Finch and Crow

This little guy was inspired by the sweet little purple finches that have been coming to our feeder this spring.  A beautiful bird with a wonderful song to sing.

I played around a bit with this piece.  I started with some nice splattering of coffee for the background and then drew in the bird.  I used a lot more watercolors in this piece than I'm  normally comfortable with.  I still haven't quite figured out watercolors yet, but I keep trying to work with them and find a technique or style that I like using.   The feathers were done with painted recycled coffee filters and tea bags.  The outlines were done with some homemade walnut ink.  Originally I was going to leave the background alone, but it just looked so plain and empty to me, and then I just kept adding and adding with watercolor, painted tissue paper and tea bags.  Hopefully I didn't add too much!

The crows around here have also been entertaining us.  This little guy left the nest on Friday and anytime ANYTHING got near it, it's parents would cause quite a raucous.  Cawing and cawing until whatever it was left.  They even chased several cats over the weekend, at one point there was about 8 crows going after one cat!  When our kids or our dog would go out to the swing set, the crows would sit just above in the trees and yell and yell  at them.  Very impressive parenting!  Today I found him out on our fence.  The parents were near by cawing a bit, but then left.  I'm wondering if they think he is old enough now to take care of himself?  I'm not sure.  This little guy stayed on the fence for about 45 minutes and then finally flew away to the top of our neighbors chicken coop.  I love watching the crows, so big and really quite beautiful,  such a smart bird that doesn't get the respect it deserves!

Weekends

 A few little wonderful snippets from our weekends this month. 

Pink

For some reason I had a strong urge to use A Lot of  pink.  I'm not sure why, but maybe it had something to do with all the pink tutu's from the dance recital,  or maybe  all the beautiful spring flowers in bloom, or perhaps Amelia's love of all things pink is starting to rub off on me.  Hmmm??   For what ever reason, this painting is the result.  I had no plan except I knew I wanted to use pink and I wanted circles in it.  This painting has a lot of both!  I hadn't used my recycled coffee filters in awhile, so they made it in the painting, along with my favorite material which of course are the tea bags.  I also used one of my least favorite art supplies quite a bit, Prismacolors.  I wish I liked using them, but I'm never happy with the results, maybe I just need to learn how to use them.  

Today I found out I was accepted into my first ever art fair!  The Driftless Area Art Festival in September.  I've been wanting to do a few art fairs but have never had enough nerve to apply.   The thought of talking to people about myself and my art for a whole weekend terrifies me, but I figured it was about time to face that fear and go for it.  I had nervous butterflies just applying for it, I can't imagine how I will feel come September.  Tomorrow I'm going to write my to do list and get started so I'm not totally scrambling and freaking out come September.  I'm always sad when summer is winding down, so this will give me something to look forward too.

Dance Recital

 After talking with my mom today, I realized that I had forgotten to post these beautiful pictures of Amelia from last weekend, I had started this post but somehow was distracted and had forgotten I hadn't published them.  Amelia had her very first dance recital and it was one of the cutest things that I think I have ever seen!  She was so sweet to watch!   Luckily there wasn't any stage fright!   I was never into all of this girly stuff as a kid, but as a mother, it has been a lot of fun to watch.

Amelia was so excited for  the rehearsals and the recital.  She loved being with all of her little friends, watching everyone dance and she especially loved watching her teacher dance, for  her that was very special.

Sweet little roses for a sweet little girl.  She loved it!

Illustration Friday: Hitched

The swallows were circling over the tree tops as they hitched a ride on the wind.

 

I've noticed the swallows swooping and circling above the tree tops lately while hanging out my laundry.  They dive, swoop, circle and change direction with incredible speed and swiftness.  It's quite a sight to watch!

Illustration Friday: Jump

Illustration Friday: Heights

Mabel had taken her talent of tea cup balancing to new Heights!

I'm not sure about this one!

Earlier in the week I posted a work in progress.  Well she's finished, but I am actually kind of hesitant to share it here.   She kind of makes me cringe every time I walk past her. 

I've been wanting to try a realistic face for awhile.  I was feeling a little inspiration from Misty Mawn and Maria Pace-Wynters (whom I was recently introduced through in Tara Leaver's blog, thank you Tara!) both who use figures in their paintings but in very different ways. 

Even though this is one of my least favorite paintings I've done in awhile, I decided I would still share it with you, because really I think I should show both the good and the bad, right?  I like to read about other artists triumphs, but also their struggles and mistakes, so I thought I'd share mine!

So here she is:

 

When I first started painting the face she sort of looked like a drag queen, which I have nothing against drag queens, but it wasn't the look I was going for!  I think I got past the drag queen look, but now I think she is stuck in the 80's!  I used painted tissue paper that I ripped into pieces for the hair, but she looks like I would find her in a 1980's hair magazine at the salon!   The color palette initially started with more muted colors, but I just couldn't get this piece to work so I just kept adding more and more colors which seemed to help.  The flowers were originally supposed to be part of her shirt but I made them too big so I just kept adding more all over.  I feel like it definitely has more of a Maria Pace-Wynter feel too it than Misty Mawn, with the colors, flowers and butterflies, but I hope  it is still my own style.

This painting has reminded me why I stay away from realistic faces, there is always something that seems to bother me about the faces I draw and I can never put my finger on what exactly it is.  I think practicing drawing faces would definitely help me out, more than avoiding them! 

So for now here she is, but as I'm finishing up this post, I'm starting to feel the urge to paint over her face, because that IS what bothers me the most about this painting, but I'm going to hold back until at least tomorrow and try and  sleep on it, but for some reason I'm just having a hard time leaving her alone.  Arrgh. 

What do you think?  Should she go in the recycle bin? or does she just need some touch ups,  maybe an updated hairstyle or maybe a whole new face?  I would love to hear what you think, good or bad.

Hope you have a wonderful weekend.  It's city wide yard sales in our town this weekend, so I'll be looking for lots of deals!

On My Table

I'm trying a little something different this week.  I'm going for a more realistic face vs. hmmm... I'm not sure what you call my other style for faces, unrealistic?  cartoon?  I haven't decided how I'm going to approach the face, the hair will be either tea bags or painted tracing paper.  Hopefully I can finish tomorrow.

A Big Snapper!

I just had to share this picture of Fischer and the snapping turtle.  Fischer was trying to stop him from going after his Papa!  Unfortunately I wasn't there when this happened, but I love the determined look on Fischer's face as he is struggling to hold on to the snapper.  I'm not sure he should have been pulling on the poor guys tail, but at least the tail won't fall off like a lizards!