In the Spring, at the end of the day, you should smell like dirt SOLD

 'First Up'  SOLD

6 x 6 inches

watercolor on paper

 “In the spring, at the end of the day, you should smell like dirt.”

― Margaret Atwood 

“Is the spring coming?" he said. "What is it like?"...
"It is the sun shining on the rain and the rain falling on the sunshine...”
― Frances Hodgson Burnett, The Secret Garden

“Spring is the time of plans and projects.”
― Leo Tolstoy, Anna Karenina 

Yes, for those of you who are long time blog readers, this is a painting I have posted before. But it's the first day of spring! Which naturally means that here in Utah it is a dreary, rainy day. :) And so I've spent the morning inside, with my youngest, making pretend food to feed to all of his stuffed animals. It's been perfect.
 

Although if I'm being honest I'll have to confess that I wish it were just a tad warmer and sunnier. Like last week, when we took a trip to the park for the first time this year.

Such good times. :)

So my friends, what are you most excited about now that spring is here? (At least according to the calendar here in the US)

Yearning SOLD

'Yearning'  SOLD

ACEO size (2.5 x 3.5 inches) watercolor on paper

I have now (for the next few days) resorted to painting little ACEO's in watercolor for my daily paintings. I *thought* 5 x 7 was a manageable size, but when you include quite a bit of detail, it still ends up taking me more than a day. And up until now I've been a few paintings ahead, but now I'm not. So small ones it is!! ;)

But I really like this one. This was a tulip from my grandmother's garden last summer. I love tulips. I think they are my second favorite flower.* When we bought our first house and I could actually plant things my mom came over in the fall and helped me plant a bunch of tulips, daffodils, and crocus. And now every year when they bloom I think of her.

This is painting 8/30 in the 30 paintings in 30 days challenge. Huzzah!!

* in case you were wondering my first favorite flower is a calla lily. They were my wedding flower. :)  

Diaphanous - sold

'Diaphanous' sold

5" x 5" watercolor on paper

This is a rose from my mom's garden. She has tons of roses. Like TONS. Of all kinds of varieties. This one is one of her favorites. Or at least, she says that it is. But I suspect for her it's a little like trying to say which child is her favorite. :)

Roses will always remind me of my mom. She's the best. I hope I'm a little bit like the mother she's always been to me.

This was this week's DPW challenge, to paint a rose. And honestly I wasn't planning on painting a rose, but last night felt this restlessness when I sat down to paint. I've been working on a colored pencil drawing that is really coming along well, but did not feel like doing that.

So a rose it was. Anyone else ever get that restless feeling when they sit down to paint? It's like I'm being drawn to paint something but I have no idea what it is, just that it's not whatever is currently in front of me. Weird right? *sigh*

Huzzah. . .

First Up - SOLD

First Up SOLD

6" x 6" watercolor

This year I made a promise to myself. It happened last week while I was outside clearing out the withered brown corpses from last year.

It's pretty hard not to promise to try a little harder when you're doing such a grizzly task. Poor little unsuspecting flowers.

I really don't try to kill them, it's more like death by neglect, or indifference. So, sometimes I forget to water them? I really don't mean to, I just. . . sort of. . . forget.

But this year? This is the year that I no longer wear their blood (sap?? I don't know what to call flower blood. Do they even have such a thing?) on my hands! Huzzah!

"I will not kill any flowers this year. I will not kill any flowers this year. I will not kill any flowers this year."

:)

This is my painting in response to the Cook-Waller monthly painting challenge. The theme was: New, chosen by me.

The first, new crocus peeking its head through the snow in the spring always makes me feel so hopeful, like no matter how bleak or dark the winter gets, sunshine and warm days are coming closer day by day.

And just in case you were wondering, these are indeed flowers from my garden, and I did NOT kill them. Of course crocus are kind of hard to kill, they're pretty self sufficient little buggers. That's another reason why I like them so much. :))

Here's Carrie's paintings:

                            

'Sam, newborn' by Carrie Waller 8" x 10" watercolor

'Steven, newborn' by Carrie Waller 8" x 10" watercolor

These are paintings of Carrie's two sons as newborns. Aren't they beautiful? She did a wonderful job, painting a newborn is no easy feat let me tell you. I love the soft gradations of colors in their full little cheeks. And I just love Sam's little hands. Such a classic newborn gesture. :))

Until Thursday my friends!

P.S. If any of you garden whizzes out there have some suggestions for me for hardy (as in, hard to kill) but beautiful flowers I can plant this spring let me know in the comments. I could use some help with my promise. :))

My Top 10 of 2010

My Summer Boy 10" x 14" watercolor

What He May Become 10" x 14" watercolor

Wonder 10" x 14" watercolor

Intensity 10" x 14" watercolor

Resplendent 5" x 7" watercolor

Beautiful Girl 10" x 14" watercolor

Please? 15" x 20" watercolor

Decked Out 10" x 14" watercolor

Jack and the Skeleton 10" x 14"

Here Be Dragons 15" x 20" watercolor

My good friend Kim from Eat Drink Paint posted her top 10 paintings from 2010 on her blog yesterday which inspired me to do the same thing. I've been thinking a lot lately about where I am in my artistic journey, how far I've come and how much more I still have to learn. So I thought this would be fun to look back and see what I liked the best from my year's worth of work. Although if I have to pick a favorite I'd have to say it's 'Wonder.' That was such a fun painting to do and I love the colors there.

