Carolina Wren

Carolina Wren, 2014

Watercolor, Prismacolor Colored Pencil, and Micron pen on Strathmore Watercolor Paper,

9" x 11.75"

The watercolor painted background for this piece was sprinkled with Kosher salt before it was dry. The Kosher salt has larger crystals than table salt, and the larger crystals make more distinct abstract patterns.  After the paper was dry and the salt brushed off, the wren was drawn with colored pencil and pen.

I enjoy watching birds, feeding them, and especially drawing and painting them. Wrens have an astonishingly loud song for such a tiny bird.  

Journal Watercolors

 May's Weekly Watercolors, 2014

Strathmore watercolor paper, each - 2 1/2" x 3 1/2"

In Gina Armfield's book, No Excuses Art Journaling (April 30th entry), she suggests that along with a daily entry, a journalist do a small watercolor a week. These are the watercolors I did for the month of May. I'll add them to a page in the journal. Each watercolor is the size of an artist trading card. Now I'm working on the month of June.

Lessons

The Internet is such a wonderful source of information and instruction - a lot of it for free. Searching out instruction takes some time, but is rewarding.  Many artists sell tutorials and materials, have TV programs, teach classes, have books, appear on Facebook, and have blogs.  There are bits and pieces one can learn from viewing their trailers and ads.

For example:

Here Billy Showell (from the UK) paints a water color Christmas card in a free tutorial.  In this You Tube video she demonstrates how to paint a water droplet on a leaf. The water droplet lesson is a peak into a 130 minute, 2 DVD set called A-Z of Flower Portraits.

France Papillon (from Belgium), a mixed media artist, offers many ideas for inspiration. Here she shows a journal entry she calls "Wing It". She demonstrates many journaling techniques in her You Tube videos. I love artists who share!

Julie Fei-Fan Balzer is a mixed media artist. She has many videos on You Tube and here are some: Fast Forwarding: House Stamps ; Art Journal Walk Through; Trash to Tools; and Stamping into Your Stencil .
Some of these demos show her products and stamps, but the videos can encourage you to use your imagination to create your art using what you have on hand.  Watching other artists work not only teaches me technique, it also inspires me.  After watching a video, my response is pretty  much the same: "That was cool, but what if I did......"

Mixed Media

Bird Song, 2014

Mixed Media on Strathmore watercolor paper, 9" x 11"

Creating art by using more than one medium in a single work intrigues me.  This piece was started with acrylic paint spread on watercolor paper. Torn tissue paper was adhered to the surface with matte medium and then acrylic on a stamp and on the edge of a bottle cap was added.  The bird and quotation were drawn with Faber-Castell black artist pen. The grasses and bird were colored with Prismacolor water color pencil.  The bird's head was painted with Lumiere paint.  

I hope to experiment more with mixed media adding multiple layers, textiles, and found objects. The list of materials is endless.        

Abstract Rug Progress

Abstract, 2014

#4 cut wool on linen

Progress has been slow on the abstract rug.  Here we are to date. It's spring and there is so much to do, I haven't been hooking as much as usual.

May

May Journal, 2014

Here's the month of May.  The original plan was a small illustration, a picture of the day's weather, high and low temperature for the day, and a pattern.  It varied - no design on some days, doodles in the margin, names of flowers in bloom in the yard, and the names of books I read this month.  Most of the illustrations are done with ink and colored pencil.  There's some watercolor pencil and mixed media. On to June.