When I Was Little...

When I was little, I wanted to be an artist when I grew up.  As an adult, I've tapped into my artistic side by engaging in various hobbies: 

•  Photography -- I've been fascinated by cameras since I was about 7 years old.  I'd steal borrow my parents Polaroid camera to take photos.  My Dad gave me that same camera which he purchased when he was in the military before I was born.  For my 13th Christmas, my Mom bought me my first camera.  I've had one ever since.

•  Cross Stitch -- My first project in 1984 was a birth sampler I designed myself using motifs from an old women's magazine my Mom had.  It's now stained, but I still have it. I've been stitching ever since.

•  Watercolor Painting -- Hard to believe it's been three years since I started learning how to paint with what a lot of people call "a difficult medium".  I still consider myself a newbie, but I really enjoy it.  I'd like to think I've gotten better since my first painting.  I've taken some classes and learned about Chinese Brush Painting, Etegami, and watercolor painting by two local artists.

Recently, I did a watercolor painting for Vikki in FL.  One of her favorite things is coffee, so I did a coffee cup.  This one was so fun, I'm contemplating doing another one for my sketchbook.

Until Next Time...

Artistic Endeavors

At the beginning of June, my area has an event where there are 40 miles of garage sales along a highway.  One of the locations listed sewing machines and fabric.  When I got there, I wasn't interested in any of the fabric or the machine.  While perusing, I spied a row of art books -- some of which were watercolor painting books.  Through chit-chat with the residents, I learned her Mom had been into watercolor and had lots of stuff her Dad wanted to sell.  She went in the house and came out with two swiffer containers of watercolor paints and brushes.  I negotiated a price of $33 for all the paints, a package of 22x30" Arches watercolor paper, two 4x6 watercolor blocks, and the books.  Retail cost would be over $600.  I was a happy camper!!

I made a palette of the Grumbacher paints and for student grade, they are very good!  They re-wet nicely and are very vibrant.

While waiting for fireworks to start, I painted a postcard.  Happy 4th!

I participated in a Watercolor Postcard Exchange in June.  These are the ones I painted:

These are the ones I received so far:

I also did a birthday postcard for a little girl in IN. The skirt of the dress is overlaid with metallic paint. So cute!

During one camping weekend, I painted a Monarch Butterfly caterpillar.  It almost looks real!

Until next time...

Painting and Stitching...

... not necessarily in that order.

Summer and Fall has flown by so fast... reminded by my brother who I hadn't seen since March.  It's been a really busy summer. Every weekend, I've been off on little adventures that I have yet to blog about.  

I set aside my Etegami endeavors for a bit.  My aunt went gaga over the sunflower etagami I did in class.  Apparently, I'd promised to do one for her and forgot.  She reminded me the other day...  Instead of doing an etegami, I did an actual painting for her.

About half way through doing the painting, I had my doubts it was going to turn out.  The dark spot in the middle was a combination of yellow, red, and violet.  I did not like it at all!  The bottom seemed like a mottled mess.  The only part I truly liked were the petals.  I continued on because if there's anything I learned from the watercolor class last March it's that you never know how it's going to turn out.  Plus, it's only paper and paint after all.  So, moving forward I was really happy with how it turned out!

I'm not sure what brand of watercolor paper I used as it was laying in a pile of scraps I had.  I used Staedtler, Qor, and Daler Rowney watercolors. India ink.  7 x 9 3/4"

I did a second one. I like the leaves better in this one, but like the sunflower better in the first one.

STITCHY STUFF
I have a finish! I visited my second Mom in Virginia earlier this year (I also have to blog about this, too!) and she stitched this same design while I was there. Then she let me borrow the chart to stitch it.  We both changed the colors from the original design.  Here's my rendition:

I found the perfect frame while thrift store shopping.

I can honestly say, "I'm abundantly blessed."

Until Next Time...

Perserverance Pays Off

Here we are... almost halfway through February.... and another month closer to Spring... warmer weather.  Ahh!  I cannot wait.  Even though, my area has not had much snow this year (thank goodness)....

 

In addition to having the perseverance year after year to deal with the cold and snow, over the past few months I've been dealing with a challenge of my own stupidity making.  I came across a recipe that called for apple molasses.  I'd never heard of it before, so of course I Google'd it.  Ten dollars for a small jar... are they crazy?  In retrospect, it may have been cheaper if I'd just paid the $10.  Why you ask?  Read on:

 

Long time readers know how I'm into DIY.  Again, Google was my friend.  I found out I could make my own apple molasses by boiling down apple cider. Growing up, my Dad and uncle made maple syrup by tapping maple trees and boiling it down so I knew what was involved.  Piece of cake.  This journey started last fall.

 

As I was boiling down the cider on the stove, my brother called me and said he had time to replace the brakes on my car.  When bro calls and says he has time, I have to go.  I decided to put the cider in the crockpot and let it boil down -- safe enough and I didn't have to "babysit".  The next day was a Monday, so I had to go to work.  The cider was soooo close to being done, but not quite.  Since I had a doctor's appointment that day, the plan was to let it cook in the crock and stop at home on my way back to work to shut it off.  Well..... I forgot.  When I got home that night, I found this:

 

 

What surprised me was that when I left the house in the morning, there was only about 3" of liquid in the bottom of the crockpot.  When I got home, there was an expansion of crusty, crunchy, sponge-like blob in the crockpot!  Ewww.

