8-5-16 ~ Summertime on the Creek

 It was not such a hot day today so I decided to take out my watercolor paper and my Koi paints with a rag and a water brush. Got me a chair with a table on either side for all of my stuff - and tea - and started painting the grass in front of me, the creek, the bank, and finally the tree with its leaves and sky poking thru its head. Just as I was really into it, the skies got dark and the rains returned. Inside I went having to depend upon my memory. You can see the sky peeping through as well as the sandy  back to the sides and under the big tree, and you can see the creek and the grass on the side where I was sitting. I still need to work on my profiles. They are so hard for me. Every time I go and sit out here, I really do marvel how I have one of Nature's wonders right in my front yard.

Here some photos from summer and winter 

of what we call "The Beachhead" where I was sitting.

If you look closely, you can see the reflection of the tree in the creek.

My Etegami Paintings This Week

How Much Do I Love You

I Love You a Bushel and a Peck


The Sky's the Limit

Looks Can Be Deceiving
Purple Sweet Peppers from Bud's Garden

Climb the Fences of Life with Gusto, Determination, and Resolution.

Love One Another

This post is linked with:

Art Journal Journey - Nature's Wonders
Paint Party Friday
Weekend Reflections
Sunday Sketches from England~ Week 2

6-22-16 ~ A Little Bit of Everything

This week my body has been consumed with Poison Ivy.  Monday will be 2 weeks of itching and places are still coming out. I took Prednisone for a week and am now depending upon Benadryl to do the trick. I have had to stay as still as possible in the house so turned on the AC in my living room and bedroom and spent most of my time in the old blue chair. I did a bit of everything trying to keep my mind off of the itching and worked daily on my Etegami. It was an art filled week, but I managed to turn a pile of lemons into some delicious lemonade.

Let me start with the culprit. Just looks like a week. In Florida a block from the Atlantic all I new were pretty flowers, cockroaches, scorpions, mosquitoes, sea gulls, sand pipers pelicans, and alligators......not Poison Ivey. Well, I know it now?

This is the culprit and it is right beside the front porch step in Buddy's

 herb garden.Fortunately the bug man who comes monthly to spray the house

is not allergic to it, so he pulled it all out and hid it.

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The Story of My Magical Garden
I am linking up with Art Journal Journal (In My Garden There Is) and Cheeky Challenge. (In the Garden), and Creative Tuesdays (Pond).

Several years ago, my family won the lottery and in our large back yard lot I decided I wanted us to build a safe place for children to come and visit. It had to have a goldfish pond like my church had when I was a little girl and one with a marble seat all the way around it so the children could sit there, dangle their feet in the cool water, throw in their pennies for good luck, and watch the goldfish play. And, then you, Alexandra (Sunday Sketches), I thank you for all you taught me in your classes and loving to try to put a little bluebird named Alexia in all of my drawings. They add a very special touch. Every Sunday it was the happiest time of my day when we went to the Episcopal Church, Bethesda-by-the-Sea in Palm Beach, Florida. It was sort of like a home a block from our home. I also had to have LOTS of colorful flowers just like Bethesda, some seats where they could sit and rest, also like Bethesda and even a swing set for a bit of flying fun. As you can see, the children have come and look to be having a grand old time. Once again, we have my "inner child" coming to the surface. I am a child at heart. I do not want to leave my happy place...my garden and goldfish pond.Wouldn’t it be Wonderful if you could win the lottery and then create an area like this at your new home?

Here is my second watercolor from my gorgeous Seeing Flowers book I wrote about last week.
I did try use stippling on the pod of the cornflower.Alexia is here.
I want to thank my blogger friend, John of Sinbad and I on the Loose, for introducing me to stippling.His work with birds is out of this world.

This is the cover I created for my Doodle Journal.

Here is page 2. These are all words and phrases that

hold much meaning for me. Since all the paper is tan,

 I decided to add some color to the piece.

Page 3 ~ A collage of little doodles and some pictures....and lots of stippling practice. It is hard to do.  Last week I saw one Stephan Stark's  page where she shared with us some spectacular and colorful doodle patchwork. I fell in love. She even showed us the process she went through. I thought it was such a cool idea, and since I had already started a doodling journal, I decided to divide it into 8 rectangles and just go for it. I did not do a rough draft. like she did  I arbitrarily gel penned colors and in particular, the flag with the red, white, and blue stripes in that order. I looked on the internet to see if there was one, and there was... the flag of Paraguay. FYI...there are 37 flags with these colors.


This is a digital copy of a watercolor card I sent to a friendwho had lost her son.
I've decided I am not gong to buy any more cards but instead will paint them.

Last but not least are all of my studies this week painting following the art form of etegami. Thank you, Carol from Creative Harbor, for introducing me to this method of watercolor painting.These are all post cards I did this week, and they are in the order as I painted them. I was curious to see what my name would look like in katakana, so I have written it on the cards. Am trying to make me stamp with the symbols for "genie".The stamping is always in red.

 How the background turned out blue in the photo I do not know. 

The background was white.

In addition to Art Journal Journey, Creative Tuesday, and Cheeky Challenge, 
I am linking to:

Paint Party Friday

Sunday Sketches

6-17-16 ~ It's Sunday Again

It is time once again for Alexandra's Sunday Sketches at Blue Chair Diary.

