A Garden Fairy

One never knows when a “Garden Fairy” will appear!  It may start with an amazing sunset:

And a few wild daisies:

Perhaps some blue sky and almost ripe cherries…

And some colorful flowers in old bucket or two:

And then magically she appears…

With some fairy dust for you!

Wishing you a magical day!  🙂

Pizzazza

Sometimes it is fun to add a little color pizzazz to objects that are not very colorful.

I added a little “pizzazza” to this bouquet of white lilies:

I started with a watercolor background.  Next, I created a sketch of the vase with a brown Inktense color pencil, added some of my green watercolor painted collage paper to the vase with a glue stick and then dazzled it up with Neocolor water soluble crayons.

It kind of makes your eyeballs go, WOWZA, huh?!  😉

I also did a study of seashells in my own colors:

These shells were done in watercolor, Neocolors and Prismacolor pencils using REAL shells for my reference.

Wishing you a fabulous day with a little pizzazza!  🙂

The Power Of A Shoe…

I am currently taking an online class from Cat Bennett called, Making Art A Practice: In and Out of the Sketchbook. (Click on the highlight to see a video preview of her class).  This is the second online class I’ve taken from Cat and I really enjoy her teaching style.  She is a gentle soul and I always learn so much from her.

Cat recently shared Andy Warhol’s shoe art so I had to give it a try with my own imaginary shoe:

I drew a shape of a shoe on computer paper and then cut out the interior shape.  Next, I applied rubber cement around the stencil edges and temporarily glued it to hot press watercolor paper.  I then applied watercolor to the paper and removed the stencil before it was completely dry.

After the paint was totally dry, I added highlights to the shoe.  I cut a flower from a previous gelli-print and attached it to the shoe with a glue stick.  I found the quote on the internet.

I can’t wear shoes like this anymore… but it doesn’t mean I can’t draw them!  🙂

Happy Creating!  🙂

Creating Ink Figures – A Free Video

I thought you might enjoy this free tutorial from Carla Sonheim:

 

This video was my inspiration for creating my “guests” for Charlie’s dinner party in my recent post.

I think this is a fun project for ALL ages so I encourage you to get it a try!

Have FUN!!!  And I hope you post your “characters” on your blog as I’d love to see them!

Cheers!  🙂

Happy Easter!

Did you color Easter eggs as a child?  I remember dipping them in colors of the rainbow!  This doodle I did recently reminded me of painting eggs.

I enjoyed drawing these imaginary flowers and coloring them with Tombow markers and color pencils:

I then drew lines in between my flowers so I could color in the background:

It amazes me how color can change how we see things – even every day things like eggs!

Wishing you a color filled Easter!  🙂

A Leaf Stencil

I learned this technique from Lynn Whipple last year in the Year of the Spark online class with Carla Sonheim.  I decided to try creating stencils with some of my own leaf shapes.

I drew my leaf shapes on cardstock and then cut them out.  I was careful to keep the shape intact so that I only had to tape one opening.

Next, I taped the stencils to watercolor paper.  I previously painted a light layer of watercolor on the paper so it would not buckle.   I then added another layer of paint:

I experimented with salt and cling wrap on a couple of the leaves.  Tomorrow I will reveal the painted leaves!

I know that I could have simply painted the paper with watercolors and then drew the leaf shape onto it but there is a reason that I didn’t do this and I will show you tomorrow.

Happy Creating!  🙂

It’s A Jungle Out There!

These trees are a bit on the wild side!  Like the collages I made yesterday with magazines, today I decided to cut around the shapes so I could play with their background colors:

And then I added some patterns with color pencils:

I found that contrasting background colors really made them sing!  Much like a previous color experiment I did last April with the Bee-Eater Bird that you can find here.

Do you have a favorite tree or color combination?  I’d love to hear from you!

Happy Creating!

Tree Shapes

I am waiting for my art supplies to arrive in the mail for my tree class that I told you about yesterday so I decided to explore the shape of trees with some quick sketches.

I purchased this used book from Amazon recently:

It’s silhouettes of tree images helped me greatly!  Here are a few more tree shapes that I colored with color pencils:

One of our assignments for the class was to draw a continuous line of trees – I have to say this is very addicting!

And another one:

There are so many tree varieties in shape, form and color!  So fun to explore…

Happy Drawing!  🙂

Bird Banter

Backyard birds banter about bird bandings behind bird bath!

Happy Monday!  🙂

Silver Shells

Do you need a last minute gift idea?

I was recently inspired by my blogger friend, Magny Tjelta’s post on making flowers for decorating gift wrapped presents.  Be sure to check out her video on her blog:

http://yourartisticjourney.com/2015/12/15/last-minute-wrapping-idea/

This got me swirling my watercolor paints around and look what appeared:

Yep!  Seashells!  🙂

This gave me an idea to create a garland of shells for a Christmas gift for a good friend of mine.

After I painted my “imaginary” shells on 140 lb hot press paper, I cut them out and added white gel pen accents and glitter!  (I was so excited to find 30 different colors of fine glitter on sale at Michaels!  I also found a glue pen to apply the glitter.  So fun!)

Here is a close-up of the starfish – it looks a little like a cut-out sugar cookie, doesn’t it?  🙂

Next, I made these little tabs out of leftover watercolor paper.  I folded the paper in half, punching a hole in one half and gluing the other half to the back of the shell:

I strung some glittery, silver wired ribbon through the holes on the back of the shells.  It helped to tape the ends of the ribbon so I could fit them easier through the holes.

I was surprised to have an 8 foot garland with 22 different shells!

So I put them in a box – don’t they look like candy?

And wrapped them up for my friend!

She opened them today and loves them.  YAY!

Happy Gift Making!  🙂