Mexican Sketchbook - Flowers

When I was away in Mexico in early March, I brought with me a nice new sketchbook. 30 pages. A perfect size to art journal every day! I've shared a few pages earlier this month. Today, I thought I'd show you some of the gorgeous flowers I saw there. (As the snow here slowly melts...nary a flower in sight.)

Hibiscus

(colours seem distorted by scanner - argh!)

Bougainvillea

I have lots more pages done and a few still to finish. I'll show more another day! See you for Paint Party Friday!

SPRING!

Wow! What a party! Wasn't sure if I'd get this done after this week's busy Paint Party Friday. I had a silly idea that seemed to cover both Inspiration Avenue's weekly challenge theme of "Hello, Spring" and Mr. Toast's Creative Tuesday bi-weekly challenge theme of "Springtime" .

I was having such fun with it though that I kept on going and here it is in time for Inspiration Avenue, Sunday Sketching with Sophia at Blue Chair Diary and a bit early for Creative Tuesdays!

Initial sketch:

All of these challenges are great fun with such talented artists participating! I'll be visiting them, will you? 

Paint Party Friday - Week 2 and the Working and Progress continues...

It would have been so easy this week not to have done any painting... busy, busy! Thankfully Paint Party Friday is having the desired effect in keeping me at painting and so paint I did! Not enough to finish anything but paint did get put on canvases and progress was made!

Last week, I left my poppy painting at this stage:

I felt either the canvas was too big and I should crop it... (Ha! Maybe it's possible but I don't know how) or I needed to do something to the background. I decided to add a dark colour to the edges. It will also complement the colours where I am considering hanging this. (If I ever get it finished that is!) It still needs considerable work (as it is again in the looking worse before it looks better stage) but my mantra is "progress......."!

I worked on the interior of the flower a bit more as I continue to mull over what else I need to do to the background...but now that it has dried I see that colour of stamens blends too well and another colour is needed. Hmm... maybe black instead of dark red?

And that's as far as I got on it this week. 

But I started 2 more pieces that might eventually live in my kitchen over one of the doors. Likely it will be a triptych but I've only started two of the pieces.

Sketches on canvases (6x6)

I added the first coat of paint to one of them and that's where it sits:

I was also thinking of the PPF poll from last week and noticed that no one likes to paint with their food! So I thought I would try! I took the end of this:

and used it to create this! (What?....Wine is too "food"!!)

Well, it sure didn't come out the colour of wine but otherwise it was a fun little experiment! How about you? Have you ever experimented by painting with food?

I'm looking forward to seeing you all at the party! I'm bringing canapés! 

Sunday Sketching - Is Spring Here?

Time for Sunday Sketching with Blue Chair Dairy! I have been longing for Spring and there are some signs of it. But the ONE, the most important sign that Spring is here for me, is my first robin sighting. While I haven't seen one myself (my house and lawn are always the last to lose their snow), I have heard others say they have seen robins.  So for Sunday Sketches, I did this:

(final version)

(preliminary pencil sketch)

Maybe it might bring a robin to my house sooner! I still have some berries even if no worms may yet be accessible! And I think it is also time for my snowman to melt away until next year, so I am also making this my new header.

Looking forward to seeing everyone's sketching efforts!

IA - St.Patrick's Day

Belated Happy St. Patrick's Day!! The very timely theme at Inspiration Avenue this week is "St. Patrick's Day". I hope everyone had a fun day and wore a bit of green! I was focused on our new Paint Party Friday most of the week but wanted to show you two pieces I've done that were inspired by St. Patrick's Day.

We had a fabulous time at the first Paint Party Friday and invite any of you who would like to paint more to join us next week!

Looking forward to seeing how St. Paddy inspired you!

Restarting my Stalled Painting for Paint Party Friday - WIP

I admit it - I am a painter wannabe with no clue what I'm doing. But I have a keen interest in dabbling, experimenting and (hopefully) getting better by doing. Sometimes, however, I get stalled. Well, often. But I hope Paint Party Friday (PPF) is going to change all that! I do much better with check-ins. Do you? That's one of the reasons why Kristin and I decided to start this and we are so happy you are joining us!

I found during CED2010 that I wanted to paint. I tried a few small acrylics on canvas board, then months later went big. This January, I started a new piece and have stalled twice. First, I stalled on my WIP (WIP/Work in Progress - I love this term, it holds such a promise of better things to come!) when it looked like this:

(I think painting must be like cleaning/tidying up, it always looks significantly worse before it looks better)

A while later, I started again. I did a sketch to help me plan the painting better...

Painting restarted but life got busy and I stalled again at this point:

And now, because of the PPF check-in, I have an incentive to paint AND some accountability! Yay! (How embarrassing it would be to co-host the party and not paint the opening week! Hmm, maybe I could bring wine and no one will notice the lack of a painting?) 

It felt great to have the acrylics out and to make progress!  It still has a ways to go before it's done (lots more detail and tone needed) and I'm not happy with the background but it is getting closer to the image I started with in my mind.

I am so looking forward to seeing everyone's efforts. I hope you have lots of fun and that everyone will make painting progress and meet new and interesting friends! 

See you there!

XO

EVA

Creative Tuesdays - Breakfast in my Mexican Sketchbook

"Breakfast" is this week's theme at Mr. Toast's Creative Tuesdays. My little submission is another page from my Mexican Sketchbook, this time showing how breakfast started on my week of vacation.

Coffee and Mimosas! Yum!!  Join me?

P.S. Paint Party Fridays start this week! March 18th. Kristin and I hope you'll join us there too!

Sunday Sketches and my Mexican Sketchbook

I'm baaacckkk.... and I missed you, fellow Sunday Sketchers with Blue Chair Diary!

I had a lovely week on the Mayan Riviera and relaxed. I didn't turn on my blackberry or connect to the internet (or the office) once. I did however take some art supplies with me and spent a little time creating a Mexican resort themed Sketchbook. So my submissions today are some of the things I saw when in Mexico. I did do some snorkeling but it was much windier than I expected and there were either yellow or red flags on the beach - no calm water green ones. So not as much snorkeling as I would have hoped for but enough to make me smile and enough to see new (to me) creatures.

Here are a few of my sketches of what I saw:

A Sting Ray sleeping in the sand, partially covered! He was @ 4 feet wide! Saw 3 in different areas!

A charming sea turtle swimming along and grazing on the sea bottom. 

A leopard ray as graceful as a bird in flight. I don't really know if this ray is called that but his spots were very reminiscent of a leopard's.

And these are what I took with me for creating:

New Sketchbook (now about half full now and I have more ideas from the trip to finish it up later this month! More posts with pictures to follow!)

Paints and water brushes (LOVE these brushes!!!)

Pens

I am looking forward to visiting all of you but I have friends visiting from B.C. so I'm not sure how much internet time I will have or when, but visit I will! 

I hope all of you who are interested in painting more will come and paint and party with Kristin and I starting on Friday (March 18th) for our new Paint Party Fridays!!!

We're excited to have you join us!!

xo

EVA