All Ready for Planting!

It is always a chore but I finally have my garden and my pots ready for planting.

waiting for the annuals

most of my pots all ready for plants

in the greenhouse

more in the greenhouse

I think I will have enough plants!

So everything is ready and I hope to start planting tomorrow even though there is still snow on the mountains. Our weather has been pretty good and the forecast is for more of the same so I am going ahead in spite of local lore saying we should wait. I have some arthritis in my hands and I can only work for less than an hour so it will take a while to get the job done and by the time I am finished the snow will be gone  - I hope!.

With all the garden work, I haven't done much art in the last few weeks but I did manage to do a bit of quilling. I am continuing to work with the alphabet and have completed the B, C, D, and R. The R was done for my sister who wanted the B and R for a wedding gift.

For the D, I was thinking about something boys might like, hence the dark background and the skull. I have to come up with more parent friendly images, like soccer balls and trucks - lol.

A few weeks ago, a local artist friend had a give-away on her blog. Win Dinn is a fabulous mixed media artist with a passion for colour. She is well know in our area for her unusual style and fun filled workshops. At any rate, back to the give-away - I won! I almost never win anything and I was thrilled to get one of Win's recent pieces.

The New Hood by Win Dinn, 2018

Win's 'wonky houses' will join two other paintings by her that I am lucky enough to own.

Thanks for stopping by! I love to hear from you so please leave a comment.

Almost Over

It is so hard to believe that summer is almost over: the time seemed to speed by while at the same time it seemed to be crawling. The heat, the smoke, the lack of visitors to my home gallery and to the Summer Art Market have all contributed to the strangeness I have felt all summer.

I have been spending what leisure time I have had doing some quilled paper and watercolour pieces. I find both aspects soothing and relaxing.

#1050 - Filigree Flier

#1051 - Filigree Rufous

#1052 - Filigree Fantasy

#1054 - Filigree Fantasy #2

I have been sticking with hummingbirds as my subjects because they suit the lacy looking I am going for and they sell very well - everyone loves hummers! I have, however, been taking some liberties with my colours - at least I have never seen a purple and orange hummer - lol.

I have been thinking about my plans for the Fall and trying to get things organized for a few Watercolour Painting Parties. I am also hoping that some of my students will be coming back to continue their lessons but I expect I will have to wait for the weather to get cold before that happens. I was pleasantly surprised last week by an email from Cheryl asking if I could fit in a lesson on the weekend. I did of course and we both managed to finish a pretty decent painting. Here is mine!

#1053 Deep Fuchsia - 5 x 7 watercolour

On a non-art note, a few weeks ago I got a new camera as my old favourite finally gave up the ghost. The new one is a Canon PowerShot SX420 15 and it is working great! Although I mostly use the camera to take photos of my art, it works super taking pictures through the windows of the critters that visit our yard.

baby turkeys

deer and fawn in my back yard

fawn

These are some of the joys of living in the country in the middle of a forest - life is good!

Thanks for stopping by and please leave a comment.

Strange and Unsettling

It has been a very strange and unsettling summer so far.

I never get a lot of visitors to my home gallery as we are 1km off the highway but this year has been the worst since I opened. However, for the first time I  had some locals stop in for a mini lesson and the Watercolour Painting Party I blogged about last week.

The Saturday Afternoon Summer Art Market that I have organized has also been a bit strange. Every Saturday we set up and wait, and wait, and wait for visitors. We have done a lot of promoting on social media, put out rack cards and posters as well as some big signs at the venue but our efforts have been mostly unsuccessful.  Visitor numbers and sales have been disappointing but we keep hoping things will improve.

The unsettling part has been due to the fire situation in BC and the high temperatures.

looking south across the flats

looking west across the flats

There have only been a few small fires in the valley and they were quickly handled by the local fire departments and wildfire crews. The closest major fire is about an hour away across the lake at the top of a mountain. It is not endangering people or homes but it is very hard to fight because of the terrain. The biggest fires are many hours away from us but the smoke from all these fires makes its way to our area and makes life difficult. That is what you see in the above photos - there are mountains behind all that smoke haze - and that is what we have been living with for weeks.

