Butterfly House

As I am busy decorating I thought I would take a minute to pop over to the alliance for the American Quilt and check out the audition fundraiser when I noticed my little butterfly house quilt is up for auction! I hope you will take a moment to check out all the amazing quilts being auctioned off for a good cause!
http://www.ebay.com/sch/quiltalliance/m.html?_nkw=&_armrs=1&_from=&_ipg=50&_trksid=p3686

-Desiree

My Christmas Card

Didn't get to the Christmas Card class, but did work on this at home.  Did a large painting on my Arches paper, with a couple of washes on the background first.  Did several washes on the flower itself and then went back in when dry to refine the colors.  Starting adding darker background around flower drying in between layers. Ordered it from Shutterfly.  Back has a couple of photos of Charlie and me from our summer trip.  I like the way it came out.

So Beautiful!

When Randy and I went outside this morning to have breakfast I was amazed at how beautiful it was! I thought how many places in the country can you eat breakfast outside and it's 75 degrees the day after Thanksgiving!? I took some time to sketch my side yard where the lemon tree is growing. This tiny tree has struggled since I bought it as it was sick with something called leaf miners. For years we tried everything to kill them off but nothing seemed to work. Last year we heard of an organic spray called captain jacks and it worked! The tree started putting on new growth and setting little lemons! I was so excited since I had only gotten one or two prior to that. Well, it kept setting and setting and now it is practically laying on the ground with the fruit it produced this year! Wow, as everything else is preparing for winter this little tree is still ripening fruit! I will be buying ice trays so I can freeze the juice I cannot possible use fast enough this winter! Lemon aid, lemon tarts, lemon meringue pie, lemon bars, I will also be making lots of lemon things!



-Desiree

Happy Thanksgiving!!

I wanted to wish everyone a Happy Thanksgiving!! As you walk into my house I have this little vignette set up with a framed painting of course. Your leave paintings would be perfect for your fall display too. Have a great day and I will see you on the 1st!

November Sketch class

We had an awesome class today, there were six of us that dove into our paints and worked on mixing basic colors to produce secondary colors, beautiful grays and toned down primary colors. Everyone took lots of notes in their sketchbooks so they can refer back to them in the future. This is a great way to test colors when you are planning on doing a painting. By pretesting color combinations you don't run into big mistakes. We then painted some beautiful fall leaves that Randy picked for us to paint from.
While we painted we enjoyed delicious snacks, Marianne brought bear claws and Penny brought homemade persimmon cookies to munch on. Three people did the homework challenge and were able to choose something from the goodie bag! I am hoping that everyone can post their leaves on the blog so those of you who were unable to come can see how wonderful they turned out! Here are mine

Remember to allow your colors to blend on the paper instead of trying to mix all your colors on your palette. Practice, practice, practice!!

Your next challenge is to paint something RED! Its Christmas so it seems appropriate. Remember what we learned today about values of reds and letting colors mix on your paper. So when you paint something red don't just use one red from the tube but mix other colors with it. Yellows, blues make wonderful additions. The yellow will warm and area and the blue will cool, making wonderful violet shadows. Remember to leave the lightest areas the white paper and also create lighter areas to give the painting depth. Also don't forget to add those shadows to ground your items, you don't want them to appear to be floating! Have fun and surprise me!

I will be working on a video about our lesson which will be available to watch or purchase if you were unable to attend the class. Happy Painting!

Cup O'Cheer

Finished my Christmas card project this evening - and got the cards ordered!  I started with a photograph of a small drive-thru coffee place that was on Hwy 76 at Bonsall for years!  Then when they widened the Hwy - it was torn down.   I really miss seeing it when I drive that way!  Desiree found the clip art Santa in his pick-up we added to the original photo - and then I made a pencil sketch from that.  After initially getting the building and Santa down - at Desiree's suggestion, went back to the background painting in some loose detail and darkening that area at the same time.  Am happy with the way it came out - Thank you Desiree!  Now on to the November challenge!

Some sketches

I am cleaning up for the Fall and taking out the old spent flowers, trimming trees, taking out the summer garden and getting ready for the winter one. It is a great time to journal and sketch. Things are so interesting at this time of year. The seed pods, rose hips, colored leaves all make for great sketchbook paintings. Take the time to draw something today! If you like first use your pencil to get the lines right and then go over them with your micron pen. I do several sketches, often in different positions.

I then scan them as line drawings and save on my computer for using later for either a quilt design or another painting etc. Now that I have recorded this step I am free to move on to color and painting them and journaling. 

The seed pods were added with my brush only,directly to the paper. I didn't outline them either, which I like and it sends them back behind the flowers a bit. I also added a border, some color, and notes about my garden. Ok lets see some sketches!

Fall things

I have been doing some sketching, I hope you have too. I did this little bird auditioning it for my Christmas Cards. I was thinking something really simple but still am undecided.  I also did this car,not for my Christmas Cards, which was in the drive thru at Mc Donald's, don't tell me you can't find anything to paint or draw. I posted this on my blog but I wanted to share it with you. You might be saying why would she paint a car in the drive thru? Well the way the shadows were hitting the building and street. The way the early morning sun was hitting the side of the building.

Does the painting feel like it was in the morning, can you feel the scene. If so I did my job, if not it didn't work.  The shadows on things can be so beautiful. The surface I painted on was a bit of a struggle and it hurt the overall painting but its all about learning from each sketch and painting. Remember good tools, whether paper or paints, can make a huge difference.