Paddle Ball Champion

Illustration Friday:  Talent

Illustration Friday: Whisper

Mr Moustache

Here is her partner.

   And here they are together:

I'd like to think that he is hiding a little smile under that big moustache.

Have a Happy Weekend!

And a New Year begins

Hello and Happy New Year!

 

I woke up on New Years Day and decided that I would spend most of the day painting and drawing,  totally guilt free, not worrying about all the Christmas messiness that surrounded me.  I thought this would be the perfect way to spend the first day of the year, doing what I love and also knowing that this was what I wanted for the rest of the year too.

And what a productive little day I had.  I need to do this more often.  I tend to paint a little bit here and there, whenever I can sneak it in, never quite getting into the flow.  So maybe my New Year's Resolution needs to be to commit to one day a week of nothing but painting and drawing.  A day where I can work without worrying about vacuuming or dirty bathrooms or laundry.  I think it might be a fun resolution to try and work on.

I've been thinking about taking Misty Mawn's  "Face to Face" with Mixed Media Art:  A study of portraits and beyond and I think that is how this painting came about.  This piece started with my usual coffee stained background and then I glued tea bags over the top of it  and it created a wonderful brown background with subtle tones and variations.   Her face was created with light colored tea bags, charcoal and acrylics.  Her hair from painted coffee filters.  Her dress is part coffee filters, tissue paper, gesso and charcoal.  

Fischer my son looked at her with a wrinkled up nose and said "she looks like she is from another country"  and I think he is right.  My niece left for Spain the day after Christmas to study for a semester, perhaps there was a Spanish influence? 

I'm imagining her partner with a big black mustache.

Wee Witch

It's that time of year.  Do you have your costume ready yet?  (of course we don't!)  I wouldn't mind being a witch if I had a orange polka dot hat and dress to go with stripped leggings like this little witch has.

Illustration Friday: Heights

Mabel had taken her talent of tea cup balancing to new Heights!

The dance of the dragonflies

Aren't dragonflies amazing little creatures?  The way they hover about, moving sideways and backwards, those big eyes and their brilliant coloring.  What a fascinating insect. I've been seeing a lot of dragonflies around lately and I love to just stop what I'm doing and watch them.   Did you know mosquitoes are their primary food source?  You gotta love anything that eats mosquitoes!

Croquet anyone?

I love croquet!  Growing up, it was one of my favorite summer past times, that and jarts, not the rounded ones they have now, but the pointy metal ones that they no longer make.  (no one in our family was ever injured by them, but we do have a dent in the house from a crazy thrower and I remember a friend throwing it through our tent!)  I'm lucky enough to have an old set that I got a few years back for my birthday from some friends, they had bought them at a yard sale  years ago, but didn't use them and my husband expressed how much I really wanted them and what they meant to me and now I'm as happy as can be with my own set of jarts!

It seems that hardly a day went by where we didn't play at least one game of croquet.  The neighbor kids would usually join us.  My mom was always the one to beat! It's fun to think back to those summer days of being a kid.  I remember red being my favorite color to be.  I think mostly because if you were red you got to go first.  My mom usually preferred yellow.  I went through phases though, where I remember wanting to be only black,  and then for awhile orange, but never the green.  It was a darker green and no one ever seemed to want to be that color.  If it would have been a lime green, it definitely would have been my favorite.

Last year we got a really old croquet set from my sister-in-law.  It looks like it was well used and is missing some of the hoops, but is still in good working condition.

I'm really looking forward to playing all these summer games with the kids as they are getting older.  I think we'll wait to play the jarts with them until they are  a bit older?  Instead we've been playing badminton, which is another favorite of mine.  A friend invited us to play bocce ball recently and that's a game that I've only played once or twice and haven't gotten into, but maybe.



I was watching the kids play around with the croquet set the other day and that was the inspiration for this painting.  I wasn't sure what color ball/mallet I was going to go with and when the piece was finished I realized that I had went with red.  I don't even remember thinking about.  I guess red is still my favorite!

two tulips

i haven't' done any of these little girls in this style for awhile.   when i was getting all my artwork together for my art show, i saw all the little girls i had done previously and was inspired to do some more.      this one was really fun, it came together really well.  with these collages, i have a drawing first and then i trace all the different parts and pieces (head, hair, hand, dress pieces, etc.) on painted tissue or tracing paper and cut them out.  the only thing in the drawing that is not pieces is her eyes, nose and mouth, otherwise everything is cut out.   i then glue them down onto paper and hope that everything fits in its proper place.  i can usually do about 3  paintings in this style and then i start to get really tired of precise cutting and pasting  and i start to feel a strong  need to do some paintings that are more loose and free. 

flying with friends

i hope everyone had an enjoyable Christmas.  we've been laying low around here after all of the hustle and bustle of the holidays.  i finished this painting right before all the family descended upon us and our household was turned upside down in festivities.   i do all of my  painting on our kitchen table so all of my art supplies were put away for the last week, but they are back in their familiar places, the counter top, table, and the floor.  i really need to figure something else out, but the kitchen is the coziest room in the house, it gets good light and i can do some quick painting or drawing while i'm waiting for things to cook!  the kitchen gets kind of messy when i'm in the middle of a project and it gets to be a bit of a drag to have to clean up before each meal and when i go to bed, but maybe that's  a good thing!