May’s Square-A-Day Project

It seems amazing that a new month, June has begun…

Time to show you my square-a-day project for May!

I hope you are enjoying this project as much as I am!

Cheers! 🙂

P.S.  What colors appeal to you?  Please share!

Painting Tulips

I am in LOVE with the flower photos and gardens of my sweet, blogging friend, Ali at The Mindful Garden!

She grows the most gorgeous flowers in her yard!!  And takes stunning photos of them too!

With her permission, I tried to paint some of her tulips yesterday in watercolor.

Here are my process photos:

Watercolor is a difficult art medium for me.  Perhaps I struggle too hard to make my flowers look “real.”  And yet, I always feel like I learn to “see” my subjects a little clearer when I try to draw or paint them.

I do hope you check out Ali’s blog!  Her gardens are always a delight to my senses!

Cheers! 🙂

March Square-A-Day Project

A new month has arrived which means I get to show you my March square-a-day project:

I have a little more yellow in this one…possibly I have been thinking of sunshine and warmer days ahead!

I hope you share your favorite squares with me!

Happy April!

Cheers! 🙂

Postcard Winner and Square-A-Day Project for February

I’m pleased to announce the winner of my postcard art contest goes to Kerfe at Methodtwomadness

Please email me your address Kerfe to Jillwcm@comcast.net and I will put your postcard in the mail!

Thank you to those who participated in the drawing!  I plan to do another one in the future so stay tuned! 🙂

Below is my Square-A-Day Project for February:

What square makes you smile?

Cheers! 🙂

Be Square!

Perhaps you remember my post last week where I told you about my Square A Day project.  If not, you can read more about it here:  A Square A Day…

I recently finished the square doodle that inspired the idea for my project:

I’ve titled it, Be Square!

I created a box for my 2019 square project with monthly dividers.  I am writing notes on the back of each card with the date, description and inspiration for the square.  I may use my completed squares for inspiration when I get stuck in a creative rut in the future.

Below are six squares I have completed for January:

I find myself paying more attention to my environment and ideas I could use for future squares…

I think for once in my life, I’m OK to be square! 

Cheers!  🙂

A Square A Day…

Do YOU have any creative goals for 2019?

 I believe creative goals can be a good thing even if we get distracted during the process of completing our ideas.  I see goals as a starting point, like making a recipe…

Sometimes when I start a recipe for dinner, I discover that I don’t have all the ingredients to complete it.  So it means I need to substitute what I do have to make it work.

Completing creative goals can be like making a recipe, sometimes we need to change “ingredients” to make it work for us.

I started, A Square Project in 2018 but I didn’t get it completed as planned.  Perhaps I got bored.  Perhaps I got distracted with other art classes.  It doesn’t really matter as I enjoyed the process while I did it.

I recently started an assignment from Carla Sonheim’s “365 Right Braininess” online class; to paint watercolor in a square format and fill each square with doodles, drawings and paper collage.  I have found that I like creating in a square a day…

How many birds can YOU find in the art piece above?

And it reminded me of this book, “No Excuses Art Journaling,” by Gina Rossi Armfield:

I recently purchased the 1.75 inch punch!

After seeing the journaling ideas from this book and others online, I decided to create my own creative challenge for next year!

I wrote about it in my art journal yesterday:

I hope you will join me in creating a square a day in 2019 with the creative  “ingredients” that make YOU happy!

Happy New Year!!

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! 🙂

M, N, O, P

My continuation of my Alphabet Journal…

Mushrooms from my imagination for the letter, “M”:

I did reference wild mushrooms online before I drew and painted these colorful ones.  It was very fun to paint these mushrooms in watercolor.  Adding salt while the paint was wet gave the perfect texture to them.  I am sure I will be painting more in my future!

Letter “N” is for handwritten notes:

This one took me a little more time to complete.  It was fun to add old postage stamps for the collage part.  Letter writing seems to be becoming a lost form of communication.

”O” is for the color, orange so why not an orange sunset:

I was playing with color, shapes and balance for the collage part.

Purple petunias from a planter were a perfect subject for the letter, “P”:

I cut strips of handpainted paper for the collage part.  I thought the colors accented the purples I used for the petunias.

I hope you are enjoying my alphabet series… I’m having so much fun!

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 Daily Creative Practice

As many of you know, I enjoy taking online art classes – especially from CarlaSonheim.com

I started taking her first year-long class in 2013 with the Year of the Giraffe.  This year will be my 6th year.  I don’t always get to every assignment yet I enjoy the community and creative connections I make through her classes on Facebook.

I also enjoy the assignments as it helps me to think-outside-the-box and explore art in new ways.  Like this lesson:

I used thread dipped in watercolor and a brayer to create the abstract above.  Below is another one I did with India ink:

This year’s class is similar to last year’s – 365 days of creating daily.  The class started on Friday, January 5 so you can still sign-up and join in if you’d like. 🙂

Below is what I titled, Low Tide, where I used another piece of paper over the thread instead of a brayer to create my abstract:

You have the option this year to get the assignments daily or weekly.  I currently signed up for daily but may change to weekly later on.

Yesterday, our assignment was to draw a piece of fruit blindfolded – the fruit, not me! Hehe 😉 I did an apple:

I hope you join in the fun!!  Go to http://www.carlasonheim.com for more information.

Cheers to creating daily! 🙂