Sunny morning

Remy (my golden) and I were sitting on the deck early this morning.  The temperature was 35 degrees F (br-r-r) and Remy was wearing his usual fur and I was in my winter parka; but with the sun shining and no perceptible breeze we were enjoying it. 

Songbirds were chirping and chasing each other and high above I saw dozens and dozens of seagulls soaring.  With the sun lighting them, they looked like pin pricks of moving light in a soft blue sky - just wonderful.  I live in Colorado and I occasionally spot seagulls but never so many as this morning.

And on a completely different subject - I am a few pages into my new art journal.  This is a little sketch from today:

Sharpie pens.

Blue bird spring

I was thinking of spring time as I gazed out my window at a cold and snowy scene.  With a bit of ink and some watercolors I can create a very different scene in my art journal - in an imaginary garden a bird and a word :-)

"Blue Bird Spring"

And all the while Remy was gazing out the window looking for bunnies or anything else braving the weather. 

He is also thinking "walkies!" :-)

Love this boy <3

Art Journal DRAW

I miss seeing flowers outside (wintertime in Colorado).  I was daydreaming about how lovely it would be to see colorful spring and summer flowers on a snowy background or brightening up the dry grasses and leafless shrubs.  O well.

Doesn't surprise me too much that flower-like forms appeared in this morning's Draw: section of my art journal :-)

Ink and colored pencil

Some imaginary winter flowers. Yay!

Personal palette

A couple of months ago I began experimenting with my color palette.  Then coincidentally Lynn's May lesson (for Year of the Spark) is about defining one's personal palette.

I doodled my current color palette:

Created under the influence of a rain-soaked Spring :-)

Watercolor with music

The Year of the Spark lesson with Lynn Whipple is a further exploration of responding to music in the creative process.

Watercolor paintings with loose drawing... to music :-)

Mixed media - watercolor, graphite and ink

With the music

Lynn Whipple is teaching the Year of the Spark lesson for the second half of April... using music to influence mark making.

I don't have music playing while I work in my studio unless I am doing chores (cleaning and tidying up for the next project).  When seasons permit, I prefer to listen to the birds' songs or soft rainfall.  Or I like to listen to recordings of nature or lectures by people with engaging speaking voices.

For this lesson, I chose music that had a slow to medium tempos with occasional tempo changes.

The "music" warm up sketches:

I've been painting...

an 8"x10" mixed media landscape on canvas (Flowers In the Mist):

Going for a dewy-moist, quiet ambiance...

I was into all kinds of acrylic and watercolor paints with pastels and charcoal. I always start with brushes but invariably I use my fingers - in this instance to work the color into the fiber paste texture. Okay, and the flowers, too, and the sky...thank goodness I have a scrubbie thing that removes all that "media" from my hands :-)

Surprise...flowers :-)

Yes, I've been painting flowers...again. A couple of days ago, Remy and I walked through a park in the early evening that somehow inspired this piece.
I used some FW Pearlescent acrylic inks; they added a nice sheen here and there. Have a look:

Into blues and violets.

Beautiful evening

for walkies. Remy was being goofy; I think he liked the flowers best when he stuck his entire head in them for a good sniff!

A charming Golden boy.

With the wet...

come the flowers. A lot of rain the past few days. Hail yesterday morning - unusual.
Remy and I were on walkies and we spied a bit of color. This:

Time to investigate:

Remy really put his nose into it:

Okay, so he probably wasn't checking out the blossoms exactly :-)

Paint daubs

Randomly laid down several layers of water color and gesso. Some line work and this happy little guy appeared.

The Little Talker

The persistence of...flowers :-)

I like working in my studio and occasionally glancing out the window at the blowing snow – it’s enjoyable because I’m inside happily painting away and the “weather” is outside.

So here’s what blossomed today:

They look a bit like flowers...

Poor little dudes...

Snowstorm - quelle surprise. Cold days with gusting winds. So we have robins fluffing out their feathers to retain warmth. Look at these two:

Br-r-r-r.

Meanwhile, back in my studio, it still feels like Spring! More flower blossoms not nearly done. I plan to cut them out individually.

Crying out for pastels, charcoal, conte...

From negative beginnings, a surprise!

The challenge: create a painting using collage - for me, not a favored technique - and collage elements that I don't like.
Here it is:

I am pleasantly surprised :-)

Under the influence...

of this wonderful sunny morning, a trio of flowers from my studio:

More Planet-ary flowers :-)

Snow flowers

Winters' reminder - s.n.o.w. - stopped falling yesterday: and there I was happily painting flowers in my studio using techniques I am learning from "Flower Crazy" (http://www.carlasonheim.com/flower-crazy-2/).

Flowers definitely from my studio on a nearby planet :-)