Trout, trout, trout

My husband has been after me to do some fish paintings.  He says people like fish, you should paint some fish.   I keep telling him that fish don't really inspire me.   I did do one about 3 years ago, here.  It's one of my son's favorite paintings.  My husband wanted me to try and sell it, but Fischer wanted to keep it, so it is hanging up in his room.  Recently we were watching Market Warriors on PBS.  Have you ever watched it?  It's kind of fun.  They have antique pickers who go to flea markets and antique shows looking for treasures, and then these items are sold at an auction to see if they can turn a profit.  Last week when we were watching a vintage fish painting made a surprising profit and of course my husband piped in "see honey, people like fish".

So here is my fish painting, (I actually had this brewing in my head prior to the show, I think the show pushed me to move forward with it.)

I actually like how this turned out.  I'm not sure if it inspires me to paint more fish, we will see.  I'm thinking maybe some sort of tropical fish with coral would be next if I decided to do another one. 

I can't help but sing the little song from the Bugs Bunny square dance episode, "Hillbilly Hare" in which Bugs sings: 

Now into the brook and fish for the trout, 
Dive right in and splash about.  
Trout, trout, pretty little trout, 
One more splash and come right out.

Illustration Friday: Whisper

The same but different

I did this first  painting back at the beginning of January.  I wasn't entirely happy with it, actually it really bothered me because I didn't feel like it was doing what I really wanted it to do.  I wanted the bird to "pop" out more from the background.  I really liked the gloomy, dark background which was done with a coffee wash for the clouds and then tea bags  layered over the top, but I wanted it to have the feeling that the bird was "catching its color" from the colorful raindrops that were falling from the dark sky.  Brightness emerging from the dark. But I kept wondering if the background was too dark, and what would it look like if the background were lighter?

This question kept bothering me, so I decided to do another one.  I started it right away, but then it sat on my desk for weeks, I finally decided to finish it.  I'm sad to say that I'm not entirely happy with this one either!

Oh well, t least I have it out of my system now and I won't be wondering "what if" anymore. 

Have a wonderful weekend!

Little bird houses

This painting gave me a bit more trouble than planned.  I knew right away I wanted to do a painting with bird houses in a similar style as my "Our Town" painting.  It was going along well and then things weren't looking or feeling right.  Last night I started ripping the little roofs off, and then ripping off some of the houses, and trying out different colors and different scrapbook papers for the roofs, but nothing was working, so I went to bed, afraid that I might continue to destroy it.  I knew that tomorrow was a new day and things might look completely different.  I was right.

As soon as I looked at it this morning, I knew what was wrong.  My bird houses and their roof tops were mostly autumn colors, I needed spring colors.  The autumn colors just didn't seem to go well with the little blue birds whom seemed to be busy building their little nests.  As soon as I realized this, everything started to come together.  I ditched the scrapbook roofs for old paper doilies glued on top of tea bags which were then glued onto painted coffee filters, changed the color of a few of the houses,  and added a few little flowers to make it look even happier.

IF: Wool

We have a wonderful yarn shop in our town called "Ewetopia Fiber Shop".  I go in there once in awhile to oogle and awe over all the beautiful yarn, with a large selection of locally produced and dyed yarns.

                                                           
I love walking up and down the rows soaking up all the rich and vibrant colors and thinking about all the things I could make.  But then the left side of my brain speaks up and reminds me that it's not going to happen and that you would much rather use your time painting and drawing, which is so very true.  I then walk out of the store feeling a little bit deflated in knowing the beautiful little projects that will never happen.

Flowers a flutter

I finally finished the piece I've been working on for the past week or so.  It has a very summery kind of feel to it.  The color palate is very similar to my last painting  with the orioles in it.   I think they would go well together.

The part that took me the longest with this painting are the leaves.  It's probably hard to tell on the monitor, but each leaf segment is a separate piece of paper.  There are a couple segments per leaf in which it is watercolor right on the paper, but otherwise they are cut from either painted tea bags or coffee filters and then glued to the paper with gel medium.  It took me a full day to complete all of them. The flowers were created with painted tea bags and then I dipped the edges in a darker paint. The flower center is coffee filter and the stamens are with black ink.  The little butterflies made from tea bags and then painted with acrylic and black ink.

