A Painting & Excuses

First the excuses.... I know I've been gone a while from this blog. I haven't had a lot of time to be creative for various reasons. Sick, busy, new feathered additions to the family, doc appointments, shopping, & etc...

With the excuses behind me I'll go ahead and post the fun stuff. Here's one thing I did manage to finish.

The Blue Guitar:

The colors didn't turn out as pretty as they are in real life, but that's what I get for taking quicky shots with a point and shoot. No light box, no outside light, no nothing to help my photos look pretty. You get the idea, though.

FYI The guitar string is actually sewing thread dipped in Mod Podge. The musical notes are from a Ukrainian Hymnal and have a color wash of antique yellow over the top. The yellow color you see in the painting is really more of an antique yellow, as well, but the colors turned out kind of mustard-esk. This will be in my shop very soon. Opening is coming up! Yay!

Featured Artist

Today, Refuge Pour les Artistes will be featuring the work of a talented young artist named Kolby. Yup, folks.....my kiddo can paint! He doesn't enjoy it like his mom and both of his grandmothers, but he sure is good at it. He painted these two AWESOME birds for me when he went to visit my parents in GA back in 2005. He was around 12 years old then. Mom guided him through it, but he did the actual painting himself; or so they tell me. I'm so proud of these paintings.

There's a bit of a glare on the pink bird's pic. You get the idea, though. I should have taken it out of the frame and scanned, but I didn't. I wish he enjoyed painting. He thinks it's a girl thing, even though we've all told him otherwise. I guess because he sees so many females doing it around him? lol Maybe he'll change his mind some day. These are acrylic on 8x10 canvas board and mounted in wooden, painted frames.

Becky Kelly’s Watercolor 101

I’m really posting to test my new blog editor, Windows Live Writer 2009, but since I’m blogging I might as well post relevant content. Since I do not have any photos uploaded of my recent work, I’ll talk about a great web site I happened to find recently.

I was checking out one of Etsy’s Treasuries yesterday and noticed Becky Kelly was featured. I have heard of this artist before and I’ve seen her work, but didn’t know she was on Etsy. I admired her beautiful watercolor pieces for a while and then did a Google search. I thought she might have a web site with watercolor tips. She did! Her site is www.BeckyKelly.com. I’m really interested in Watercolor lately, so THIS part of her site really tickled my art fancy.

I love it when talented artists share their knowledge with those of us eager to learn! If you think about it, they really have nothing to gain by doing this except for our gratitude. It’s very generous, don’t you think? Like those artists on YouTube who show their techniques and ask nothing in return. Sure, it gets their name out there, but it also is giving away their secrets for other Artists to use. Pretty darn cool of them if ya ask me! But…..nobody did, so I’ll shut up now. lol