Street in Croatia ( 5 x 7 )

Gladiolas  ( 5 x 7 )

 These are some small paintings. I try to do little ones to keep my hand doing art. Making them small keeps me from fussing too much over making them perfect. I sketch the subject with black pen, and then add watercolors.

Counting painting days at year end 

To motivate myself to paint more,  I've tried tabulating painting hours in the past and have gotten overwhelmed. I came up with the idea of putting an X on the days that I paint. I tally up the "X's"at the end of the year, noticing which months I paint the most. This works well to motivate me to cover the calendar with more "X's"

Chickens in the meadow

I'm reading a book, "Show Your Work" by Austin Kleon. And in the book, he encourages artists to share the process of creating, trying new things, and even failures. So these are some things I've done today.

Hollyhocks

Spring sheep

The Hollyhocks and Chickens are drawn with white gesso from a squirt bottle on black mat board. After the white outline dries, I added pastel. I like the vivid colors and texture, so I was just 'playing'.

Goldfinch with sunflowers

The Sheep were done on watercolor paper with a white gesso outline. Then I painted watercolor on the paper. The white gesso isn't the easiest thing to draw with. It's hard to get detail when you have to keep the bottle moving in order not to get a blob of white anywhere.





The Goldfinch painting was drawn with black pen on Yupo (white plastic paper) and then I painted it. The color stays vivid  because the paint lays on top of the plastic.

small painting of Rebecca Mast's son

When I first saw this photo, I thought the lighting and composition were great: the way the eye travels up the folded legs, follows the top edge of the shirt to the face then travels down the arm to the toy in his hand and then around again. I had to smile when I read how he fell asleep listening to Johnny Cash. I grew up listening to my mom's Johnny Cash records.

Shadow

Sarasota Bay picnic

These are some more post cards to my daughter Lauren in YWAM. I enjoyed sending "Shadow" and "Sarasota Bay picnic" in the mail to Sarasota. Now that Lauren's on her outreach I'll post them on Facebook - which is what I did with the "Tiger Swallowtail". All that's missing is the rambling on the back and the fun of knowing it was traveling through people's hands.

Tiger Swallowtail

#3

#2

#1

#4

#8

#5

#6

#7

 I've been experimenting with acrylic inks on yupo paper and making book marks. If anyone wants one, they are $2 a piece. (Money goes for the reverse church offering - where we are GIVEN money to multiply and then give back.) Send a SASE (self addressed stamped envelope) to me and I will slip one in the mail to you. First come, first serve in either choosing one or letting me randomly pick one for you. I have fun looking for images in the colors, I see butterfly wings, blue hearts, the Grinch, brown cabbage, eyes...

words on back

Postcards

Our cat lying on my art chair.

close up of forced crocus on my windowsill

Lauren's Sarasota photo

Kipper the dog

Enjoying painting more watercolor postcards. I use a Nexus tablet to display photos, I contour/draw (no erasing) with a black pen, then add watercolors.

Birdhouse

Sea Shells

I'm enjoying painting postcards to send to Lauren in YWAM in Sarasota Florida. I'm on postcard #20. I only just started to take photos of them, but it's a great discipline trying to do one every day. Plus it's very motivating doing them for her. She even sent me a few. Thought it'd be fun to hang them all up together after she gets back in the summer. Kind of fun thinking of people seeing them in the mail.

Tigger

Ivy Geranium

Aunt Kathy's Penguins

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