It's Valentine's Day!

Happy Valentine's Day to all!

Valentine Heart w/ Mint (W/C 6X8)

Have a happy day, and know that you are loved!

The Second Day of Christmas:

Redberry Wreath 6X8 watercolor

Boxing day in some areas. A day to reflect. Or ...whatever. I'm just not in that solemn a mood! So I painted! This is using a little plein air pocket sized set of half pans and a block I can carry in my bag. This, however, was done inside.
Christmas was a lovely day for all the family and most of us were together. Today we are all "resting" after the preparations. Especially my sister-in-law, she decorated their house beautifully and together they fixed a scrumptious meal, plus lots of snacks of every kind, cookies and candy to raw veggies and dip. Yum!

 This all means heavenly leftovers of course. I got to bring some home, so I don't have to cook to night. I think I am showing rather a lot of unsuspected self control in not eating all the candy, I also brought home, in one sitting. Do you people have any idea what it is like to have an OPEN box of See's in the house? Time for some carrot sticks!

El Color Caliente...

The above is the theme of an upcoming show at a Gallery near me. Lately I've been thinking about this. The focus of the show is cultural, but I kept coming up with landscapes:

Arakis/Dune or Big Bend Desert Sand Storm 8X10

and

14X18 Acrylic, unfinished

the second one was not ready for the show. There are dried chilis to hang and rugs hung out to air, chimney pots to add, rungs, values to balance, oh the list goes on. I entered the first one and:

Chili's 8X10,acrylic, painted this morning.

When I took the picture the shadows all bleached out. This is without the flash, too.
After double checking the painting I found that they're there, somehow I didn't catch them with the camera. The submissions for the show were emailed in, and of course no one else will paint chili peppers, oh no.
Perhaps Photoshop could help me.

Maybe not. Best to use live submissions until I get the hang of this.

Lately I've been doing a lot of pen and ink sketching. Just got a fountain pen by Pen and Ink Sketch, a fine point. It's a delight! It has one of those adapter things so you can use bottled ink, or cartridges. So far I've used up three cartridges so I'll get a bottle of fountain pen ink to save a bit. Most ink at art stores seems to be for dip pens, so the search is on.

ACEO Supplies-Canvas Paper

This got scanned a little crooked, huh? Anyway.
Just curious, I got something called "canvas paper," in this case pre cut to ACEO specifications, 2.5X3.5 inches. It was a new substance on which to paint for me. Well, I was not particularly impressed, it tends to curl and buckle. That might be OK on a larger sheet, but on one this small...how on earth do you hang on to it and try to paint?

I tried taping it down, but there is so little surface for the tape. Pins and tacks got in the way. You should have seen my fingers during all this! There was not much of a picture as a result. If anyone has any ideas on how to make it worth it to buy this size, let me know.

Much later, months later, I picked up the same little picture and thought I'd give it another try. The second time was better. I think mostly because the previous painting stabilized it. This little red door was the result. It's from a photo taken by my nephew while vacationing in Malta.

By the time I finished this one, I was paint to my elbows! The first time was worse.

Memorial Day Celebration

AMERICAN STILL LIFE

This is a day set aside to remember. Raised in a very patriotic family, and living in other lands, when I hear complaints about here, I can give it a quick thought and realize, nope, here is BETTER. I know first hand. Why do you think people are still streaming in?
The above tiny watercolor (4"X10") contains the Colors and a few objects hoping to symbolize how we all come from somewhere, and we all came here to participate in BETTER.
Now I need to finish the painting above, the scanner showed me some problems!