We finally had some rain yesterday and a bit today, as well as cooler temperatures although we need a whole lot more of both.

I haven't been doing very much art (too busy organizing things I guess) but I have managed to get a few things done.

#1048 - Rough Seas - unframed 8 x 10 acrylic on canvas board

#1044 - Still Life with Blue Vase - unframed 7 x 10 watercolour

#1049 - Dragonfly with Camellia  - 5 x7 matted to 8 x 10 quilling and watecolour

One last thing - we have a new resident in our yard. Some people regard little guys like this as pests but I am have a good time watching him scurry around the flower beds and pots.

    enjoying the seeds from the Amaranth Velvet Curtain

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Thanks for stopping by - I hope you will let me know how your summer is going.

Too Much Happening!

There is just too much happening in my life right now! This time of year is often busy between art activities, yard work and my bedding plants but this year there seems to be more going on than usual.

First, I have been getting things organized for the Trade Show at the end of the week. I wanted to add some more scenes (the Foggy Building pictures) to my Watercolour Painting Parties and that meant painting some - lol. I also needed to make up some posters to use to promote the parties.

I used both Pic Monkey and Canva to make the posters and I am pretty happy with my finished products. I also decided to offer Quilling Parties although I have no idea how many people will be interested.

 And, I needed a poster that helps to explain the whole concept.

  

 

The day after the Trade Show I have to get some paintings ready for a display at Creston's Rec Centre. It is only a four day show but it should be interesting. The arts community is displaying with local children as part of the annual Focus on Youth and this year the theme is Art and Agriculture as part of the Canada 150 Celebrations.

And, the day after Focus on Youth ends, I will be attending a 2 1/2 day watercolour workshop with Canadian artist Graham Flatt - His web site

The following Friday, I will be displaying some of my work at this year's Bird Festival. I am hoping visitors to the festival will be interested in taking home some reminders of their visit as I have quite a few pieces that feature birds.

 And to top it off, I hope to start my Watercolour Painting Parties the same weekend. Am I crazy?

This, That and the Other

Instead of sketching in the evenings lately, for a change of pace I have been doing some more quilling and adding the finished pieces to cards.

Quilled Rooster Card

I find most quilling to be relaxing and often do it while watching TV. Sometimes though, I pick a subject that is a bit tougher to do and it needs more control and concentration.

Filigree Hummingbird Card

This little hummingbird and flower seemed to take forever to do as I could only do a bit at a time while I waited for the glue to dry.

I have also been spending time figuring out my display for the up-coming Trade Show at our local rec centre. I mostly want to promote my Watercolour Painting Parties and my 20th "Anniversary as an Artist" Clearance Sale but I hope to make my display inclusive of all my work - thus the figuring.

This year I will be offering some new scenes for the Painting Parties. I am going to add 'A Building in Fog' as well as the 'Vignettes' and the 'Little Guys' parties.

Little Guys selection - paint two 5 x 7 pieces

Vignettes selection - paint one 10 x 14 scene

I don't have most of the scenes for the 'Building in the Fog' series ready yet but here is a sample;

#550 - Abandoned 

These scenes will be 10 x 14 and participants also get a 16 x 20 mat and a clearbag to protect their paintings.

I do have 'other' things happening but I think this blog is long enough, so I will leave the rest for an 'other' day - lol.

I invite readers to 'follow' my blog and leave a comment - let me know how I'm doing!

Always something to do!

There is always something to do when you are an artist and teacher. I had an email last Thursday from a past student wanting to know if I could fit her in for a lesson on Saturday. Of course, I agreed!

Theresa wanted to do flowers and had some of her own wonderful photos as references. She had two major concerns: backgrounds and portraying the delicacy of flowers.

