Friday, February 21, 2014

Mandala in colored pencil

I actually started this drawing with a Tupperware lid.  I created the pattern out of  8 circles drawn around a center point.  From there I used colored pencil to create a rainbow effect. For some reason I started with yellow, with a touch of orange in the middle. As an afterthought, I should have started with red and had purple on the outside edge.

Thursday, February 20, 2014

Forest of Fir Trees ...revisited

So after taking in lots of advice of how to "finish" this painting Forest of Fir Trees, half said it was already done, while the other half said it needed something more. My gut said it needed more, and that is why I had put it out there. I just didn't know what it needed or what direction to go with it. Setting it down for a while and coming back to it gave me some fresh perspective. I didn't add much since so many people thought it was already done, but just some subtleties to the foreground.

So which on do you like better? (sorry, the lighting was different when taking the pictures)






I don't know how this effect got added...but I lke it!

Wednesday, February 19, 2014

Ink doodles...zentangles

Just some ransom doodles, the specific process referred to as zen tangles, that we worked on at my Artists' Way group. I have always been a doodler, but this was a fun new way of looking at different patterns, styles, and techniques.

Tuesday, February 18, 2014

Forest of Fir trees

I started this with the idea of keeping this a simple painting. I wet the whole page, and added a "blob" of blue and then blended some green into the bottom. After than dried I added trees into the foreground...and then I was stuck. Is the painting done? . . .or does it need something else?

Monday, February 10, 2014

Sunrise in the mountains, watercolor landscape

So after my last post, Forest at Dawn, I decided to try keeping the same color blend in the sky. This one though has a combination of detail, in the foreground, and fades to minimal detail as it goes into the background. This specific layout idea was actually given to me by a very creative friend of my daughter's.
I really struggled with the sun, working the watercolor paper too much, and it ended up looking like the sun on a child's drawing. The shadows are more like midday shadows, but other than that, I like the way that it turned out, especially the foreground-- I still love working the details!

Saturday, February 8, 2014

Forest at dawn, Watercolor landscape

Just a simple landscape focusing on the color of the sky. I tried to keep the rest of the painting simple, which is challenging to me because I always want to add in some detail. This came completely from the imagination instead of my normal routine of copying someone else's painting or outside painting from nature. At the bottom of the piece, my goal was to fade it out to create the illusion of mist.

Monday, February 3, 2014

Portrait of passion

This is a pencil drawing from a photo. I decided to focus on the lips for this piece since I feel I always have the eyes as my focus.
  As I was working on this, I was reminded of a drawing lesson from long ago...lines don't exist, only areas where dark and light meet.