Watercolor Cards

I've decided to make some prints of some of my watercolors for cards to list on my ETSY shop. This is a card made from my original watercolor, Ocean View.

The cards measure 5 1/4" x 7 1/4" and come with matching envelopes. I've added glitter to some of the background areas because well......I couldn't resist.

This card was made from Peony Bouquet, watercolor on canvas. I'll be adding more over the next weeks.

They are on-line at my ETSY shop at: http://www.artfulcreations.etsy.com/

Spring Irises

Now that it seems spring is springing around here, it gets me thinking about some of my favorite flowers. Well, if you know me, you know I have lots of favorites but this particular one is a spring bloom. I really love my Iris collection. Every May, it is one of the things I look forward to with great anticipation.

The top photo is a watercolor I was inspired to paint 2 years ago by all the ongoing photos I seem to take each year of my collection. Simply enough, I called it "Spring Irises." This piece is a 23" x 9" watercolor on coldpress paper. The original sold but I have made prints. In fact the day after it sold, I went into a panic because believe me, as much as I was happy to sell it, very happy, I would miss it hanging on my own wall. My husband quickly got to work taking a good quality photo of it so I would be able to make prints. I now have one for myself and also, offer them for sale on my website.

So these are some photos I've taken of my Iris garden in bloom. I have a lot of them as you can see and sometimes get as many as 5 blooms from one plant. It makes for good picture taking anyway.

When I was creating the painting, I used a bunch of these actually, to get my drawing done. I rarely use just one photo of a subject, I prefer to mix and match different things, in this case flowers, from the different photos to get my painting. The top photo was the one I used the most.

Fun Surfaces

This morning I received an order for a gourd birdhouse. I love painting those and well, it got me thinking why I love them and what other surfaces are very rewarding and fun for me and why..... The Pink Roses duck egg above, I painted for a gift exchange last year. I had a great time painting this one. One of the reasons that I like eggs so much is the curvy and well, sensual surface. It just feels so wonderful in the palm of my hand.

Eggs are also challenging to paint because especially with the smaller ones like the duck and turkey egg above, when you have an idea, it is sometimes hard to fit it all on the surface. I guess I also like them because I love the crafty part of it as well, making the hangers out of stones and beads, also gluing pretty stones on the egg itself, to add the finishing touches to the design. I've also always loved eggs and have a decorative egg collection in my china cabinet, which has overflowed to the glass display that makes up the bottom of my end table in my livingroom.

Every time I'm at a crafts fair, I tend to gravitate to the booths that are selling gourds. I guess I would say I love gourds for the same reason as eggs...their shape. These vessels are made by nature instead of man made so you never quite know with a gourd, what shape you are going to get. I think that is what makes them so much fun and so compelling to paint, different shaped gourds lend themselves to different designs.

Ok, then there is Yupo paper, a great alternative to traditional watercolor paper if you feel you can let loose, not be so serious and just have some fun for a change. Funny that it is called paper because there is nothing natural about the surface, it is a totally man made synthetic surface. You can do more serious paintings on Yupo, like my Red Calla Lilies above or do silly and fun paintings like my Springtime Birdie Doodle below. Either way, all the traditional rules of watercolor go out the window and you can just pretty much do anything you want. The result are paintings that have a crystal like shine to them, they are beautiful to look at on this unusual surface.

Well, Doodles, what can I say, I'm loving them. This is the name I've given to paintings I'm starting to do on Yupo paper, that are very playful and fun, nothing seious about them. I feel like a kid who has discoverd crayons for the first time when I work on one. They are a real form of therapy for me, perhaps a break from art that makes you take it and yourself way to seriously sometimes. The doodles get their image by first, completing a background I'm happy with, then removing areas of the paint, showing the white Yupo beneath, to reveal the design itself. I think the possibilities with these are endless and my mind is brimming with ideas for new doodles in all different sizes.

Blue Hydrangea Watercolor Doodle

The above is my first in a series of what I'm calling...Watercolor Doodles. I've painted the blue Hydrangea on Yupo paper, which is a fabulous, fun, crazy surface to paint on, sometimes it has a mind of its own too. Funny that Yupo paper is called paper because there is no paper in it......this is a totally man made synthetic surface. When you paint on Yupo paper, all the rules you've learned go right out the window and anything goes. It is a very freeing way to paint.

First I created the background on this 9 x 12 sheet but using watercolor with a wet on wet technique. After that dried, I created the design by taking a damp paintbrush and removing paint in certain areas to reveal the white background, thus creating the design itself. I then took some blue, purple & green and outlined areas that I wanted to stand out and be prominent. By doing this, if you'll notice, it brought the colored areas forward and the white areas faded back, giving the piece real dimention.

I had so much fun with this, I've decided to do a whole line of Doodles, in all sizes and shapes, with all kinds of designs. I've created a special area in my ETSY shop just for the Dooodles. http://www.artfulcreations.etsy.com/

Yellow Calla Lily, Watercolor On Paper

I'm a big Georgia O'Keeffe fan and 2 years a ago I bought a book at Barnes & Noble in the discount section. It is a huge full color book of all her floral works, in all different mediums. I love this book, I have leafed through it so many times and now, it sits in my studio, housed there permanently, for inspiration.

A couple years ago, when I first bought this book, I found a Calla Lily painting that I really fell in love with and I decided to make a watercolor study of it for myself. I had a great time painting it and now, I get to enjoy it because I was able to matt and frame it and hang it up.

I have a friend who loves this painting and also is a big Georgia O'Keeffe fan herself. I thought I would blog a bit about this today because of her. When she told me how much she enjoys this painting, it made me take a few more glances at it every day, when I run up and down my stairs (as that is where it is hanging) and make me stop and appreciate it and also, how much fun it was to paint.

I think sometimes, as artists, we are so busy trying to sell our work that we forget to stop and enjoy it ourselves. I think learning to appreciate our own work is vitally important. So thanks Jo, you just made me stop and take notice of my own work once in awhile.