Congratulations to you, Denise, being chosen the winner of Alexandra's contest for a new Sunday Sketches logo with a British theme.  Your watercolor is just out of this world. I LOVE it! Kudos to you for creating such a precious painting.

I am also linking up with Paint Party Friday.

I need to tell myself this each morning when I get out of bed...."I Can and I Will".

I found a Strathmore Toned Tan sketchbook (80lb paper-50sheets) at Michael's, and I just had to have it. This is what I did on the first page.

I used a Micron pen and a red gel pen.

Do any of you know what kind of a bird this is? The picture was on the front of an old nature magazine of Buddy's which he had finished reading. I tore off the picture and then threw out the magazine so could not look up what it is.  I asked Bud if mine looked like the one in the picture, and he said the beak was wrong and there were other things that needed work. Oh, well, I tried. At least he was willing to give me constructive criticism. I am going to try again this week to see if I can paint it better. 

As always, my best friend, Weezie, and I are the two girls having tea up on the roof deck.

I bought the book Seeing Flowers this week, and I painted this Beardstongue from one of the gorgeous photographs in that book. There is another book, Seeing Trees, that my granddaughter has, and it is every bit as beautiful. So, I went to Amazon to get the tree book, and it was there that I discovered this one on flowers. Here in the info on it and links to both books.

Seeing Flowers 

Discover the Hidden Life of Flowers

Photography by Robert Llewellyn

Written by Teri Dunn Chace

 https://www.amazon.com/Seeing-Flowers-Discover-Hidden-Life/dp/160469422X/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1468778086&sr=8-1&keywords=Seeing+FLowers

The Amazon link to Seeing Trees is:
https://www.amazon.com/Seeing-Trees-Discover-Extraordinary-Everyday/dp/1604692197/ref=sr_1_4?ie=UTF8&qid=1468778156&sr=8-4&keywords=Seeing+FLowers

Yes, we live way way out in the country so I LOVE barns.

The hat on the left belongs to the little girl and the one on the right to the little boy.

Since Alexandra is leaving for England, I was thinking about the old pictures I had of the precious British children in their traditional bonnets. I just couldn't resist trying to paint them.

6-8-17 ~ Let's Go Swimming

This is my first attempt at painting a watercolor picture without first sketching it out with pencil. I decided to try just creating as a went. My starting point was I wanted mountains in the background, and a garden of flowers in the foreground. That was all. The rest came as I went along. The last thing was putting My girlfriend, Weezie, and me in the pond swimming. Now, that is my favorite part. My lilies don't look like lilies, so they are just floating flowers.

I am linking up with:
 Art Journal Journey
Paint Party Friday
Sunday Sketches

Over the Fourth, my granddaughter and my son came to see me, and she drew this cute little picture of her bedroom at home.She used pen and ink and my : markers. Right now she is taking

an art class at the Richmond Museum of Art and I am oh, so happy for her.

7-3-16 ~ Sunday Sketches and Art Journal Journey

Today is the day for Sunday Sketches over at Blue Chair Diary.

I am also linking up with Art Journal Journey.

6-26-16 ~ Sunday Sketches and Paint Party Friday

Once again, it is time for Sunday Sketches and Paint Party Friday.

Last week my granddaughter, Eloise, completed elementary school and now she is off to middle school.  Oh, how time flies when you have only one granddaughter. She is growing up so quickly. The little girls in this picture are all her best pals. Some of them attend her school and others went to different ones. The girls with the scarves around their necks were all at her school and were members of the National Elementary Honor Society. 

This is another of my sketches and as always without perspective. It is 8:00 and it's bedtime for Sally Ann and Trouble. She is giving her baby one last big bear hug before they crawl into bed together for a cozy and warm night's sleep. 

6--19-16 ~ Sunday Sketches and a Kite Challenge

Alexandra's Sunday Sketches

The Three Muses Kite Challenge

After the horrendous and tragic Orlando Massacre and remembering the watercolor I did at the time of the Oklahoma Bombing, I thought I would try to sketch something that had a bit of meaning for all of us as well as having kites in it for the Three Muses challenge of "Kites". My son has a framed poster in his den that shows a little girl caring a sign with "Make Art Not War" on it. Here is a copy I found on the internet. 

That quote kept coming to me so here is my in contribution. Let us all be friends and love one another just like my two little girls. Note...I did not forget Alexandra's little bluebirds...

they are on the shoulders of the girls :-)

We are tearing up the uneven kitchen floor of our 110 year old house, and I have a pile of old vinyl tiles which I just cannot throw away. The idea came to me from some linoleum prints a friend of mine made years ago (Fannie Mennen) to see if I could sort of emulate them. You can see my carving in the first shot and what I created on my first try with the brayer in the second. I had not a clue what I was doing...I just started cutting VERY carefully. I added some of Tim Holtz's yellow distress ink and spattered it in an attempt to create some flowers.

These are some of the assignments from classes I am taking online.

 This is an old vintage photo copy with doodles on and around it.

All of the following are some of the lessons from online courses I am taking.

Sunday Sketches ~ 6-12-16

Once again it is time for our most special "Sunday Sketches" over at Alexandra's Blue Chair Diary.

 Please come and join us.

My first attempt at painting on very old barn wood.
I used gesso and acrylics.

 Ain't I Cute

Flower Doodles
Working on petals and shapes of flowers, leaves, and flower pots.

I Love My Family