Tiger Lillies

In my Chinese brush class in January we did Tiger Lillie's...

Chinese brush work of birds

Over the last few months I've painted these birds in my Chinese Brush class.

I'm Back...

To Kick the month off...a western meadow lark....

I'm back...for the past several months I've been exploring other mediums and trying to figure my artistic voice. I've been making greeting cards, book binding little books of my watercolors and Chinese brush paintings, and working on botanical watercolors. I needed this time just for me, without the pressure to post daily...to just create. Needless-to-say, I've acquired more art supplies and tools. So I'm slowing going through my studio and weeding out art stuff I really don't use.

I've also re-discovered sewing. For Christmas I got a fabulous embroidery sewing machine and have been taking classes on how to use it. I've made a Xmas quilt,dog collars, and table runners. I'm even thinking about making slip covers for my living room furniture. Yes I know a little ambitious, so I might start small...like my ottoman.

I'm looking forward to the coming months to share all my creations.

IF - - Flawed

If everything in life was perfect, I wouldn't have flawed clothes.

I haven't...

I haven't posted in a while because I've been away. Last week I went to the SF bay area to visit with my sister. We had a good time and hitting every scrap booking stores we could find. Michael's and Joann's still seems to be the best price for the tools. Also we spent a day visiting China Town in SF looking for Chinese Brush supplies but only found student grade material, so China Town was a bust.

I discovered a cool scrap booking store in Santa Clarita which is about 30 minutes from my house. This store seems to have a lot of the latest scrap booking supplies. On Sunday I took a card making class where I did some embroidery and bead work on the card. Very time consuming and rather tight working with the seed beads.

Lately I just seem to be bouncing off the walls artistically. I really need to get back into just painting and choose a medium...watercolor,colored pencil, or acrylics. I guess I could view this period as a growth period since I'm trying to expand my bag of tools and refining the skills I already have as an artist.

More flowers

I have a tendency to save up my WIP drawings and paintings and take photo's in batches. I wish I had a better system to be able to draw,paint,photograph, and then add to my blog.

I was going through all my photos that I took from Butchard Gardens in Victoria,BC about 3 years ago. The images were just as fresh as when I was standing in front of them snapping the picture. Butchard Gardens...I wish I'd live closer to visit as often as I did when I lived in Washington State.

I want to start selling prints, so I'm looking at various sites to do so. My prints will be 5 x 7 and can be slipped into a 8 x 10 mat.

Once I have all the mechanics of selling...I'll let you know how you can own one too.

Elephants running...

OK, this might not look like elephants to you, but hey...this is what I see. What about you????

Koi Pond

I love the symbolism of abstracts...this reminds me of Koi fish swimming...what about you?

Red,White,and Blue

New abstract..reminds me of water.

Moving through depression

I sometimes think that this is what depression could look like. I like the colors on this abstract...very mellow.

Parrots anyone?

As I continue to work on my series of abstracts, I'm getting braver with each one to add more and more layers.

Chinese Harbor

New painting. With each abstract, I'm paying more attention to detail and texture.

Dolphin at sea

My latest...Dolphin at Sea...I really love the symbolism of abstracts.

Chinese birds in flight

All my abstracts remind me of birds...so I'm thinking I need to figure out the symbolism that I'm conveying. I really like this painting...I love the bright warm colors of red,orange, and yellow with hints of gold. I used a palette knife to lay in the color.

When eagles fly

If anyone ever tells you that painting abstract is a piece of cake...they are wrong! With this painting I started out with a black background. Then I started dropping in color. I didn't like the effect so I decided to add crackle paste to see if that would give the painting more texture. Since this was the first time I've used crackle paste, no where on the tube did it say add color to paste before you apply to painting. When the crackle paint dried I had lost all my color, so I had to go back in and re-apply color. Once I did that, I could see the cracks and the texture I was aiming for. When I first started painting this abstract I figure it would take me about an hour to finish. I spent most of yesterday working on this painting. I had to wait while various layers dried before going on to the next.

Some things are never easier than I expect.

A swan

Watercolor paper 8" x 8", acrylic paints, and molding paste

A dragon and birds

I love doing abstracts!!! I've always been such a realistic traditional painter, so this style of painting is new for me. I now understand how abstract artist tell a story with their work. I plan to do a series of 12, 8" x 8" abstracts all on a black background which will hang as a collection. I'm also doing a series of smaller abstracts 12, 4" x 8.5" that can be displayed as a collection or individually.


"The dragon"

"Birds in flight"

Poodles in the mist

After 11 years of painting I'm still trying to find my niche. I love working in watercolors because it makes me really think about each detail and ways to push and pull the colors in the painting to get them to work. I've also have explored colored pencils, oil pastels, and now acrylic.

I want to paint intuitively...letting the paint guide me to the next stroke, color,and design. I want to challenge myself to work without a detailed plan. I guess I don't want to play it safe anymore.

So the journey should be interesting ....

A girl and her butterflies

The one thing I love about doing mix media art is that you can put layers,upon layers to give the painting substance. On this piece I first colleagued the background with pages from a dictionary,scrap book pieces,and tissue napkins. Then I did a light wash of antique white over the collage. When the paint was dry I used gesso to do an outline of my girl. After that dried I went back in to do the detail work on the girl. I also used a new product...texture paste that I used with a stencil of butterflies. This texture paste gave a raised effect of the butterflies. I went back in a added more detail to the girl, painted the butterflies, used my french word stamp, and added more paint to tie the piece together.

Angels

I'm really getting into this mix media art. Finally I can use all my art supplies. A bit messy, but fun. This piece was done on birch plywood 6" x 12", using acrylic paint,watercolor pencils,rubber stamps,oil pastels,and glitter.