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! 🙂

Printing Imperfections

I haven’t printed with my Gelli-plate in awhile so I decided to take out my 5×7 inch plate the other day.

I wanted to experiment combining colored inks with fluid acrylics. I also added an acrylic glazing liquid.

I recorded my colors in my art journal with a pencil drawing of my paint and ink containers:

I started by printing some Ginko leaves. I normally add the paints directly to the Gelli-plate and mix them with my brayer but it wasn’t working so well with the inks so I started using a paper plate to mix them.

When the brand name logo of the paper plate started showing up on my leaf prints as you can see in the photo above, I decided to use a plastic paint palette.

The paint palette had left over acrylic paint on it but I discovered the uneven surface gave an amazing print:

It is always fun when printing imperfections lead to wonderful new ideas!

I took a 3/4 inch square punch of each of my prints and glued them in my art journal:

Now I have an idea for my October Square-A-Day project! I can’t wait to show you.

Cheers! 🙂

Nature Inspired Doodles

Remember my nature inspired watercolor pumpkins and leaves that I posted last week:

I enjoyed adding doodles with ink and white gel pen:

It was so fun that I did another page of leaves with a couple of mushrooms:

And a page of seed pods:

Nature photos from Pinterest inspired my patterns but my imagination created my doodles!

Yesterday was the first day of Autumn…

It was sure in the air! Aren’t the reflection of the clouds on the lake amazing?!

Cheers! 🙂

Autumn Inspiration

I recently purchased a few Autumn decorations for my husband’s business as Hobby Lobby, a local arts and crafts store was having a sale.

They had pumpkins in many shapes, patterns and materials!

It gave me inspiration to create these watercolor pages in my art journal:

Pumpkins on the left and leaves are on the right. I was experimenting in color. 😉

I will doodle or add collage to my watercolor shapes and show you my progress next week.

Creating challenges like this one inspires my creativity.

What inspires you to create? I hope you share your ideas with me.

Cheers! 🙂

Hello Friend!

My husband and I had to travel to Detroit, Michigan recently.

I messaged my blogging friend, Patty Anne who I knew lived in the area for suggestions on good restaurants.

Not only did Patty Anne have some great food ideas, she rearranged her schedule so we could meet in person! I was thrilled!!

Hello friend!!

We met for dinner and each of us brought an art journal or two to share. We had a blast! I so LOVE Patty Anne’s art!! Seeing her creativity in person was an extra special treat!

And speaking of treats, she made me this sweet little birdy in watercolor:

She even tied it with a bow and added a couple of her special flowers!

I am so touched by her kindness.

We were having so much fun that we forgot to take a photo of us together which just means we have to get together again!

I have been practicing art in “Patty Anne’s style” so I can make her a little gift.

Thanks Patty Anne for such an enjoyable evening. Your friendship across the miles was the highlight of my trip!

Cheers to Blogging Friendships! 🙂

PS. I do hope you check out Patty Anne’s art if you aren’t familiar with it! She paints with JOY!

A Zinnia Bird

I have flowers on my mind for my August Square-A-Day project.

So it seems fitting that this colorful weird bird blossomed in my art journal recently:

A mixture of watercolor and collage, I hope this bird brightens your day with a smile!

Happy Weird Bird Wednesday!

Cheers! 🙂

A Dog and Bird Show

I bet you were thinking a dog and pony show, huh?

Well, since it is weird bird Wednesday, I need to include a couple of birds!

But first, this Marshmallow dog showed up in my art journal last week:

It was Kid’s Art Week at CarlaSonheim.com Each day a new video for kids of all ages. And the best part it is free! (You can still sign-up if you are interested).

This year the lessons were finding imaginary creatures in sidewalk cracks. I was at the lake so I drew my animals by looking at the sidewalk cracks in the videos. I “colored” mine with watercolors and added shading with pencil and other details with a Micron black pen.

Sidewalk cracks are a lot like finding animals in clouds, like these puffy cotton ball ones at the lake:

It was an usually hot day so the lake water was very refreshing!

I must have had sun hats on my mind when creating this weird bird:

Who knew birds had teeth?

I don’t think my show is complete without this photo of a lovely lake sunset…

Happy Weird Bird Wednesday!

Cheers! 🙂

Sweet Summer Time…

Summers in the Pacific Northwest where I live, seem sooo short!

I can’t believe we are already in the middle of July…

The lake water is FINALLY getting warm with SUN at last!

I have decided to take a short blogging break and enjoy –

Sweet Summer Time!

And paint! I look forward to sharing more discoveries in my watercolor nature journal with you:

Happy Summer!

Cheers! 🙂

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 Spiny Family

I enjoy giving myself little challenges when drawing… and learning more about my subjects.

Painting different colors of watercolor in my art journal helped add color to a blank page…

I then challenged myself to use mostly black pens – each pen a different variety – to draw Cactus; from the book I showed you in this post: Drawing Cactus and Succulents

According to Dictionary.com; Cactus (noun) and plural can be cacti, cactuses and cactus!  

As a definition:  Any numerous succulent plants of the family Cactaceae, of warm, arid regions, having fleshy, leafless, usually spiny stems and typically having solitary, showy flowers.

I never really thought about a “cactus” being a succulent plant!

I challenged myself to create these “succulents” with a variety of green pens:

Succulent (noun):  A succulent plant as a sedum or cactus… and as (adjective):  Of a plant – having fleshy or juicy tissues.

What I learned from this challenge for myself:

• Calligraphy pens are great to draw with…
• Going outside the color “square” is OK!
• I really do have eight green pens.
• Creating challenges makes drawing fun!
• I enjoyed learning the names of plants… must be a weird bird idea in there somewhere!

Do you give yourself challenges when you are creating?  I’d love to hear what you do!

Cheers! 🙂