Early Bird

I woke up with the sun this morning and decided to have an early start. Amazing how productive a day can be when you rise early. I've had this idea of heart flutters and tickles and wasn't sure how to put it into an image. It came to me this morning so I sketched it out right away. I used the same pallet from my sleeping fawn painting so they go together nicely. I used watercolors for the background color and etched over with black ink. I've been liking simple two tone subjects, using only one color and then adding the detail with either white acrylic, or black ink. I'm on the lookout for white ink, but have yet to come across any. Other than that it's been a windy indoors kind of day which consisted of a lot of lego creations, superhero play, and a good dog wash.

Today on the drawing board...

 I've loved this new set of artist pens I found. It took a little practice to get used to the texture. For some reason I always just used plain ballpoint pens for ink sketches. I think I got used to ballpoints since it was always what was in hand when my doodles/sketches (that turned into pages of drawings) took place in class. Here are a couple sketches from my drawing board today: a Highland Cow drawn over a wash of watercolor, and a simple line drawing with one of my favorite flowers, the magnolia.

This Weeks Work

I had extra free time today so I did a lay out of a new oil painting of a woman swimming. This is the first step in the process. I love doing large oils and the freedom in that space. Since oils require so much drying time, I work with watercolors in between and finished this one with magnolias.

Feeling inspired by falls colors, plants and one of my favorite childrens books "Where the Wild Things Are" I painted a fawn resting in a bed of wild plants. River and I collected a ton of colorful leaves on our walk, so I incorporated them into the painting. I've been playing with the idea of illustrating a childrens book with a friend of mine. I'd love to be a part of creating something my son would be able to read himself someday. 

Bones

As I create this blog I thought there would be nothing more fitting than posting the photo's from my drive out into the country area of town yesterday. I love the skeleton of this house, with plants growing from the floor and through the walls. While the place falls apart, you can see the bones are holding strong. I kept delaying blogging, thinking I wanted to have everything together right away. But I realized that you work with what you have now, because everything starts somewhere. And isn't that the beauty of blogging? Being a part of the moment that something's created, and watching it grow and fluctuate. So I'm starting this out a bit raw, and I'm thankful I found this abandoned beauty which has inspired me to do so.