foggy seattle

Jenn at Just Add Water Silly (hope you're feeling better!) is continuing to host her popular Artists Playroom weekly theme that she introduces on Mondays.  It often takes me most of the week to come up with an idea and actually make something.... this week is no exception.  This week's theme is:  local weather.  In spite of the hint of spring in my digi art daffodil from earlier in the week, it's nothing like spring here.  This week has been gray, gray, gray, fog filled days - yesterday and today the fog never lifted so the sky is a monotone dull gray....not even the pretty wispy white fog.

My quick journal page is gray and obscuring the house and tree (pretty funny house, huh?  it's torn book pages & the tree top is from a napkin) .....welcome to Seattle in the winter.

Smooshy and gray....kinda like what's outside my window. :)

Then, to counteract all the gray, I had to get a bright page started......

Starting with a few brush-cleaning swipes, stencils, paper from friends (thanks Karen), etc. I've got this background started.... I love its vibrancy after the subdued tones of the first page.

What's the weather where you live?  I know my Aussie buddies are fighting the heat of summer and my Canadian buddies are cold and snowy.....I guess I should be glad I'm somewhere in between.

sunset

This challenge is just begging to show off some of my photographs - Jenn, hosting APR #34, wants to see a sunset.  Have I got a sunset (or two) for you! I've never painted a sunset, but I've taken many photos of sunsets so here are just a few of my faves (actually the only ones that are tagged so I can find them! :))

Chelan, WA

Alki Beach, Seattle, WA

Hawaii

The Big Island, HI

Tahiti

Puerta Vallarta, Mexico

Orlando, FL

Isn't Mother Nature just amazing? All that rich color and beautiful texture in the sky.....I enjoyed my brief sojourn through my old photos - hope you found something in here inspiring (or at least pretty)!

Wait just a minute!  I wandered back through my artwork and did find a couple that are in sunset colors - so I'm calling them Setting Sun (collage) and Beach at Sunset (watercolor) (hey, look at that shadow!:) ).

Thanks Jenn - can't wait to check out everyone else's sunsets.

shadows

Jenn over at Just Add Water Silly set an interesting prompt for this week's Artist Playroom.  Shadows.  How ever we want to interpret them......since it's Halloween as I write this, my mind goes to spooky and darkly shadowed places but I don't draw much and don't usually hang out in dark, grim, shadowy places. But, I want to play (especially since I've missed the last couple weeks and some fun prompts!).

I don't usually paint landscapes or still lifes that would use traditional shadowing techniques to create dimension.  However, I do play with shadows in my photography and here are a few faves.

Shadow Play

Deck Shadows

Berry Shadow

I'm still in the process of tagging all my photos so these are the ones I could find easily. Then I quickly browsed my painting pics and found a couple where I did attempt to use shadows.....

watercolor

an early watercolor with shadowy attempts :)

Can't wait to see everyone else's shadows.....spooky or intriguing or ......

another challenge combo

Again this week I was able to combine the APR and IA challenges.....IA, orange and APR masquerade.  So what's the logical thing to do?  Put the masquerade mask on a pumpkin, of course!

Hope you enjoy my bit of silliness - hope it's not too late to get this linked.....I kept forgetting to work on it in the evenings.  Anyway - visit Jenn's Artist Playroom and Inspiration Avenue to see other interpretations.

my back yard

APR #27 (hosted by Jenn at Just Add Water Silly) this week wants a peek at what's going on in my back yard - literally or figuratively. I'm short on time this week since we're headed out of town for a little vacation (again!) and I've been scrambling about. Since I'm really not much of a sketcher/drawer, but I am a bit of a photographer, here's my back yard:

I love the color in the red grass and this is in a big pot on my deck.  We've actually had sun recently and the grass leaf shadows caught my attention.

One of my favorite things to do is kick back on the deck with a glass of ice tea (that would Long Island Ice Tea) and enjoy the occasional flash of sunshine!

We have a nice big yard - lots of room for a party!  The windows seen here are my office where this computer is and I spend most of my free time. I have a great view out to the back yard and have planted blooming things in the bed on the right.

I have flowers planted in pots that line the perimeter of the whole deck - I absolutely LOVE looking out and seeing flowers from spring to fall.

We grow dahlias and revel in their color and size every year. We're too lazy to dig them up and as long as they keep coming back and looking so good, we're going to leave them alone! :)

I only paid $5 each for these rose bushes as kind of an experiment to see how roses would do on the deck and this is the second year of stunning blooms - now that's a bargain!

So that's a brief tour of my yard and garden, such as it is.  I don't know if I grow flowers mostly to cut and bring in the house or to photograph - I enjoy both so much.  Thanks for wandering down my garden path with me.

juicy dragonflies

No, not really - I'm just showing you my entries to two challenges - dragonflies for Inspiration Avenue and something juicy for Artists Playroom #26.

I haven't participated in either one for a couple weeks so it felt good to have ideas percolating around the back of my brain til I felt like I'd found the right one.  For IA, I drew my funky little dragonflies on a sheet of spattered scrap paper then doodled on them a little.  The background is an advertising postcard (8x5") that I covered with crumpled foil then painted with acrylic - then I lightly sanded the paint off the tops of the foil creases for a great, subtle shine with the bits of silver showing through (which totally does NOT come through on the scanner).  The little teal 'frame' was sent to me by a generous mail art friend.

Doesn't the foil make amazing texture?  I held it to the postcard with matte medium.

