Dreaming of Romance

"Dreaming of  Romance"

Pen and Watercolor Still life Painting.

This was the Original sketch that was posted last week.

I finished the painting yesterday, and  wish you could see the iridescent gold  watercolor used on the edges of the tea cup. Golden Artist Colors has come out with a line of watercolors that I just love. They are called QPR Modern Watercolors. The iridescent gold was pricey but so worth the affect.

I'll be posting this on Paint Party Friday and on Sunday Sketches this week.

Enjoy and have fun on the weekend!

~ karen

Sunday Sketches; The Still Life Tea Cup

Thought I would share my next project, a still life painting with my friends over at Sunday Sketches today. This little tea cup is sitting on top of a book which I draped over with an antique lace handkerchief and added one rose. It is all inked up and ready for watercolor but I still need to play around with the color choices in my sketchbook. Hopeful I'll have it blocked in with color by the end of the day.

This drawing really wants me to give it a name. What do you think? should I title this piece "Dreaming of Romance"

Have a wonderful day.

~ Karen

Creative Tuesday: JOY & COURAGE

 

My Boys bring so much JOY into my life!

They filled my heart with love over the holidays by coming home for a short visit.

 COURAGE to start promoting my love for illustrating. 

This year I will be focusing on two words, JOY and COURAGE.

I'm a pretty up beat person for the most part but depression likes to pay a visit more than I care to admit. It makes me doubt my talent and tends to hold me captive at home.

This year I will spend more time with friends and family and enjoy every minute, along with getting out there promoting my talent and selling my work!

Stop over to Creative Tuesday's to see what words the other artists have chosen.

~ Karen

Sunday Sketches: "What's on the Drawing Table "

 Thought it might be fun to show you whats been happening on my drawing table this week.

  "Warm up" watercolor color paintings done to loosing  up before working on a larger painting that I'm doing for my daughter .

 This one reminded me of a pea pod.

 I was thinking of something that illustrated  how I should have celebrated New Years Eve.

Blocking in color for a landscape painting I'm doing for my daughter.

I've also been busy sketching up designs for one or two Valentines cards that I'll show you next Sunday.

Don't forget to visit Sunday Sketches to see what the other artists' have posted on their blogs this week!

~ Karen

Working on a Valentine Collage

 Mix Media Collage with a "Valentine" theme.

 Detail #1 of the Valentine.  I used a heavy gel medium over the original painting of the valentine.

 Detail #2 The background is a combination of tissue papers and hand painted newspapers. I also used pastels to highlight colors and textures.

 Detail # 3 of a monotype printed on newspaper.

 Detail # 4  Think this is my favorite photo....

Detail # 5 of the layers.

This piece was inspired by my Art Club theme at school this week. The group wanted to start working on projects for Valentines Day, and of course I like to play along with them.  The Valentine was painted first on watercolor paper and I wanted to add something different to the background.  It just so happens that my Painting class is working on a Collage theme, so I decided to turn my Valentine into a collage piece. 

When teaching collage I always demo several printing making options along with re purposing old newspapers, so you can image how many sample I have left around the art room. I had so much much pulling everything together. The final piece is almost done I'm still deciding on the final composition.

I think I like this version. What do you think?

~ Karen

Sketching & Stitching

Something a little different this Sunday.

 Last weekend while cleaning my studio, came a cross this little sketch, done quite awhile ago of spools of thread. So I decided to create a collage for this weeks Sunday Sketches.

Yesterday I dusted off my sewing machine and added a bit of free motion stitching to pull it all together. I must admit I'm rather rusty with the stitching so you can guess what I'll be doing later today.

Hope you enjoy....

~ Karen

Sunday Sketches Gingerbread Men

Wow how did two weeks of Christmas break go so fast? I'm not sure what I did but it wasn't working on sketches or paintings. The only thing I did manage to do was clean it up. ha ha. This morning I woke up and realized I hadn't done anything for today's Sunday Sketches. So... guess what I've been doing the past 4 hours??? Creating a very sketchy watercolor from a photograph I had taken of my gingerbread cookies.

Hopefully I'll have something done for Creative Tuesday's theme "How I spent New Years Eve."

Enjoy the cookies and make sure to visit Sunday Sketches to see what the others have created.

~ Karen.