Practice and Pears

I am participating in a 4" x 6" swap with the WatercolourPencilBuddies Yahoo! group for the month of April and have been playing with ideas. One of them was to use dark paper and my Albrecht Durer watercolor pencils to sketch a couple of tulip tree blossoms, but now I am leaning toward pears, or maybe tulips, or maybe a robin..... I believe the theme is Spring and as you can see, I am having a really hard time narrowing down my choices.


Here is a little, quick attempt at tulip tree blossoms that I put together this morning. This is a 4 x 5 piece of dark card stock.

And here is the same piece with just a bit of blending with a tissue.

I'm not sure which one I like better, but I am pretty pleased with this 15 minute try.

I am still enamored with pears since taking the Pear-ology class with Martha Lever, and as a matter of fact I have a still life class with the Jackson Civic Art Association on Wednesday. We are encouraged to bring some pieces to arrange with a clip-on lamp for illumination and shadows. I've been playing with the arrangement of some pears I purchased yesterday.

I love how the texture shows up in this one.

I used a watercolor filter in Photoshop on this one.

I used the posterize adjustment layer in Photoshop on this one.

I used a flash on this one.

I've already done my treadmill workout this morning but haven't eaten yet. The entire time I was arranging these pears, my stomach was growling like crazy. I am thinking I might be wise to go to Michael's later today and get some artificial fruit to use in my still life class and eat these. Yum!

I am hoping to find lots of time to play in my art room today and am wishing you that same opportunity.

xoxo

Busy, busy day and some Art

My daughter called me last evening and asked if I could be at her house around 7:30 to get Miss 9 to school. My daughter had to open the store this morning. When I got to her house it was to find that Miss 9 had sprained her foot at school yesterday, so I brought her home with me. When we got here, the Menard's truck was here with our energy-efficient refrigerator.


I have my exercise class at 9:30, but wanted to share some art with you before I go.


I had Miss Z and her big sister Miss K overnight on Monday and through the day yesterday. Miss K spent some time in the art room making wonderful things. She did a few blind contours.

And when she saw my heron, she decided to use the bird book to do her own bird sketch. She used my watercolor pencils. She chose not to add water.

Meanwhile, from listening to comments on my blog yesterday (thanks, Maer) , I decided to add a bit of background to the heron.

And tried my hand at a couple more pears.

I'm really enjoying the pears, Martha. If anyone is interested the Pear-ology class is awesome.

Gotta go get myself around and get my girl some breakfast and then get to my exercise class. I sure hope you have a great day and I look forward to visiting your blogs and seeing what you are up to.

xoxo

Pears and a Heron Sketch

Yesterday was such a nice day.  Zoë has begun to walk across a room - a little unsteadily, but very proud of herself; we had the hubster's sister and her husband over for a visit and dinner, which is always a good time; and the Tiger's swept the Red Sox in extra innings. I think we probably all ate too much - we had grilled chicken, cold sliced ham, some bakery bread, a large salad with avocado, tomato, mushrooms and dried cherries, cheesy potatoes, and a wonderful pineapple upside down cake. I am not even tempted to get on the scales this morning. I think I will wait until Friday.


I did make a quick sketch on Friday evening while waiting for a video to load. It is one of my very favorite birds who used to come and visit in the creek in my back yard. I haven't seen him yet this Spring.

The video I was waiting for was one of the 10 in the series for the Pear-ology class I am taking with Martha Lever. What fun and I am learning so much. I haven't tried it with real watercolor yet - I am planning to do that after my morning exercise class, but I have tried it digitally. The first attempt I made using the Sketchbook app.

I couldn't figure how to blend the edges so they wouldn't have hard edges, but I like it anyway.

My second attempt was with ArtRage and I am much happier with it. Even in both cases, I forgot to add the shadow.

I hope to make an attempt (or 2 or 3) with watercolor on 140# cold press paper later today and am looking forward to sharing them with you tomorrow.

I hope you had/are having a wonderful Easter/Passover holiday, and that you are making time for yourself and your creativity.

xoxo