#1012 - Bloom & Bud - 5 x 7 watercolour

I used the leaves to show wet-in-wet blending followed by liner brush work. For the petals we used a wet-on-dry technique with damp brush blending. The background was straight wet-in-wet using a variety of very strong colours blended on the paper, painting carefully around the flower. And finally, I demonstrated lifting out colour from the background and adding a few more leaves and the bud to help balance the composition. There isn't time in a two hour class to do a complete painting so I jump around from subject to subject so the student has had instruction on every element. We work on a few leaves, a few petals, a bit of background and lifting and then the student can (hopefully) complete the painting at home.

Bloom & Bud started off just as a demonstration on a old spotted piece of watercolour paper. In spite of the jumping around, I could see that my demonstration piece was looking pretty good so I cleaned off the few spots that showed on the petals and completed the painting.

To top of the weekend, I got a surprise. A few weeks ago, my friend Sheila was doing a give-away on her blog (Sheila's Blog) of some niftily textured foam. That is what I picked up at the post office on Sunday.

The timing was perfect as I had just started work on a quilled dolphin and wasn't sure how I would finish the card but one of the textured foams was perfect. I will probably be playing with these foam pieces for some time.

And finally, here are a couple of photos of winter in the valley. Today started off with 6 more inches of snow, grey skies and a 20 minute blizzard but by 11:00 the sun was shining in a vibrant blue sky.

Hmm, I got more cloud that I thought. Some day I should paint some winter scenes of the valley but for now, I would rather think Spring and paint flowers.

Another Busy Week

My husband and I are always saying that it is a good thing we are retired because we don't have time for a job. We also don't have time for that other problem - boredom. There is always something to do!

I currently have three private students and, although the snow two weeks ago cancelled classes, we are back on schedule. Most of the time I don't get a completed painting when I am teaching because I am demonstrating the techniques. But, last week I was able to do a painting that I really liked.

#1009 - Sunset Memories - 7 x 10 watercolour

We worked from a photo my student found on the internet. I made some changes to my painting while Ed stuck with what he saw in the photo. BTW - Most of my students don't like me taking photos of their work - especially a WIP.

Something else that has kept me busy for the last while is adding labels to my blog posts and putting hashtags on my Facebook and Google+ posts. Using hashtags is new to me and I have trouble remembering to use them, but I think they could be a good tool. When someone clicks on a hashtag a number of posts from different people, who also use them, will be accessed. This potentially gives me a wider range of people who will see my paintings, not just my friends and followers. The labels are a bit different; they only refer to my blog. However, this can be useful too. For instance, when I briefly mentioned starting my bedding plants this year a couple of people asked me about that. Now, the labels will take them to a previous post all about that subject.

I have also been doing a bit of quilling lately. Using some photos from the internet as reference, I made some new Christmas ornament designs and some new cards.

Quilled Dragonfly with Poppy Card

Quilled Dragonfly with Primrose Card

And finally, I have signed up for Kat Sloma's Liberate Your Art postcard exchange. If you haven't heard about this you can find out about it here - Kat's page  Luckily I have lots of cards on hand that I was able to modify to fit the postcard guidelines and they will be in the mail later this week.

That is just a few of the things that have been keeping me hopping. I keep wondering when life is going to slow down but I figure that busy is better than bored - lol.

Thanks for stopping by and please leave a comment.

30/30 January Challenge #20

For today's painting I am using another of the quilled paper birds that I made before Christmas. The quilled birds are all made with 1/4 inch strips of my own painted papers using patterns of my own drawings.

#995 - Rufous Hummingbird - 5 x 7 mixed media

I think this would have worked better if the flowers had been blue as it would make a nicer contrast to the rust coloured bird. Oh, well, what is done is done!

I think this will be the last of the quilled pieces, at least, for the challenge: they just are not ringing any bells for me. I don't know why I am not liking any of them because I was happy with the quilled pieces but once I added them to the paintings, I was disappointed.

Today is the 20th day of the challenge so we only have 10 more paintings to do. Check out the work of the other artists on Leslie's 30/30 page and stay tuned for my next painting!

