Another work in progress

This tourist is enjoying European architecture as he walks about in awe. Done with fluid acrylics, watercolor crayons and gel medium over collaged background on watercolor paper.

Two new pieces to post

I finished the piece done for an art show "Springtime Obsession", it doesn't have a title yet. I was inspired by a bit of archaic poetry by John Milton. "Now the bright morning star, day's harbinger, comes dancing from the East, and leads with her the flow'ry May, who from her green lap throws the yellow cowslip, and the pale primrose. Hail bounteous May, that doth inspire Mirth and youth and warm desire!" I may just name it Mirth, youth and warm desire. That ought to have the judges scratching their heads.

I used pages from an old book for the mat and flowers pressed by my friend Pat. S. who was kind enough to send them to me. This fits into a black frame, but I can't seem to get a good photo of it framed. So, I am not going to enter it in the Ironstone show. They require a CD with good photos of the work.

The second piece was a practice piece using watercolor pencil and fluid gel medium. Then glazed over with fluid acrylic titan buff paint. My practice book was out in the car when I started this and it was drippy wet cold and foggy, so I did this on watercolor paper instead.

A new piece of art - winter theme

The title of this piece is February 19th. Why? One of the scraps used in the background has that date on it, and since the requirement was to do a winter theme - and Feb. 19th is still winter - that would work for a title. The Lodi Art Center has a membership show this month and the theme is winter. The problem was, I only decided to do it the day before it was due. I was very rushed, to say the least. Here it is. The story behind it is that I often feel like burrowing down a rabbit hole in winter and wait for the sunny days to return to come out. I couldn't find a little girl in a position I wanted to use, but found this ca. 1890s illustration of the little boy. The text with him says "I believe I'd like so much to play". This was another piece that kind of came from my playing around with the practice book.

Adding a little color

This is a new piece I'm working on. I originally meant it to be monochromatic - but gosh, look what happened! I guess because the day was so grey and gloomy outside, I was attracted by my Carandache's and just went a bit wild. This is still in progress. The main image will be inside the large arch. I think I"ll paint it again following the original concept - then compare the two. I like this one well enough not to paint it out to go back to the pale subtle color palette. Some of the pages in my practice book are what brought me to making this work.

Practice Book - and more

Mushrooms were appearing everywhere. The one facing the fairy is really a biscuit. That spread was just too sticky sweet for my taste so I used other images to liven it up. The Wizard of Oz page was done because I had that little scrap lying around, and decided to use it, which meant it needed a yellow brick road and a witch. And as I was still working with mushroom, I added them as well. The joy of making an art journal or practice book is that things don't have to make any sense. They don't need to follow a theme or be in any order. Just a place to play and use up materials you have at hand.

Practice Book - more views

These pages were done with the continuing mushroom theme. I kept finding things that were shaped like mushrooms, or that I could manipulate into mushrooms. Perfect place to play around in a practice book.

Practice Book - new views

I've been working and reworking some of the pages in the art journal/practice book. Here are some pics. I'm showing you this spread because you can compare the final with the preliminary stage. In a way I actually prefer the early version, but this is just a practice book, so if I screw it up - only you and I will know about it. Right?