 

It was all I could do to get the solid part out of the crockpot. Then I soaked it. Guess what?  No amount of soaking will remove burnt on apple cider!  Barkeeper's Friend... Nope.  Softscrub... Nope.  I tried all the obvious cleansers to get the stuff off to no avail.  I Google'd burnt crockpot and found a blog... Yes, a blog! Vinegar and baking soda.  It took a long, long, LONG time (perserverance) to get all the burnt out of my crockpot, but it worked!  Big thanks to The Acid Truth! 

 

 



What else have I been up to?  I've been stitching, but there isn't anything I can show since both projects are for exchanges.  What I can show is my finished "masterpiece" watercolor painting.  I kind of chuckle when I say masterpiece because it's far from, but that's what the instructor for the class I took referred to our project as.

This painting is based off a photograph I took in 2002 of the Pecatonica River near where I live.  I don't think I did the photograph justice, but I'm pretty happy with how the painting turned out seeing as I'm still a newbie.  I'm a much better photographer, lol.

Until next time....

 

Marvelous Monday Update 12/5/2016

WEATHER
On December 4, my area was greeted with the first snowfall of the year.  Mother Nature decided to bless us with 5.3" of very wet, heavy snow.  I went out twice to clear the driveway.  The second time, it took me two hours.  Welcome to winter!

 

STITCHY STUFF
I've participated in two ornament exchanges this year. Both of the ornaments I created for my partners turned out so good I wanted to keep them for myself.  Anyone else have this problem?

 

Design: Woolly & Cosy

Designer:  Valentina Sardu

Fabric: 32ct White Opalescent Linen

Fibers: DMC threads

 

I finished it into an ornament using a green fabric with tiny Christmas trees and swirling silver dots.  Red felt was cut with a pinking rotary cutter and sandwiched between the stitched design and the green backing.  A green satin ribbon topped off the ornament.  It was such a quick stitch, I'd like to do a couple more.

 

Design: One More Stitch

Designer: The Victoria Sampler

Fabric: 28ct Natural Linen

Fibers: DMC

Embellishments: Beads, Buttons, String Pearls

 

This design was featured in the 2014 Just Cross Stitch Ornament issue.  I took some creative liberties with finishing it.  Both the front and back are stitched on the Natural Linen.  The back is personalized with the recipient's name as well as mine.  I sent it to Deb H in TX as a Christmas Ornament Exchange.  Doh!  I just realized I didn't stitch the date.  Buttons and beads are on the front and back.  The edge is trimmed with string pearls and topped with a satin ribbon hanger.

 

Next up is what I received from Deb. It's called Snowy Owl Snowman by Jim Shore.  It's absolutely beautiful... both the stitching and the finishing!  She has a blog that shows lots of her other gorgeous finishes. If you're interested in eye candy, click on over HERE.



Thank You, Deb!

WATERCOLOR
I've been practicing my watercolor skills (or lack thereof) using YouTube videos. I recently did this barn painting using Shinhan Professional Watercolors. One of my classmates bought a set when she was in Korea. The paints work really nice and are very vibrant.

I wasn't real happy with how it turned out so I gave it to a friend who thought it "is awesome".  I am going to do another one and adjust the color values a bit.

I've made a bit of progress on the "masterpiece" as my instructor called our projects.  Once I get farther along, I'm going to set up an appointment to get some critique from him.

Even though my photo shows the dark bank on the left side, I'm not really liking how it looks. I'm going to try to scrub some of it out of there to make it lighter or a different shade.

GIVEAWAY
I'm going to put together a package of things from my stash for the person who can answer this question:  What does an Ott light, needle nose pliers, lighter, and wire have in common?  (Hint: a project)  Leave a comment with your guess.  Giveaway open to U.S. residents, only.  Sorry!

FREEBIE

 

First Snow by The Drawn Thread
Click HERE.

Not For The Paint of Heart

Get it?  Faint of heart....  Okay, I won't quit my day job. Haha!

As you know, a while back I started a 6-week watercolor painting class.  It was cut short a couple weeks ago due to the instructor needing to have unplanned surgery.  A LOT of information was crammed into those five weeks!  Every week, we learned new techniques and then started a new project to practice the technique.  At the same time, we were to finish our "masterpiece".  Heh, yeah that didn't happen.

The only project I finished during the class was the one where we learned about washes.  I liked my painting just fine until... the instructor had us lift out fog.  In retrospect, I would've used a smaller brush to wet the area before lift off.  Would've been nice if he would've told us what brush sizes to use.

Yesterday, I finished one where we learned clouds, water, rocks, and sand.  At first, I was getting frustrated because I didn't like how the rocks on the right side of the page looked.  I think it looks okay now.  The interesting thing about this project is that we all started with the same basic design and they all turned out different.

 

 

Each week when the instructor did a demonstration painting, each of us had to guess a number to see who "won" the painting.  I "won" the instructor's version of the rock and water painting. The nice thing is there were only four of us in class so each of us got a painting.