30/30 January Challenge #14

Back in December when I was getting ready for this challenge I made a few quilled paper birds intending to have birds as my theme. As you have seen my theme changed, or at least expanded, to include other subjects, but the birds are not forgotten. I have already blogged about one of those birds and here is another.

#991 - Chestnut-backed Chickadee - 5 x 7 quilled paper and watercolour

I find quilled art very hard to photograph: if you aim straight at the picture the quilling doesn't show well, so I take photos from the side which makes the view angled but at least the quilling looks good. I used another mat from that batch I got from the framing business and was able to match the green in my tree almost perfectly.

I feel like a slow poke with these paintings because many of the other artists in
Leslie's 30/30 Challenge have already posted their pieces before I even finish painting mine - lol.

Thanks for stopping by: I enjoy reading your comments.

30/30 January Challenge #12

The painting I planned to share today is taking me longer to do than I thought it would take. There are just too many subtle little details to do and I have a student coming this afternoon so I won't have time to finish.

Fortunately, I have a piece in reserve!

#980 - Quilled Hummingbird with Fuchsia - 5 x 7 mixed media

Last year I did a few cards like this and they were sold right away so I thought I would do a few more and mat them. I am not sure why I don't like this piece but I have sold a number of paintings that I didn't like so maybe this one will sell too.

Each day, like the month, just seems to zoom past so that I wonder where it has gone - too much to do and not enough time!

Check out Leslie's 30/30 page and stop by tomorrow to see what you should have seen today!

30/30 January Challenge 2017 - Post #1

Well, I did it again - signed up for Leslie's Painting Challenge.

What was I thinking of? There never seems to be enough time and my house is already full to bursting with paintings, but oh no, I have to sign on to do 30 paintings in 30 days. I think I need help!

Here is my piece for the first day of the 2017 challenge.

#978 - Yellow-rumped Warbler with Wisteria

I did a card for a Christmas card exchange and liked it so much I decided to do one a bit bigger and frame it. This is a combination of watercolour and paper quilling framed to 6 x 12.

Now I just have to post this and then it is back to housework - no rest for me on this first day of the new year. Oh well, better busy than bored!

Goodbye 2016

What a year this has been! There have been good things and bad things happen and much of the year is just a blur!

2016 started with Leslie Saeta's 30/30 challenge and I was very happy with most of my paintings.

February saw me giving a Quilling workshop to some of the members of the Creston Art Club.

I also tired selling my wares at a Pop-Up Mall in Creston but decided it wasn't the right venue for my art.

In April I shared a table at the Creston Trade Fair and promoted a new venture -  Watercolour Painting Parties. The response was great and I ended up doing 6 full parties, one private party and one party for two. They were so much fun I will be doing more in 2017.

Starting in May, I joined a number of Art Club members and set up a gallery in an empty store in town. We were only open on weekends and the venture was only mildly successful - good thing we didn't have to pay rent - lol

I attended our Art Club annual Paint-out where I didn't manage much of a painting - plein-air is just not my thing.

In between doing all these things I was spending time with my flowers; starting them in January, then thinning, transplanting, pruning, watering, planting them outside, then more watering and pruning. A lot of work but I love the show.

At the end of summer, the roof sort of fell in with Bob's heart attack. Things are okay now but the situation has certainly changed our eating habits and I am learning a new way of cooking with the focus on more vegetables, no salt and fewer meat dishes. We are learning to live!

In the fall I started teaching a few private students which is always a joy, especially when they are really pleased with their progress. I hope they will all come back in the new year.

When I look back I really think that the good has outweighed the bad in 2016. I did 62 paintings, about 25 handmade cards and over 20 quilled pieces. I think about 24 of my paintings sold at the various venues and a whole bunch of my photo cards sold too - not too shabby although I am glad I don't have to make my living at art - lol.

Wishing everyone a very Happy, Healthy and Successful 2017 - it is sure to be interesting!