Two Hands

I experimented yesterday with tracing both hands with a black Micron pen:

My right hand on top of my left hand… Then adding watercolor to both:

I used watercolor paper by Daler Rowney, Langton Prestige in rough grain for my above experiment.  I love how a pinch of salt into the wet paint gives a nice texture.

I also experimented on Arches, 140 lb hot press watercolor paper with a different paint color palette:

The smooth texture doesn’t react to the salt or the watercolor in the same way as the rough grain:

Yet, it gives my two hands a different dimension.  I plan to doodle on this one as it is much easier to draw on with ink.

I like the first painting for its simplicity and the second one for its complexity of layers.  How about you?

Cheers! 🙂

X, Y, Z And…

I made it through the alphabet for my art journal!  WHOOT!

And I completed 31 days of watercolor in July for World Watercolor Month!!

I thought you might enjoy seeing my finished alphabet pages…

An X-ray Tetra Fish for “X”:

“Y” is for Yellow:

“Z” for Zentangled zoodles… Which are zucchini noodles!

I still want to add paper collage and a few extra details to complete these pages… so stay tuned! 🙂

And I completed 5 additional watercolor pages to finish my 31 days – I will post them later this week…

I am happy to be done so I can focus on some other art projects.  Yet, I had so much fun!

I enjoyed my extra time at the lake last week... I think my highlights were swimming in the lake – three times a day, reading a super good book, painting outside daily, making paper butterflies with a friend, daily naps and cool evenings.

Wishing you a happy day doing what you love!

Cheers! 🙂

Watermelon Birds?!

Nothing beats the heat like a slice of watermelon…

These weird birds made their “appearance” for the letter, “W”:

They are wacky Watermelon birds!

I used watermelon images from my Bon Appétit magazine and painted their beaks with watercolor. A few details were added with a pencil, black micron pen and white gel pen.

Carla Sonheim is offering FREE art videos for Kid’s Art Camp this week.  Each day is a short video.  I always enjoy participating and seeing what others create.  Any age can sign up.  I encourage you to check it out at CarlaSonheim.com

These “wild” birds were from lesson one:

I hope you join in the fun… and be sure to have a slice of watermelon!

Happy Weird Bird Wednesday!

Cheers!

Rainier Cherries

I so LOVE the blushing red and golden yellow, sweet cherries that are considered a premium type of cherry in the Pacific Northwest!  Yesterday, we received a box of them from a friend.

According to Wikipedia.com, Rainier Cherries are a cross between “bing” and “van” cultivars.  This sweet cherry was developed in 1952 at Washington State University by Harold Fogle… I did not know this! 😉

This cherry is named after Mount Rainier.  This mountain is the highest mountain in my state, located 59 miles south to south-east of Seattle.  It has a summit elevation of 14,411 feet.  Mount Rainier is of the Cascade range on the western side of Washington state… I live on the eastern side (close to the Idaho border).

I found these cherries to be a good subject to paint in watercolor for the letter, “C”:

I enjoyed creating this colorful page… the quote is one of my favorites!

Cheers! 🙂

May And June Square Projects

Perhaps you remember my watercolor circles I created in April:  My April Square Project…

After my black and white doodle, I was ready for some color!  So I decided to use my black and white doodle for April:  Finding Balance

And I moved on to May and June!

I recently did this playful watercolor from my imagination:

After cutting it up, I mixed it with my colorful circles:

And got not just one… but TWO month’s projects:

And of course I had to see how they looked next to each other:

So fun to play… wishing you a creative day!

Cheers! 🙂

Three Spring Chicks

Since Spring is supposed to be here where I live in the Pacific Northwest…

I created these three Spring Chicks:

Maybe you’d like to see my creative process for today’s weird Wednesday birds.

I started with a watercolor background and pulled out some of its colors with paint sample cards.  The name of the paint sample for yellow was “Forsythia” which gave me the idea of Spring flowers!  And since Easter was last Sunday… I thought of baby chicks!

 

I looked up baby chicks on the internet for a reference.  Then I tore scrapbook paper for their bodies, cut old painted maps for their beaks and used three of the paint sample cards for their Spring hats.  I drew their feet with pencils.

