I've had enough of winter

I always know when I've had enough of winter.  I start dragging out my photos of dearly departed bouquets from spring and summers past.  My version of pouring over seed catalogs, I guess.  This is a watercolor I have just finished using 300-pound Arches watercolor paper.  At $16.00 a pop, staring down at a sheet of this paper can be intimidating.  What if I ruin it?  So, I quickly cut the sheets up in 8 x 10-inch smaller sheets.  Now I'll only ruin a $4 piece of paper.  That isn't so scary.  These originals are listed for sale on Etsy.com and soon on dailypaintworks.com (links in the right-hand margin.)

Tangents

Anyone who has known me for very long will suspect it...a tendency toward AAD...Artistic Attention Deficit.  I have a hundred different ways I would like to try to make art and all the supplies to prove it.  Some ideas are way too involved and common sense tells me I'd lose interest before I got the first piece finished.  The learning curve has to be pretty short and the process fairly direct.  Some are more toxic than I want to expose myself to for any length of time, should I actually stick with the technique.  This horse is a collagraph I worked on in 2013.  The plate is made with a collage of cardboard shapes and covered in aluminum foil.  From there, a brayer is used to ink the plate with water-based printing ink.  The drawbacks are the fact that I have to go to another artist's studio to use the fabulous printing press (with the associated chance that I might be sidetracked along the way) and the messy process and clean up.

Other printing processes that I'm mulling over in my artistic mind are mono printing with open acrylics on plexi-glass plates on watercolor paper or trying out the  Gelli Arts  synthetic gelatin-like plate I bought awhile back to make mono prints.  If they turn out, I will be sure to post the results. 

The Colors of Winter

We don't have cardinals in the Pacific Northwest, that I'm aware of.  I wish I could see one of these beautiful little birds out my kitchen window.  I do have holly in the yard.  Thankfully, no snow...just gray rain.  This little image was done in transparent watercolor with black gouache and is ready for the 2014 Christmas season.  Ahhhh.  Ahead of schedule.  A great way to start a new year.

First Painting of 2014

A Happy New Year to you all.

With a backyard filled with birds and squirrels, it seems only reasonable to make this little squirrel the subject of my first painting for the new year.  Within several yards of my kitchen window, I have seen 7 different squirrels, a red tailed hawk, a deer, and half a dozen varieties of birds.  It's such a privilege to have a wild backyard in which to spy so many creatures.

Goals for the new year include painting more, posting originals to my site on Daily Paint Works, posting new cards and prints to my etsy site and being very ready for the Bellingham Farmers Market in April.  (See links in the side bar to the right)