What do you guys think? Do you have a favorite?

I think you should all do this too. It's fun. :) And Happy New Year everyone!

Resplendent

"Resplendent"

5 x 7 watercolor

click here to bid

      Yesterday I wanted to paint something that I could start and finish in one day, something that would have lots of color and light, and something that would be fun. A no stress painting.

      I think that a rose fit that description perfectly. I really enjoyed painting this, it was FUN. I liked that I was able to concentrate more on the abstract shapes of the flower, that I could let the paint flow and mingle a little more than I usually do and that I got to use all that pink! My favorite! :)

     And I'm really having fun with this smaller size. I'm thinking of giving this painting a day thing a try, at least a few times a week. You'll probably be seeing more of them from me. :) 

     I used this beautiful, warm pink color on this rose, but it had been on my palette for so long that I've forgotten what color it is! I now have to go through my tubes of paint and try and match it. D-oh! It's not one of the more common pink hues like permanent rose or rose madder, I think it was a Quinacridone color. At least I've narrowed it down a little right? And, I seriously LOVE those quinacridone colors. SO pretty.

      Have a great weekend everyone!

Roses on My Table

"I'd rather have roses on my table than diamonds on my neck."

Emma Goldman

"By Any Other Name"

watercolor 10 x 14

      I painted this rose from my mom's garden as a gift for someone last year. I gotta say that using all those bright colors and painting more wet in wet than I usually do was very exciting. I'd forgotten about that. Must try to remember it now :)

      Ahhh, roses. They just say love and summer don't they?

Making some progress

work in progress

watercolor 10 x 14

Making some progress here with this pretty pink flower. It's so fun to use such bright colors and go a little crazy with them :) I need to unify it more, soften some edges, and add details and darks, but I think it's coming along pretty well. I'm still debating on how I want to paint the background. I think I want to include some of the foliage, we'll see. Isn't it funny how you can plan and plan for a painting and it still takes on a life of its own? That's something I love about painting, its full of surprises.

Now, on to the question of the week. This is just going to be a fun one, no stress here okay? Let's play Desert Island. If you were stuck on a desert island (that by some break in the rules of logic had a DVD player) what five movies would you want to have with you? Keep in mind that these are the movies you will be watching for the rest. of. your. life. So make them count :)

Mine are:

1. 
   
   The Two Towers from The Lord of The Rings Trilogy (I love a good fight between good and evil, and that Aragorn is such an awesome hero)
2. 
   
   Pride and Prejudice, the one with Keira Knightley and Matthew McFayden, because really it's the best love story EVER. :)
3. 
   
   Ocean's 12, because Matt Damon is hilarious and dead pan, and I just love it.
4. 
   
   The Count of Monte Cristo, sword fighting, chivalry, pure awesomeness!
5. 
   
   Notting Hill, I am so seriously sentimental with this one. It always reminds me of my husband :) And I love Spike.

Okay, your turn :)

Trying Something New

work in progress

      I'm taking a break with the painting of my son, it just wasn't working. I think I killed it, too much fussy painting. Ah well, live and learn.

      So here we have a new project :) I don't paint very many flowers, I think I've only painted one before actually, but I was at my mom's a few weeks ago (and she is a MASTER gardener, let me just tell you) and we were walking around her garden. I saw this tree peony and absolutely loved the way the light fell on it. And, it's pink! My favorite! I am unashamed that I have fallen victim to gender sterotypes because pink is my favorite color ever :)

      Also, here's a very rough sketch I did before I started painting, focusing mostly on shapes and hoping to have some interesting line work too. Because there are so many different shapes in flowers I needed to have a map of where the darks and lights were, otherwise I get confused and it doesn not make me happy when I am confused. That's the purpose of this little sketch, my own little shape map.

      And can I just say how much fun it has been to paint so far? Because it has, a lot. I needed a fun painting, I was letting myself get too stressed out about paintings not working. I think I have trashed about three in the last few months. Not good, but part of the whole experience for me, I've come to accept that. Sometimes a painting works and sometimes they don't, no big deal. Right? Right :) 

      Wednesday's question has come and gone I'm afraid, but I still think we can have some good blogging fun :) Here's a picture of my youngest when we went to the park yesterday, he just discovered how to blow those dandelion puffs and he saw these clover flowers, which he thought were the puffies. So he spent a lot of time picking them and trying to blow them, it was so cute. It took him a little while to figure out they were not blowing away :)

 

I think I'm going to have to paint that.

      Now it's your turn, that was my random little bit of news for today, what's yours? Tell me something totally random, like what you had for lunch today, or what's the worst movie you've seen lately, or what song do you listen to the most? Please share, it'll be fun, just wait and see.

      Here's something random about me (actually I think you guys know a whole lot of random stuff about me), I am terrified of moths, that's right, I said moths. I don't know what it is about them, but they totally freak me out *shudders* 

      See how not scary that was? The randomness, not the moths. Okay, your turn :)