July Square-A-Day Project

Perhaps you remember my post regarding my inspiration for my first ten days of my July Square-A-Day Project? If not you can find it here: 10 Watercolor Squares

I created in watercolor for July but also some gouache for each day on a 1.75 x 1.75 inch square:

Nature was my inspiration for most of my squares. Yet, I did include a couple of abstracts and a little whimsy!

Painting outside at the lake was something I truly enjoyed! I encourage you to paint outdoors.

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! 🙂

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! 🙂

Knowing When To Stop

How do YOU know when a piece is finished when creating art?

I was experimenting in gouache the other day…

I was enjoying the process of adding to my piece.

And then I went too far… It became too busy when I added markers.

Sometimes it is difficult knowing when to stop.  I was hesitant to show you but I believe this is part of the learning process when creating.  I cannot expect to make beautiful art every time!

I made copies and will use them in my collage art.  What do you do with your art mistakes?

Cheers to creating and learning! 🙂

Wildfire Season

Smoldering sun glows, we cannot breathe…

Thick gray smoke, blankets the sky.

No rain forecasted, we cannot see…

Wild fires blaze, trees and homes burn.

Devastation seen, we cannot touch…

Sparks ignite, wildfire season.

The air quality has been at a hazardous level where I live in the Pacific Northwest.  I took these photos yesterday at the lake in Northern Idaho.

We seem to be surrounded by the thick smoke everywhere… lake and home.  Looks like I will be spending much of my time indoors this week. 😉

I’m so thankful for the firefighters who continue to fight for your forests and homes… yet we badly need rain.

Hope you stay safe…

Cheers! 🙂

Holiday Pops!

I have made progress on adding color to my doodle I posted last Friday, you can find it here.

I decided to try Holbein gouache because I just purchased some new colors that really POP!

Cynthia at Sand Salt Moon suggested I try lime green with bright pink and red.  Yet, I couldn’t resist adding orange which led to yellow…

And then I added a little red which led to violet…

And WOWZA!!  It really POPS…My eyeballs!!!  Lol!  🙂

I lost some of my black lines with the paint so I will need to go back and add them again.  And a little pencil shading so it’s not complete yet…but I wanted to add some Holiday POP to your day!

Hope you are feeling dazzled!  Cheers!!  🙂

It’s A Wrap!

It was relaxing to play in my art journal yesterday.  I started with a grid.  Added a little color with a stencil and leftover gouache paints.  Next, I glued scraps of my Gelli-printed deli paper and lastly, I added acrylics with stencils and some handmade stamps!

I think it would make great wrapping paper for a gift, don’t you?!

Happy Monday!  🙂

Fiddle Faddle

I’ve been trying to put the finishing colors on my doodle that I started awhile ago in my art journal.

It reminds me of the popcorn you can buy in the store called, Fiddle Faddle.  The popcorn and peanuts are covered with gooey caramel.  Yum!   Like the popcorn, I have a difficult time leaving my doodle alone.  I keep “fiddling” with it!

Here are some of the supplies I used on this doodle:

I started with watercolor but then tried gouache, Tombow markers, Inktense pencils, watercolor pencils and Prismacolor pencils.  😉

I learned a lot from my experiment with different mediums.  I learned NOT to use a water brush as I don’t have any control with it.  (I can’t stay within the lines).  I struggled with the Inktense pencils to get them to blend with other mediums.

I also learned to trust my instincts when it came to color and NOT coloring every doodle!  I hope you check out Annie Glacken’s doodles here that she did recently in watercolor.  My favorite is her Hummingbird!  🙂

You may recall my doodle progress where I last left off that you can find here.

Here is the completion of this doodle:

I tried to vary my color by creating depth and movement in my patterns.  I would love to know what you think!

Happy creating!!  🙂

Power Surges

As I started to write this post, we had a power surge and the paper shredder (that hasn’t been used in months!) decided to turn on loudly!  The only way to stop the noise was to unplug it!  Pretty weird!  😉

It reminds me of creating art.  Sometimes I have my own “power surges!”  Lol!  When I don’t think I have enough time to create art, I somehow find the TIME!  And I start creating MORE art!

Today’s art is inspired by my annual flowers (before Jack Frost!) and my Crapapple tree as it begins to change to it’s autumn dress:

I drew a pattern in my sketchbook first with Micron .08 black pen and then painted it with gouache paint.

Do you think it’s done?  I’m not sure…  I think it may need another layer of color.

Happy Creating!!  🙂

Gelli-Printing Experiments

I enjoyed doing these acrylic printing experiments on the Gelli-plate while at the lake last week.

Here are some of my results…

Printing on deli paper, I added some metallic paint that I hadn’t done before – not sure you can see it in my photos but it gives an interesting sparkle to them:

I tried drawing patterns with a permanent black pen first before adding several layers of acrylics on the Gelli-plate.  The watercolor paper on the left is hot-press and the right is cold-press.  I found that the cold-pressed paper added a nice texture to my design.

I made various marks using Neocolors and Tombow markers first.  I used 90-lb hot-press watercolor paper on both of these:

I like how the water-soluble marks bled or softened depending how much water I used with the acrylic paints.

I added some watercolor or gouache paints to the background of these first.  Can you see the negative print of a leaf (red outline) on the print on the left?

And for this last one, I painted my circles with gouache first on 140-lb cold-pressed watercolor paper.  I was careful to allow some of the gouache to show through my acrylic paint layers.  I really liked this one:

I’m curious to hear what you think!

Happy experimenting!  🙂