On a Little Walk

  My imagination went on a little walk and this is what it saw.
  
    A couple of little mixed media collages from my studio.

      These were made on canvas board, with acrylic paints, magazine bits, metal charms, and game pieces. A bit of graphite for a shadow here and there and a ribbon for hanging.

So many things can interrupt us from following our muse as artists. Here's hoping I have found my way back.

A Couple of Chicks

I was just looking through my photos the other day for something to share and I found these two paintings of chickens.
The most recent is one I painted with acrylics just for fun on a little 5x7 canvas.

"Chicken in the Watermelon"
This little chick is having a quick lunch before the other farm yard chickens catch on that there's watermelon to be had.  She's so wrapped up in this sweet fruiti-licious lunch, she probably wouldn't notice anyone coming up behind her.  

And here's a watercolor I painted a few years ago at a seminar with Susan Scheewe Brown.
I can just imagine this proud rooster patrolling the yard and trying to give the other birds an piece of his mind.



These chickens were a lot of fun to paint and always make us smile. 

WOYWW.....My First Wednesday Reveal

Well you are probably saying, it's about time I post about my work desk on Wednesday, so here goes.  I don't know what took me so long.  For a while it was a mystery to me what WOYWW really was.  Ha! or Lol, depending on which generation you are from!!

This week I have been working furiously to finish some new pieces for First Friday in the Art District.   Actually not all of them are for FF. I started the little pansy box a few months ago at our painting chapter meeting. And have been thinking about the perfect finish for it. The pansies looked pretty but there was too much empty space left around them. So I solved it with some stenciled leaves and dots for a lacy look. Now all it needs is the latch.

In between coats of varnish on the jewelry box, I finished two Monarch butterfly pictures with ordinary acrylic paint in tubes.   These will be displayed for Friday's Art walk.  Fun to do more than one at a time and sort of bounce back and forth with the paint.

"Visiting Monarch #1" 5x7

 

 

"Visiting Monarch #2" 8x10

 

 

 

 

 

Adding to the collection...

"Curious Kitten"

"Frisky"

"Tiger Kitten"

These friendly fellows were painted last week.  They were a delight to paint. My picture references came from some vintage postcards passed on to me from a friend. They are not exact copies, but sparked my interest because of those dear little creations from long ago. But they don't bat at the birds outside the window or demand that you lay perfectly still in the bed!!

They can be found at my personal gallery upstairs at the Dinosaurs and Roses resale shop in Las Vegas.

What a great way to..........

begin the week! I sold my triptic print painting, "Under the Sea".  And it swam,... or rather flew across the Pacific to Hawaii to its new home.  Yay! I am very happy. Although I did enjoy looking at it and remembering how the paint went down and how it was to roll the paint over the fish for the printing step, I am really jazzed that someone enjoys it now in their home.  Actually she purchased it for her sister. How very nice that she bought it for a gift.

Several layers of paint were applied with brush, rubber fish, real shells, stones, cheese cloth, etc. to create this under-the-sea view. I really had fun experimenting with the paint. More is more, as they say. More paint, more texture, the more it seemed to look like I was really swimming with the fishes.

Made the smaller sections so that you could move them around in different order and the fish swim from one canvas to the others.  This was painted in 2007 for a Art teacher gallery show and has also been displayed in my home and in City of the World Art Gallery in Las Vegas.

Owls in the Moonlight

Been really busy painting and getting my gallery/studio space all spruced up.  And I have been "burning the midnight oil" too. So painting some pictures of owls seemed to be the right decision.
Here are two little pictures I painted this last week. 

I had a blast painting "Moonlight Owl" canvas with acrylics.
He seems to have  alot of personality--- flapping a wing and watching out for whatever critters might happen by in the night.

Sometimes painting more than one at a time helps move the project along.  No overworking the paint and turning it into mud. No losing track of the shapes. Just filling in the images and working out the ideas, bringing the paintings to life.  

"Owl Duet". Just two owls, hanging out.

Early Spring songsters visit imaginary gardens

Spring seems to be arriving early this week. The sky has been clear and there is a faint cool breeze. And when I looked around my garden, it seemed the bulbs were being choked by the crafty crabgrass. And the crabgrass was laughing in triumph as it tried to overtake everything in it's way... Argh! What a mess!  It haunted me in those early morning dreams one has when you are slipping between sandman land and daylight. After my brief workout at the gym, I went right out to clean up the mess.

And on my painting table....
wishing for a better garden view, I splashed some gouche colors around to create these little impressionistic scenes. Added my favorite wire screening for a bitty fence, and a clay bird for personality and whimsy. Old text from a used encyclopedia, (no one uses these any more, do they?) was ripped into a cloud shape. One of my favorite things to do is rip paper. Just love those raggy edges.    Hope you like them.

"Nature is the art of God" favored quote of the day by Dante Alighieri.

"Yellow Bird Among Wildflowers"  and
"Bluebird Among Wildflowers"--Mini collages