Thank you card

I am really going to miss my Chinese brush painting classes. The squiggles above the red are my name, and the large character says "thank you. "  The flower is a spontaneous style orchid.

My last class was yesterday.  

August Wedding

My pencil sketch

Nervous first brush strokes

The wedding was beautiful.

 I painted the place where Amanda was married, here is my step by step to her final wedding present ...

The final framed watercolor

The greenery at the bottom did not seem to work for me

I used masking to keep some flowers pure colors

The actual barn at the Queens County Farm

more zoo

Zoo visit!

inked with micron 01

sketched at the zoo

watercolor added

Palm tree practice

 Mike likes the turtles ... I was ready to paint over them

Got lots of practice doing palm trees.

getting to know my brush

yesterday ...

Mike went running this morning and I had a play date with my painting.  I am happy with my brushstrokes ... gets easier every time I do it.

Cardboard from a box of cat food cans

paintbrush cleaning canvas ...
plus I blobbed the paint on for the
cat cardboard and got this lovely frame.

sending a palm tree
on all my mail tomorrow!

Another piece of mail waiting to go to the postoffice

Egg basket

In the style of Delaporte: challenge # 35

There is a photo posted there ( here ) from the master Henry Horace Roland Delaporte.

Artists from all over use it as a reference to practice their medium of choice.

Since I am taking a class in acrylics, that seemed like a good choice.

2nd class -- backgrounds

Well, the backgrounds are finished.

Can't wait till next week's class to see what we add to them!

(And Renate ... you are right, my favorite is still watercolor!)

My art room has been a guest room

My art has taken a back seat to family in the guest room --- an advantage of living in Florida while everyone else is up north. But yesterday I started an acrylic class with Meike Aton. You can see her work here ... 

Step one is to take a primed canvas and use gesso to create your background.  My tool was Meike's bent butter knife -- I have a feeling I will be raiding my silverware drawer!

 As we waited for the gesso to dry, we did color wheels with acrylic as watercolor , then a second color wheel where I gooped it on (is "gooped" a proper painting term?)

( Actually I am quite sure the gooping part was my own addition, but that paint just cries out for playing with the surface and texture. )


My purple did turn out a bit like a Michigan winter sky. Never quite gets dark at night, just growls.   Makes me happy once more to be in Florida!

Curiously, Meike suggests that we not wash our brushes between colors, but instead brush them off on a separate canvas which will at some point become a background for another painting. So far I am not seeing any form emerge, but it will be interesting to watch this process.

I see a trip to Michaels in my future as all my acrylic brushes and supplies are back in Michigan.  But joy of joy, the Walmart beachside carries painters canvas and gesso so I am good to start a couple more canvases.