 



I'm still working on the floral exercise.  I apparently, I missed a petal at the bottom and painted over it with the background wash.  So I had to add it and darken the lower petals.  I'm thinking I should darken the upper ones also, but the instructor says to leave them. What do you think?

Sadly, my "masterpiece" is barely started.  I didn't like having so many unfinished paintings so I focused on finishing those rather than start yet another one.  This is all the farther I've gotten.

Things I've learned:
•  Practice, practice, practice!  I still haven't gotten the hang of wet-on-wet.
•  Know when to stop.  If you're unsure, stop.
•  Cheap watercolor paper sucks.  Spring for the good stuff.  There's less frustration.

Until next time...

 

Painting Up A Storm!

In my last post, I mentioned taking a watercolor class.  Our first homework assignment was to draw a thumbnail sketch of what we wanted to paint for our masterpiece and then draw a "cartoon" of what it would look like full size.  The instructor really liked my cartoon -- which surprised me because I think it's rather rudimentary.  He thinks it would be fun if I did an impressionist painting.  Me, I'm not sure.

The day I was to take my cartoon to class, it was raining.  Look what I came up with to protect my cartoon!  My classmates thought it was ingenius. LOL

During the second week of class, we learned about and practiced watercolor painting techniques: Wet on Wet, Wet on Damp, Wet on Dry, Washes, Hard Edge/Soft Edge, and Drybrushing.

The instructor walked us through doing our first class painting project using the techniques we learned and practiced.

I thought my painting was going along swimmingly well until the instructor had us "lift" fog into our paintings.  He said my paint lifted a little too well.  I think my fog bank is too wide.  Not bad though, for a first time using some of these techniques.  We also got to use frisket which is really useful to maintain white highlights.

Week three, we learned how to paint florals.  Mine is still a work in progress.

Another student and I have been meeting once a week outside of class to do our homework and practice painting.  I'm trying to get this floral done so I can move on to my "masterpiece" which is supposed to be mostly done by next week. I haven't even started painting it yet. Yikes!

Week four, we learned about painting skies and water.  While my clouds look okay, I think they're way too dark for the water below.

Rocks and trees will be taught in the next classes.  The white areas in the previous painting are where the rocks and trees will go.

In a different class offered by the park district, I learned how to paint trees.  The instructor remembered me from when I took the floral class back in June.  He asked if I'd been doing some painting because I was using techniques I learned elsewhere.  I finished painting one tree and started on a second.

Until next time...

Have Paint, Will Travel

In my last post, I shared my photographic checks. Thank you all for the compliments. They are really cool, aren't they?  I've had several inquiries as to where I got them.  I ordered mine from Artistic Checks www.artisticchecks.com.  One caveat... Look for a coupon code to get them really inexpensively.  Normally, they are $20.95 + shipping!

ARTISTIC ENDEAVORS
A while ago, I picked up a set of Loew Cornell watercolor pencils and a new adult coloring book called Magical Garden by Cra-Z-Art.  I really like the pencils. They cover and blend really well and are not too expensive.

Two weeks ago, I started a 6-week watercolor workshop taught by a local artist.  This week, we had to come up with ideas what we'd like to paint for our "masterpiece".  These were my choices.

The instructor critiqued our choices.  He really liked all of them except for the hot air balloon. He said the sky didn't have interesting detail in it.  I chose the autumn river scene.  It will be very difficult, but I will give it my best!

 

One of the supplies recommended for class was an 18x24" thin board for drawing and painting on.  Ahh... a DIY project!  I bought an inexpensive piece of Masonite and cut it to size.  A bit of primer and quite a few coats of polycrylic makes for a nice waterproof painting surface.

 

 

On my own, I've been doing some fun things with my watercolor paints.  I've created color cards so I know what the paints look like on paper.

 

 

I also did a mixing exercise with the Reeves watercolors using primary colors: red, blue, yellow to make secondary and tertiary colors.

 

CRUISE NIGHT 2016
When I was a teenager, entertainment on a Friday night was cruising around the square downtown.  From that, Cruise Night was born.  At first, it was a bunch of people with cool cars, trucks, and motorcycles that drove around the square.  There was a beer tent with music.  Decades later, it has turned into a huge event featuring car shows, music/entertainment, and competitions.  This year, my brothers and nephew decided to take their cars and enter the burnout contest.  My oldest brother placed 3rd out of about 20-25 cars in the competition.  Pretty cool bragging rights, if you're into cars!

My brother in his 1969 Pontiac GTO convertible.  He restored and painted it himself.

 

Photo from 2008

 

My nephew entered his 1973 Chevy Nova - He created a lot of smoke, which is one of the factors they're judged on.  He didn't place, though.  Not bad for his first time!

My youngest brother entered his 1968 Pontiac GTO.  Both my brothers vamped up the motor the day before.  He had a hard time keeping it on the pad, and the facilitators shut him down early.



Photo from 2014 - My nephew in his Nova next to my brother's GTO.

FREEBIE

Road Trip by Ursula Michael
Get the freebie HERE.