2nd in Series Orange and red Parrot Tulips

12 x 16 watercolor block. Daniel Smith Watercolors.

1st in series of botanical flowers

This will be a 1st in a series of botanical flowers.

Hydrangea...12 x 16 watercolor 140lb block. Daniel Smith watercolors

Peony

I love painting flowers and I especially love peonies. 9 x 12 watercolor block. Daniel Smith watercolors.

4 orchids and a tulip

I always forget about my Faber-Castel markers. So I took them out of the box and used them, creating four orchids and my last tulip!

Chinese brush paintings

Today was my monthly Chinese Brush painting class with Nan Rae. We worked on dragons and a Crape Myrtle w/blue bird.

New pieces of hand made jewelry

Here are a couple of pieces that I made recently. The bracelet is all hand wired with an array of stones.

Pearl necklace with purple stones.

Pearls with red/orange and jade stones

Red Tulips..

There are many colors of tulips...Daniel Smith watercolors, 4 x 6 postcard size.

More Tulips...

Last night on WC Chat we had a discussion about using only 3 colors and the biggest brush to create an impressionistic painting. So here is my attempt. I used Daniel Smith hansa yellow medium,sap green, pyrrol orange, a #12 round watercolor brush. The size of the paper 4 x 6 post card. I basically dropped in the color wet-on-wet. It was rather freeing to paint this way.

Blue flower wet-on-wet

I'm not a big fan of wet-on-wet, probably because I always feel like my paintings turn to mud. I thought I'd play around with a small practice piece 4 x 6 postcard size. I did a quick line drawing. Then I wet the background with clear water. When I saw the sheen was almost gone, I re-wet the paper again letting it dry a little then dropping in the color. I used this same approach with each petal of the flower. I liked the diffused feeling my little wc has. I might do this again, but on a larger drawing to see if I can fine tune the results.

Tulips WIP

Final painting of Tulips

Going back to basics.

I first did a line drawing of tulips. Then I did a value sketch to see where the lights and darks should be. Finally I painted the tulips using the value sketch to tell me where I needed to have highlights and shadows. When I thought I was done I took a picture with my digital camera. I used Adobe Photoshop to make adjustments, but mainly to do a gray scale to see if I needed to add more darks. With the gray scale I noticed that I needed to darken my darks to make the tulip leaves pop.

Painted tulips before I do a final gray scale

Line Drawing and Value Sketch

A French Bull Dog

Getting back to basics. I started this watercolor about a week ago, then put it aside, and today decided to finish it. I've been trying to workout in my mind and in my art, what direction I would like to explore.

For the past few weeks I've been drawing and painting Tulips, some of my drawings I liked, some of them I didn't. What I figured out was that I need to stick to basics...meaning...doing a sketch;then a value sketch,and finally sketching my drawing on good watercolor paper, then paint. I think with this approach, which for me is tried and true, I'll be much happier with my work. Also pick a standard size and format that I'm comfortable painting...not to big and not to small.

Having finally worked that out, tomorrow I'll start another Tulip drawing with WIP photos. So I feel relieved and don't feel like I'm all over the map with my art. See you tomorrow!

More tulips

Two more tulips...I'm right now just playing with color and seeing how the neocolor crayons can mix on my paper. Both are 8 x 8" Stonehenge paper.

Tulips of a different color

I keep on asking myself how many colors are there of tulips? I probably will discover that as I continue to draw them. Stonehenge paper 8 x8in; Neocolor water soluble crayons

Tulips

I'm just remembering all the lovely tulips I had in my Washington house. The last year we lived in Washington State my husband planted for me over 400 tulips. It was amazing to see that many tulips in my front side yard. Stonehenge 8 x 8 paper, Prismacolor watercolor pencils.

More tulips...

I guess I have spring on the brain because I did another drawing of tulips. Faber-Castell polychromos on Stonehenge paper 8 x 8 inch.

tulip in crayon

I've been seeing a lot of artist do art work using crayon...the kind of crayon we used as kids. So this weekend I decided I would give it a try. I bought myself a 64 color pack of crayons. I first sketched out just a line drawing of a tulip. Then I proceeded to color each petal, added the shading,and finally the background.

What I learned...Wax build up was a problem. I had to use a piece of card board to scrap off the wax that did not blend into the petal. I must of put at least 10 layers to get a value variation. Using crayons I had to use a lot of pressure when applying the crayon to the paper causing my fingers to hurt.

As I was coloring I kept on wondering if I used just plain newsprint paper if the crayon would go on easier and if I'd get less wax build up?

Finally...would I use crayon again? Probably not. It was an interesting experiment, so for now the crayons go back in the box!

Chinese Brush Paintings

Today was my Chinese Brush Painting Class in Burbank,CA with Nan Rae. The focus of class was cranes and trees. This was a fun class and I was amazed at the number of paintings I was able to paint in 4 hours. Each painting got easier or maybe I finally feel at ease painting in that style.

Three pink tulips

I am enjoying the process of cross hatching on this drawing. Still working out how to make the two top tulips pop. 8 x 8 Stonehenge paper, Faber-Castell polychromes

Jewelry by Irene...that's me!

Back in January I went with a friend that I met on WetCanvas to another friend of ours gallery showing in Ventura. We went early to walk around downtown...which had lots of interesting shops. One of the shops we went into was The Peruvian Bead Company http://www.peruvianbeadcompany.com/. The beads were so colorful that I bought some beads to make two pair of earrings.

After making the two pair of earrings...the pink ones and the aqua ones below the pink, I was bitten by the bug. Recently I found a bead shop in the town I live in and bought more glass beads to make earrings and a necklace. So last night I was up till midnight finishing the necklace. I thought it was really cool to find a leaf shape clasp to match the glass leaf in the middle of the necklace. The necklace is about 20" long.

I'm not sure why I was never interested in making jewelry before. The only problem I have with working with the beads is that I have long nails and it's a bit difficult to pick up the really small beads or spacers. Also I have arthritis in my hands, so working small is a little cumbersome. I also need to figure out a way to photograph my jewelry so anyone can see the detail much clearer.

Parrot Tulip

Ok, I did another colored pencil drawing, this time on good paper. I used Stonehenge paper 8 x 8 and Faber-castell polychromos. I applied the colored pencil by hatching back and forth. There are some areas that hatching didn't give the effect I wanted so I just applied color to give the drawing a more smooth finish. This scan really doesn't show the value changes that are on the Original drawing. I will put this aside for awhile and probably go back and rework some of the areas that are bothering me.