I added some pencil shading, black pen for their eyes with white highlights and Posca paint pens for dots on their hats.  I used music notes for patches of flowers.

As I was writing, Happy Spring… I misspelled the word, “Spring” so I just cut the word out of the background and added the word, “Day!” (No reason to fuss…)

I created a few “Spring” flowers with more paint sample cards to complete my piece.  And added a sprinkle of buttons:

HAPPY DAY to you, no matter the weather or season!

Cheers! 🙂

Be Still, Jill

I remember being told to be still, Jill when I was a child!  Oh, is that possible? Lol! 😉

Maybe if I was given a crayon and an assignment to draw!

I started a new online class this week with Lynn Whipple – hosted by Carla Sonheim, called, “The Essence of Still Life.”

Lynn brings such positive energy to her classes.  I know I will learn so much!

I hope you enjoyed these colorful drawings I did!

They were super fun with water soluble crayons!

Cheers! 🙂

YOU Can Be…

Just think of the possibilities…

If you started your day,

Being AWESOME!!  🙂

When Charlie at Doodlewash.com had an art prompt to create patterns in watercolor on March 3rd, I couldn’t resist!

So I got out my Ecoline Watercolor markers – which Charlie was giving away last summer on his blog (I won a few to try, pretty awesome I must say!) and I just started drawing:

 

Drawing colorful patterns, just makes me FEEL awesome, how about you?

Yesterday, I decided to cut out letters on the back side of my paper:

I forgot that I had to reverse the “S” but no big deal, I just cut out another one!

After I cut the letters out, I glued them into my journal and added some flowers with my hand painted papers.  Note:  You can’t see the cut into the center of the flowers or letters when you cut one continuous line into the center.

I had some text on my collage table and found this text, which made a perfect flower center:

 

I was thinking this would make a fun card for a friend by adding a special message inside a flower!

I outlined my letters and flowers with a black Micron pen and a little pencil shading to make them pop, as you can see with my photo on the right below:

 

Part of my inspiration for my lettering was the cover of Uppercase Magazine:

Be AWESOME today!

Cheers! 🙂

January’s Square Project

I decided to try a color scheme for January’s Square Project.  I used the colors from the thread and brayer technique that I shared with you here; A Daily Creative Practice

The color scheme with the threads is the left photo above.  The photo on the right is copy paper that I blotted my stencils on but I liked it so I used it too.

I decided to stencil the background paper before I added my squares.  I mixed two fluid acrylic paint colors together and used a damp sponge to apply the paint:

I connected the new paper to the December piece by overlapping them and glueing them together with Matte gel medium.  I reinforced the back with paper strips too.

Next, I glued my squares with Elmer’s extra strength glue stick:

It is looking busy so I added some circles to help focus your eyes on a random pattern:

I added stenciled flowers in pink on rice paper and a snowflake rubber stamp in blue to some of the circles.

I felt the blue snowflakes were a little bright, so glued deli paper over them to soften the image.

I also added circles of the thread pattern to the pink and white circles and finished them with a small pink circle that I stamped a circular pattern on:

I’m calling this design done! 😉

I wrote notes about about it in my square journal yesterday:

I learned a lot on this one.  I think a more solid color for the squares would have been better.  It is a little busy.  I decided that not every month is going to be a success.

Now that I have gotten one month completed, I am ready to think about February.

I hope to find some insights in this book I purchased from Amazon:

Cheers! 🙂

 

 

This Little “Star” Of Mine

I remember singing, “This little light of mine, I’m going to let it shine…” As a child attending Sunday school at church.

This song surfaced in my memory when I was making this paper collage recently.  I find the process of cutting squares and circles and placing them together on a piece of paper (like a puzzle) to be very relaxing.

I created this collage with “Christmas” colors and added a star to one of the circles:

I suppose this is a way of letting my creative “light” shine!

And even with the busyness of the holidays…

I hope you will find time to shine as bright as a star!

Cheers! 🙂

P.S. I created the last photo with an app called, “Layout” on my iPad.