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! 🙂

Coloring Eggs

I splashed some watercolor paint around on hot press paper the other day…

It reminded me of coloring eggs as a child.

I cut some egg shapes out of my painted paper and decided to add them to my table for Easter brunch.  They will make good name plates as you can see in the right photo:

My grandma placed a few candies in paper muffin cups at each person’s table setting… it was such a fun idea that I use it too!

I had a few minutes yesterday to make an Easter sign for my table and color a few more eggs!  😉

Coloring eggs with watercolor on paper is so fun!  I encourage you to give it a try!

Cheers! 🙂

Kites, Lilies And…

I am finding that working on more than one letter of the alphabet at a time is helping me stay on track for the daily watercolor and collage series challenge I have given myself for the month of July.

Working ahead also takes the pressure off…

After all, this is supposed to be FUN, right?!

I like how these kites turned out for the letter, “K”…

          I can remember kite flying when I was a child, how about you?

This is one of the parts that I am enjoying about this challenge for myself, experimenting with different ideas to achieve the end results…

Like using my gelli-printed collage papers for the clouds! 🙂

Can you guess what letter, “L” stands for?

You got it!  Lilies!

And a Ladybug!

Did you see the Green Metalic Bee on the Lily?

I discovered this bee really exists!  I probably would not have discovered it IF I hadn’t been photographing it!

Isn’t NATURE grand?! It opens the mind to all sorts of new things…

Happy Exploring!

Cheers! 🙂

A Little Silly Fun…

I needed a gift for a “white elephant gift exchange.”  I’m not quite sure where this terminology came from as it has nothing to do with elephants! 😉

To me, it means to re-gift something I received and don’t need or perhaps, give something “creative.”

I decided on a little silly fun this year and created this one-of-a-kind gift!

A “Caroler” in a former life that I purchased at a thrift store years ago, I made him into a quirky guy that loves the lake!

It was super fun to create a poem to go with him… I will get to that later in this post.

This silly guy actually moves – his head slowly turns in circles and his right arm moves up and down when he is plugged in to an outlet.  A little weird, I must say!

I started by giving him an old cup for a hat and taped a bird on top.  The bird house came next.  On the back, I added this “key” message (from a candy wrapper):

He needed a beach towel, so I cut-up an old wash cloth and sewed the outside edges. I used a paper napkin to represent “happy hour” where friends gather to share an appetizer and a drink as you can see in my first photo.

Below, I created a fishing pole from an old paint brush and beads – including a bead for a fish:

He needed a little summer outfit so I sewed some fabric to give him some pizzazz and cover up that ugly green outfit he was wearing – who says men can’t wear skirts!! Hahaha!

I finished him, by adding a Christmas ornament of a chair, a rubber stamp image of an image in the woods and writing a message on the base:

Below is one of the stanzas I wrote for my poem to the song, “Over The River And Through The Woods.”

 

Over the river and through the woods

We look forward to each year…

The memories we make

At this beautiful lake

Are the treasures we hold dear.

I look forward to seeing who receives my creative surprise… I encourage you to “think outside the box” when you give a gift!

Cheers! 🙂

Collage Confetti

I took yesterday off from work to have a creative play day!  YAHOO! 🙂

I had so much fun!  I painted 33 different papers with acrylic paints without a Gelli-Plate.

I can’t wait to show you some of my discoveries in next Thursday’s COLLAGE series on my blog.

Here is a sample of the 33 papers I created, using a square punch:

Happy Weekend Friends!

Cheers! 🙂

A Creature Feature – Part 1

Do you have a book or class that started you on your creative journey?

I discovered this book, “Drawing and Painting Imaginary Animals” by Carla Sonheim in December of 2012:

I discovered that Carla taught online classes from this book and so it started me drawing again!  I drew as a child but then I got discouraged… has this ever happened to you?

I liked the idea of drawing from my imagination.  After all, no one can tell you it isn’t correct if it is an imaginary animal!

Yesterday, I decided to revisit this book and create several watercolor “Blobimals” as Carla calls them:

Yet, I think mine look more like creatures! 😃

I thought it might be fun for YOU to name my five creatures so I numbered them.

Next Monday, I will reveal the other creatures!

I look forward to hearing your names.

Cheers!  🙂

Sasquatch Man?

I used the cross-hatch technique to create shadows in the drawing of a man I found in a magazine.  I had a little trouble with the shadows in his neck so he ended up looking much hairier than his photo! 😉

 

I called him, “cross-hatch man” on Instagram but I think he could pass for “Sasquatch Man!”  Lol!

“Sasquatch” also known as Bigfoot in the Pacific Northwest is a large, hairy ape-like creature covered in hair.  It inhabits forests and is considered more of a folklore and hoax rather than a living animal due to lack of physical evidence.

Hope your Monday isn’t too “hairy!”

Cheers! 🙂

Ribbons Of Paint

Sometimes I just like to swirl my paintbrush around with watercolor in my art journal. No thinking involved… just playing with color:

Yesterday, I didn’t have much time but I still wanted to DO something! So I created this haiku over my ribbons of paint:

I remember using scissors to create ribbons for wrapped gifts before store bought bows became popular.  “Zip!!” And curls appeared like magic!

Wishing you a day with happy memories!

Cheers!  🙂

Pink Phlox

My hubby gave me an Easter bouquet with pink Phlox which got me thinking about flocks of birds…

Imaginary birds that is!

I love the “phlox” in this photo too:

Happy Weird Bird Wednesday!  I hope this gives you a smile today!

Cheers! 🙂

Terrific Trees

I was experimenting yesterday with different art mediums to create these trees:

I masked off the background with masking tape and then used salt over Dr. Ph Martin’s India ink.  I also used Pan Pastels on them.

Not all my experiments turned out.  Like the above one on the left where I used glass bead gel and India ink.  It didn’t want to dry.  But I still kind of like it.

The one next to it, I used matte medium, masked it off and used watercolor then salt.  And finished it with the pan pastels after I rubbed off the salt.  I like its softer feel.

Speaking of trees, I am amazed how much my Red Maple tree has changed color since I posted a photo of it here, last Sunday:

Red Maple a blaze,

Dazzling like a sunset

Fall’s color display.

Wishing you a Sunny Sunday, Friends!  🙂