Three New Paintings!

Hi there!  I've been a busy little bee lately!  Recently I took part in a challenge to paint 30 paintings in 30 days.  This one above was the very first one that I painted for the challenge.  Not bad #1, not bad!  It's on a 8" x 10"x 1/2" canvas. I love Koi and waterlilies so I figured why not paint both!

This is the second one, "I AM here".  This one was much easier than the first one.  It seemed to flow out fairly easily and tell me exactly what it wanted.  I love when that happens!  It's also on 8" x 10" x 1/2" canvas.

close up of "I AM here"

"Island Of Dreams" was the third painting that I did.  Don't you want to take a boat out on that water and just float?  This one was done on 11" x 14" canvas board. 

 I like how the first three paintings all have water and seem to go together.  I think it was a great way to start off the challenge!  

Just for fun here's a photo of "Island Of Dreams" while it was still in progress.  This can almost be a finished painting itself!

So there's the first 3 out of 30!  I only have 27 more to show you!  ;-)  

They're all done now so if you can't wait you can see them all on my Facebook Art Page or Instagram 

Thanks for visiting!  See you soon!

Shadow Shot Sunday : Church

Here is my shadow shot for this week.

 This photo was taken of a church in uptown Whittier, Ca.  I was driving by and noticed the strong shadows being cast on the church by the tree.  So of course I had to turn the car around and park, and take a few photos.  Do you blame me?

To see more shadow shots, or join in with your own, pop on over to Hey Harriet for Shadow Shot Sunday.

Summer of Color : Blue Cards

Hello there.  I made not just one, but two cards for the first week of the Summer of Color.  This week's color is blue, so of course I had to go with my favorite turquoisy-blue.  

For the first card (more blue in person) I glued down several layers of paper, but wasn't quite liking it.  I ended up grabbing a stencil and heavy gel medium to create the raised stencil pattern and covered up the rest of the card with the medium also.  When it dried I painted it with many layers of blues, cream, and a touch of copper until I liked the effect. 

 I did learn an important lesson with this card.... open it first before slathering on the gel medium or you will glue the card closed.  Yup.  Lesson learned.  I had to cut it open, but it's all good now ;-)

The second card has a layer of hand-painted paper (which ended up mostly covered up by more paint!).   I glued down the center medallion (apparently I'm into medallions right now lol!), which was cut from a scrapbook paper by "Daisy D's" that I love, which then got some paint brushed over it to blend in.  Then I dumped some Distress embossing powder by Tim Holtz into the wet glue and used a heat gun to emboss it.  When that set up, I doodled with a black pen to add some details and used the end of a paint brush to add some cream dots.  And finally I stamped on a quote...

"...the artist is not there to be one with the world-

he is there to transform it"

        --Anias Nin

Yes. 

 Love that!

There's still time to join in with your own blue creations.  Just pop on over to Twinkle Twinkle for the details on the Summer of Color fun!