I Got It!

YES! I finally got it! Remember, I told you that I would let you know more when I finally got my new faucet? Well, I got it. It arrived today. Yep, right on my porch! Am I a little excited? I would say so. Took a picture of it already. It is still in the box and not looking very glamorous -- yet. But, I promise that you will get to see the "glam" shot later when my new Lita faucet is installed. I'm so excited, I could do the "Snoopy" dance right now. Do you all remember that? The way Snoopy would do his little dance when he was happy? You know, the Charles Schulz comic strip? Sorry, I just had to give a little blurb for artistic endeavors and bring in a little nostalgia.

So, be sure to tune in later for the elegant debut of Lita in upcoming months. In the meantime here is a glimpse of Lita.

My Amazing Lita Faucet That I Won From Pfister 

A Little Art in the Family

Hello everyone. I hope you don't mind the shorter posts. It takes you and me both less time. I spend less time writing them, and you spend less time reading them. That way, maybe you will actually have the time to check in and read my blog.

So, what to explore this week? Thought I would share some artwork by our grand kids. You realize that I have very carefully written up one lesson plan after another and given very intricate lessons. Hmmm. Actually, I walk in the door, my grand kids beg for my Asus Slate, I hand it to them and the rest is history. They do ask me to save their work for them because they are not sure where to find the file to save it to -- for the time being that is. They will probably learn that on their own the next time that I visit.

I have to laugh; I promise you that they are better at using the digital art software than I am. Give me a brush. Don't get me wrong. I like the digital art programs and have fun with them, but there is just something about a brush, real paint, and real paper or canvas. And I see that with them, too. They love the digital, but they like to go back and forth between the two.

Sorry, that I didn't get a picture of their artwork on paper (my excuse is that my battery on my camera was dead). But here is a peak at their digital work. Enjoy!

 

 

Introducing Something New From Proko

I have been sitting here wondering what I should say in this weeks post, and I have to tell you that procrastination has paid off. While I have been wondering what to say, I received an email from Proko (Stan Prokopenko), a young artist who is getting ready to introduce an online drawing course. This will be figure drawing so it will be for those who are serious about drawing people. Proko gets into gesture drawing right away, so you won't be drawing any static stick figures. Those are probably good for learning about proportion, but you will learn that from his course as well. I have been watching some of Proko's free videos, and I am impressed. Getting gesture is so important to being able to capture emotion and energy in a drawing or painting. Three things that have impressed me about his presentation:

• Proko is very respectful in his presentation of the human body.
• Proko is so funny and entertaining.
• Proko is either a natural when it comes to teaching, or has had training in ways to help people remember key points.

Proko will begin his online classes on June 17th, at:

http://www.proko.com/figure (for Premium)

http://www.proko.com/videos/ (for free, limited videos)

He is offering both free classes (this will probably be listed under videos), or Premium classes (for a fee). Be sure to check his site out!

Happy Memorial Day

Hope that today is a lovely day for everyone who has served, or had loved ones and/or friends who have served to keep our country safe and free.

This won't be a long post, but I wanted to share something that I had a chance to test out this past week. I bought my grand kids some of the Crayola Brand watercolor paints. I just happened to purchase them from Target, and no, neither Target, nor Crayola are paying me to say this. This is strictly my personal opinion, but I was so delighted with the results. The colors of the pigments are terrific and judging by working with these pigments everyday for a week, they mean what they say when they claim that they are washable. (They do cover themselves with a disclaimer that there could be something that might stain under the "right" circumstances). However, we didn't end up with stains on anything. Now these may not be archival quality paints, but with toddlers, you are looking for safe use and easy clean-up - not archival. If we really wanted archival, we would probably hire our kids/grand kids to paint our houses - but that is not very likely to happen.

At any rate, we had so much fun and with none of the stress and worry of ruining clothing or carpet. I was even amazed at how well we could "lift" the color off of the paper if we didn't like what we had applied. So, if your kids are bored today, you might want to wander over to any store selling the Crayola Brand of watercolor paints and give them a try. Each palette had its own self contained brush and the price couldn't be beat.

The Valentine T-Shirts

Remember the Valentine T-Shirts? You know, the ones with my grandkid's favorite cat on them? I wrote a blog about it: Valentine's Day Is Coming. Well, I promised you that I would get a picture to show you. So here it is - their Valentine T-Shirts with a copy of my painting of their cat attached:

Can't get any better than this!

That Girl is Always Playing With Her Paints and Goofing Off

Sounds like me!

After working on my waterfall series, I didn't really feel like working on a "serious" project. I did want to keep painting, and I wanted to try something abstract. Also,it just so happens that I had just purchased a wonderful set of french curves by Alvin & Co. from Amazon. I wanted my next painting to have flowing graceful lines and I wanted to just play with the paints and colors. This particular painting is watercolor. I tried to bring the different colors together with one very light glaze of New Gamboge (to try to pull all the wild colors together a little) but I didn't want to totally lose the stained glass effect. I am not sure that New Gamboge was the best color to try over the Cerulean, but that is what I tried. And so, just for fun, I painted this:

French Curves

Left Over Paint

Because I had left over paint, I had to try to use as much of it as I could. Saving acrylic paint is not easy (although it can be done). Luckily, acrylic paint can be layered. Because this is an experiment, that is exactly what I am doing, and because this is an experiment, if it doesn't work out, it's not a problem.

Still working on it

Glad this is an experiment. The comments below will clarify why.

What NOT To Do When Painting With Acrylic

Unless you want to create a dress with polka-dots on it, do not, I repeat, DO NOT answer the phone while painting with acrylic, especially if you have any Thalo Blue paint on your brush. Why? Because, if you are a watercolorist, you will instinctively grab a tissue to dab up the excess paint and with every dab you will create terrific little dots - like you would want only on a polka-dot dress, and not in the sky of a landscape painting.

So, now I am back to square one with this painting and seriously thinking about the merits of the trash can. All is not lost. The upside of today's work is: I have learned how to add subtle polka-dots to a dress, and I started another painting, which so far, I have not managed to destroy. Now, if necessary, I can ignore the lack of color harmony on the bottom portion of this painting - unless somehow I can figure out how to add fifty zillion birds to the sky.

Other Possibilities:

• There is always Gesso.
• I can buy acrylic medium and use this as the base painting for another experiment!
• I can tear this painting into funny little pieces and use it in a collage.
• I need new wall paper for the bathroom. (not an option - The painting isn't large enough and I would probably have to add pterodactyls to the sky in order to cover the spots.)
• I can paint the sky white and see if that makes things a million times worse.
• I will figure out something.

One last thing, be sure to edit your post before hitting the "post" button. You will almost always find errors.

Worked On The Painting Some More:

Above, I have my original composition.

Above, I tried turning the original composition upside-down.