I'm starting to feel the call of spring.  The days are starting to get longer, I've noticed the birds are singing a little bit more and my chickens are much more active and they walk around with a happy little cluck.

Have a Happy Weekend!

Happy Valentine's Day!

I made little arrows for Amelia's Valentines for school.  On the back of the bullseye she wrote her classmates name and her name.  It was a pretty big task for a 5 year old, but she persevered and did
all 19!

 

It's been slow around here

 

This is a little snap shot of a painting I started last week.  I had a few good days where I was able to spend a fair amount of time on it, but that was last week.  My husband and I started a cleanse 3 weeks ago and it's been pretty rough on me to say the least.  Why a cleanse?  I didn't really want to do it, but my husband did.  He has a lot of aches and pains, reflux, and snoring.  I joined him for the support.  We've been doing it with a master nutritionist and her guidelines.  The idea is to not eat common allergens such as gluten, dairy, corn, tomatoes, eggs, sugar, peanut butter and a few others for 3 weeks.  You still eat 3 meals a day and snacks.  After the 3 weeks, you slowly reintroduce these foods to see what kind of reaction you have, if any.  Wow, I've really missed my peanut butter on toast with a glass of milk!  The first week I was having constant cravings and felt so unsatisfied.

I've been so incredibly tired through this whole thing, and oh so crabby!  There have been nights when I've went to bed with the kids at 8:00!  This past week I've had a lot of headaches and joint and muscle aches.  The aches and pains are like when you have the flu.  I guess this isn't the typical reaction and we are wondering if I'm not having a reaction to something that I'm eating a lot of, such as almonds and almond butter or the protein shake that we've had for the last 3 weeks.  Luckily we are finished with the protein drink and have started introducing the foods yesterday.  I had 2 eggs yesterday and boy were they yummy!  Now that there is a bit more daylight, my chickens have started to lay eggs again.

I'm kind of bummed out with it all.  I know a lot of people who have done this cleanse and have hadwonderful results, especially with eliminating gluten from their diet.  So far that hasn't been my experience.  Tomorrow I get to have a glass of milk so maybe now I'll start to feel better!  I live in Wisconsin, I need my dairy!

Even though I haven't felt very well, it has been a good experience.  We've been eating a larger variety of vegetables, wonderful salads, lots of rice and all sorts of beans.  Instead of grabbing the carbs such as toast for a snack, we've been eating apples or celery with almond butter on it, carrots, and lots of nuts.  I've learned to make spouted almonds, how to eat buckwheat groats (which are quite yummy),  found lots of ways to eat brown rice, cooked more fish and found out that Fischer LOVES turkey burgers. (no red meat with the cleanse)

I finally found some energy to work on this painting today.  Hopefully I will finish it tomorrow or Thursday and I will be much happier because I will have had my milk!

Getting comfortable

I just had to share this image I took this morning while working on a painting.

 Biscuit, our cat, decided to try out my little suitcase that I use for recycled tea bags as a bed.

I guess it must be pretty comfy and  cozy because here she is again this afternoon!

It's pretty cute to watch while I'm busy working.

O' Oh Oriole

I'm kind of happy with this little guy.  I really love how the oranges turned out.  I feel happy when I look at them.  It makes me want to do more oranges, maybe oranges and limes are in the future. 

Making the oranges was a little time consuming.  I drew my images on the paper first, and then I cut all the segments and the outside of the orange separately and then glued them into place.  The outside of the orange is painted coffee filter and the inside is painted tea bags.  The tea bags have a nice sheerness to them, allowing little bits of the background to peak through.  The oriole is ripped pieces of painted coffee filter.  At first I was going to put leaves or flowers in there with the oranges, but I decided to keep it simple and not distract from the beautiful bird and his yummy snack.

An early spring! (according to Punxsutawney Phil)