprise of receiving the cards Sharon completed for me in the mail and seeing her wonderful art added to my beginnings!

I also enjoyed the challenge of finishing Sharon’s cards… they helped me to think outside the “square”!

Have you ever shared a friendly collaboration? Perhaps an art project or writing a story or a poem? I’d love to hear what you did!

Cheers! 🙂

P.S. Thanks Sharon for your wonderfully creative cards and artful exchange! Xo

Dippity Do Draw!

I recently started drawing with a dip pen and waterproof ink and coloring my images with watercolor just in time for World Watercolor Month, hosted by Charlie O’Shields at Doodlewash.com

I enjoyed drawing these whimsical gals on ATC cards:

I learned about the dip pens from an online class from Cori Dantini, hosted by Carla Sonheim. Cori introduced me to Jetpens.com (Jet pens has great information and tutorials about a variety of pen and ink supplies).

I purchased a Kuretake Comic pen nib holder and Nikko Comic pen nib and three black inks from Jet pens.

Note: You want to make sure the pen nibs will fit the holder you purchase.

Always a good idea to create a practice sheet and test your inks to make sure they are waterproof if you need them to be!

I also purchased a Saji pen nib from Blick and a Kuretake “Zig Cartoonist” pen nib holder which is the same holder as the one from Jet Pens. The Saji nib allowed for a thicker line than the Nikko comic nib when I applied pressure to the nib.

Note: Pen nibs often come with a film over them so you will want to remove it with acetone (nail polish remover) and a Q-tip before using the nib. I learned this information from Jet pens.

Also, it is important to keep your pen nibs clean after each use. I cleaned mine with water and a soft paper towel.

I bought a pen holder for each nib but discovered this wasn’t necessary as the pen nibs are easy to remove from the pen holder.

A couple of animals showed up in my drawings:

And of course I had to draw a few “hat” birds!

I discovered that I enjoyed drawing with dip pens and permanent ink!

I could control the line with the pressure I applied to the nib. And coloring with watercolor was super fun!

I didn’t have a problem with the ink flowing into an uncontrollable puddle. I found the nibs easy to use. And they held a lot of ink.

I hope you give a dip pen and waterproof ink a try with a little watercolor fun for #WorldWatercolorMonth

Cheers! 🙂

A Firecracker

Did you know there is a Firecracker flower?

So I figured, there has to be a Firecracker bird!

This weird bird burst onto my paper just in time for the 4th of July celebration in the States on Thursday!

Happy Weird Bird Wednesday!

And happy 4th of July for those who are celebrating!

Cheers! 🙂

A Square-A-Day Project for June

I am still enjoying my square-a-day project, can you believe it has been 6 months?

I gave myself a theme for June. Can you guess what it is? Of course, many of you already know from my sneak peak earlier in the month.

I thought it was interesting how the 4th vertical row shares a similar color value when I lined them up yesterday.

What doodles and patterns stand out for you? I hope you share them with me!

Cheers! 🙂

A Swinging Birdy

This isn’t a “golfing” birdy…

But “yew” still might find it between two trees in the summertime!

A Swinging Birdy

Afterall, if you are feeling taxus… 

You may need to relaxus… like this Hammock Bird!

Happy Weird Bird Wednesday! 

Cheers! 🙂

P.S. I will be taking a short blogging break until the end of June to catch up on some art projects and perhaps spend a little time in the hammock lawn chair… 😉

Planting Patterns

I have declared the month of June to be doodle month for my Square-A-Day project.  I look forward to showing you all my squares at the end of this month… but here is a sneak preview:

Drawing doodles or patterns is something I find calming and relaxing.  I did this one in my art journal with color pencils recently:

It looks like I am planting patterns like rows of flowers or vegetables in a garden!

Patterns and inspiration are everywhere… 

Like this photo I took recently at the lake.  The moon was almost full!

There are patterns in the water, the trees and the sky!

I hope you will be inspired by the patterns in your world!

Cheers! 🙂

 

A Treehouse

I’ve been moving scraps of collage papers around on a piece of paper which reminds me of looking for animals in fluffy clouds…

 

It is a simple exercise for generating new ideas and quite satisfying! 😉

Do you see a treehouse?

How about a picnic in the park?

 

And of course, this weird bird showed up!  He is only a day late… so I anchored him down with tape.  I didn’t want him flying off!

If you are ever in a creative rut I suggest you give this idea a try!

I’d love to hear what YOU see in these paper scraps!  Please share!

Cheers! 🙂

P.S. As a child, I created a lot of “forts” which were all on ground level…sigh.