Then Jenn's juicy challenge.  I struggled more with this one because most of the juicy things I could think of, I'm unable to draw.  So I retreated to one of my faves.....the pear.  However, I did sort of try a different look....it's on watercolor paper, watercolors, oil pastels, stamp ink dots.

Join either or both of these challenges - each week they give great suggestions and such fun people join in.  To see what others have done for the challenge be sure and check out the links at each site.

where do YOU find inspiration?

Jenn at Just Add Water Silly asked the question this week as the prompt for Artists Playroom - where do you find inspiration - what inspires you?

I thought this would be easy so I kept kind of putting it off.  Then I realized I'm headed out of town for the long weekend and if I wanted to participate, I'd have to get my behind in gear.  I realize there's a quick, superficial answer (books) and one that's a little deeper, more introspective (which I'm usually not).

Off the top of my head - what inspires me?  Books.  First and foremost.  When I want to relax, escape, learn, or delve into a topic, I head to a library or online (Amazon is a personal friend - oh wait, that's not a real person, is it?).  When I decided I wanted to learn to paint with watercolors a few years ago, I read every book in my local library, I bought books on sale, I stalked Amazon and asked for painting books for Christmas.  I absorbed then practiced.  That was my inspiration.

I absorb more than just technique from books; I enjoy seeing how a variety of other artists use the techniques to create their own special art.  I mimic, I attempt to copy, then I branch out on my own.

Ronda, Spain painted from my photo

So last year when I reignited my interest in art but became interested in exploring mixed media, what did I do?  Found a book.  Then another one.  Then I noticed a difference.

I discovered the online art community and my world expanded exponentially.  There's still a strong connection to the power of a book - BUT, I find so much inspiration online.  The difference is, the inspiration isn't necessarily about an image, a journal page, painting or collage - the inspiration is about people.  

An early mixed media piece w/ wire and beads, layers and layers.

I find inspiration in the way online artists encourage and support each other, the way solutions to problem paintings are suggested, the way ideas and techniques and resources is shared so readily.  It's inspirational to know that if I'm having a bad day (or week), my blogging buddies will offer comfort and support and even solutions if needed; if one of us has a muse go missing or are facing a new challenge like opening an ETSY shop or submitting for a gallery show, the rest of us will rally around in encouragement.  That's an invaluable source of inspiration.  

You inspire me to keep trying, to keep growing, to keep reading and sharing what I learn.  The art blogging community inspires me to be brave, to be adventurous, to find and develop the artist I know is lurking in there somewhere.  

Thanks to all of you for the inspiration - and thanks Jenn for suggesting the topic and creating the opportunity for us to share our sources of inspiration.

APR and IA share the art

Amazingly I was able to combine two of my favorite challenges - APR (artists playroom) and IA (inspiration avenue).  Jenn (APR) challenged us to illustrate a word.  I mulled all week on what word and how I'd illustrate it...summer, sunshine - nope, been there, done that.  Peace, Love, Happy - nope, no illustration inspiration.  Then I checked on IA and found their challenge is "if you could be anywhere".  W-E-L-L......  I considered my first choices:  home, w/ Dan, tropical beach - nope.  Then, it popped into my brain.

If I could be anywhere (with Dan), we'd be on a Baltic cruise....we've wanted to go for several years and keep planning it and then having to postpone (they're kind of pricey).  So, my simplistic illustration of a word is BALTIC!

I used my spritz color wash colors to evoke the feeling of the Baltic sea (though I imagine it's a darker blue rather than the bright teal of the Caribbean) and then tangled my letters.  Join us aboard ship anyone?

put the lime in the coconut

Well, I can't quite manage drawing a coconut, but I can use the color lime and pair it with turquoise to make Jenn happy.  Her favorite color combo, turquoise/lime, is the theme for this week's challenge at APR#21.

My first attempts were to make some mail art - I'll use it someday soon since I have much to return.  The first is a recycled oversize ad postcard and the second a recycled greeting card with paint and collage (the butterfly shape was cut from a quilt book I have).

Somehow these didn't feel like 'enough' but I was struggling for a topic.  Then I realized that Jenn also was the host over at Inspiration Avenue and set this week's challenge as something using Zentangle.  Inspiration struck and I combined the two challenges:

My scanner doesn't scan full bed so clipped the right edge about an inch, but you get the idea.  Watercolor background with sprays, drips and splashes then doodled following the shapes that showed up.  The sentiment seemed appropriate for summer - something I know many of us wish we had more time for.

APR series

Artist Playroom has a theme this week that I've been meaning to explore for .... well, forever. Series.  Work something in a series.  I've done it here and there, but today I sat down specifically with an idea to explore and got started on a series.

So I started with watercolor backgrounds (I miss using my watercolors - they've been pushed aside in my eagerness to try all sorts of new things).  My thought with the top drawing was to use the watercolor shapes to dictate where birds would go.  Made a couple of early goofs so it became my trial-error-sketch page.....

I had fun playing with my bird and dandelion motifs.....there's LOTS more room to work with this and I'll be doing it because I love birds and I can almost draw a couple of generic shapes.....at least well enough that they're recognizable as birds! :)

Last year I made a mini series of palm trees using different media - collage, paint, etc.

Also, watercolors painting trees:

The thing is....there's no way I'm done exploring any of these themes so the series will continue. Does it count if there's a year between pieces?

Visit Jenn at Just Add Water Silly to see even more great examples of working in a series.  Or maybe someone will paint/draw something about a baseball 'world series', or a television series or a ......