Honey bee

"To make a prairie it takes a clover and one bee, 
One clover, and a bee,
And revery.
The revery alone will do,
If bees are few" 
          -Emily Dickinson

                                                                "Listen to the  bees"      Available here.


Yes, a revery or a dream alone will do.  Isn't that what gets us through the day sometimes?  A little daydreaming?  But you never know where those dreams might take you!

I've been using more patterns in my backgrounds (I'm having so much fun doing this) and right away thought about the little honey bee and their sweet sweet honey.     Bees are truly amazing aren't they.  Such a vital little creature for our existence, these wonderful little pollinators!

I'm off to my parents again today.  My mom starts her second round of chemotherapy on Thursday and I know it helps her in so many ways to have Amelia and I there.  I'll be back next week.  Have a wonderful week.

(I think I need to change my blog header, it just doesn't look right with all of these spring paintings I've been posting!)

Spring/Winter

I  just love these cheery cherry blossoms with their little polka dot friends.  It makes me so happy when I look at it.  It took me close to 3 hours to cut out all the little flower petals from my painted tea bags, but the results are worth it.  I just love working with tea bags!

























These little birdies match perfectly with my lime green walls in my studio.  These little guys look like they are in the middle of a conversation, or are sharing a little secret with each other. 




So even though I've been busy painting away at all things spring and totally enjoying it,  Amelia and I have still been able to have some fun in our recent snowfall.  Yesterday she kept hugging the little snowman that we built.  I even overheard her saying "I love you little snowman" and then she gave him a kiss.  It was the sweetest thing! 

 

Unfortunately as the day progressed and the temperatures warmed up his poor little head fell off and she cried and cried for her little snowman.   It was pretty sad, but luckily her sadness didn't last for too long and we have this picture to remember him with.

Spring blooms

                                                                    "Spring Blooms"  Print available here.

This piece was inspired by all the spring photography that I've started to see pop up.  These little blooms are just starting to burst out.  We've had some wonderful weather here in Wisconsin and am really looking forward to spring.  We're expecting a little bit of snow tonight but I feel like we are coming out winters strong grasp.  We've had so much wonderful sunshine here lately that I can't complain. 

Playing around

I love reusing tea bags in my artwork.   Fortunately for me there seems to be no shortage of them at our house.  I love the look, transparency, the feel and their durability.  Sometimes the color of them can be a challenge.  In my head I wanted these flowers to be a brighter pink, but many times with the tea bags you get a darker color.  Of course it depends too on what kind of tea was in the bag.  My morning Chai makes for a darker tea bag, while my afternoon  green tea is usually very light colored.

When I want a truer color I choose the lightest tea bags as possible.  These flowers were painted with watercolors and then I used acrylic paint and white ink for the stripes.  Usually I paint them with a very watered down acrylic, like the brown circles in the painting.  When you use acrylics though you loose a lot of the transparency. 


 
                                                                            Print available here.


My goal for this painting was to just play around a little bit with the tea bags and  especially with patterns.  It started out feeling very rigid and tight, but I feel like I got over that and I'm feeling happy with the results.

Speaking of Love

I was paging through one of my old sketchbooks and came across a quick little sketch/idea that I had last year at this time.  I don't even remember drawing it or what inspired it, but it caught my eye and I immediately went to work on it.  What a  perfect little collage with Valentine's Day right around the corner! 


                            Title:   "Speaking of Love"         Print available in my shop!


I'll be away from this little space of mine for the next week.   Amelia and I arrived at my parents house this evening.  My mom has an appointment tomorrow where they will be discussing all of the medications she will be on for her cancer and the side effects of it all.  She will start her first chemo treatment on Thursday, where she will be getting it through her IV and through her abdomen all on the first day, after that they will stagger it, but the schedule for the first week and a half is pretty grueling.  Chemo, shots, IV fluids, more shots and then more chemo.   It's all rather frightening.    Amelia and I are here to provide lots of love and support for my Mom and Dad during these stressful days. 

Needing a little color?

Here's a colorful little collage I worked on over the last few days.   I usually try to paint with the seasons, but I'm totally not inspired by anything to do with winter.  The skiing has been poor, they were never able to make any ice for the outdoor rink due to unseasonably warm temperatures, and the snow that we finally did get is already melting.  Argghh.  I'm ready to move on to spring!  I know, I know, it's February and I'm in Wisconsin, so I shouldn't be getting too dreamy right? 

                                         "In Flight"  Available in my shop.

Here's to a Happy and Colorful Weekend!

Bird watcher

My little Amelia is really such a source of so much inspiration for me.  Lately I've been practicing my drawing, especially faces and figures, trying to get proportions right. Over the last month or so I really haven't been drawing much so I feel like my drawing skills could use a dusting off.  Today I decided to do some figure drawing with Amelia as my subject as she was busily playing about the house. 



Within minutes there she was standing in front of me on our heater, binoculars in hand, looking at me saying "What are you looking at?"  "Why do you keep looking up and then looking down?"  It really was a perfect little pose and I decided to give the little sketch a little color with it with some watercolors. 
(and yes, she was wearing a crown and a necklace!)