Purple Floral Spring Painting

Every time I am gifted flowers, I want to paint them! I don't always have the time to with an 8 month old needing my attention, but once in a while I squeeze in some painting time for me and paint those flowers.

I got this pretty pink and purple floral bouquet for Mother's Day and the flowers held up long enough for me to paint them- lucky me! This is not a photo realistic rendering of my flowers.  I am never drawn to anything photo realistic because that art style lacks the power to make me feel something other than awe at the artist's talent. I love art that makes me feel something, even if it's as simple as- "this painting makes me feel happy" or "I can feel a lot of energy coming from this one".  That's what I try to accomplish in my own watercolor paintings.  I hope I am succeeding!

8x10 Purple Flowers Original Watercolor Painting $40

Watercolor Llama Prints

I promised to make some prints of my watercolor llama paintings and here they are!!

I tried out a new printing company, Giclee Today, and I am impressed.  These prints look very very close to the originals and the paper is good quality too. I'm saving at least one of these prints to decorate my daughter's nursery with :)

WATERCOLOR LLAMA AND FLORAL PRINT 

BOHO LLAMA PRINT 

The Joy of Painting

Lately, I've taken time to just enjoy creating for creation's sake, to paint for the joy of painting! It's been refreshing!

Over the past few years, I really tried hard to get into the art licensing market..... and it's way tougher than I originally thought! It's been fun to see my work in stores, but overall, I have found that I don't like losing control of where my art ends up and I don't like the lack of compensation for it either.  I feel like I sold out because you really don't make much at the onset.  And then there's the element of having to crank out so much art so quickly that the quality and thought and creativity get lost in the process. I lost the joy in creating so I'm taking a step back and reconnecting with my love of watercolors.  It feels amazing!

Girl Holding Flowers

Happy New Year!  I have a new figure painting to share! 

I painted this "Girl Holding Flowers" watercolor painting last year and just listed it in my Shop today!  I've been working on my Flower Girl Series for a few years now and I am continuing it this year.  There's something about flowers that really captures who I am and what I feel.  I love their delicate, colorful, and peaceful nature. I guess that's why I can't stop painting them! 

DIY Christmas Gift Tags

Last year I made my own Christmas Gift Tags! This year I hope to be able to use them all!

These "merry & bright" tags I made with watercolor paper scraps, stamps, and some colorful sharpies. I stamped the poinsettia flower in green near the top of the tag then filled it out with my sharpies by drawing little branches around the flower and little dots inside of the flower. The finishing touch was the "merry & bright" stamp at the bottom. 

These colorful Christmas tags I created by painting small Christmas trees in watercolor on watercolor paper. Even if you aren't an artist - trees are easy to paint with watercolor! Check out my tutorial on painting Christmas trees.  You can leave them as is or outline them in ink like I did!

Happy Gift Giving!

Etsy Cyber Sale

It's Sale time! Take 20% off anything in my Shop, plus get free domestic shipping on small scale paintings! Check my Etsy shop to see what’s on sale for Etsy’s Cyber Sales Weekend. 

Watercolor and Ink Flower Girl 11x14

Watercolor Peach Flowers 8x10

Holiday Art

Boho Teepee 11x14

Photos of the Week

In honor of Fall, I went digging through my archives looking for my favorite leaf photos! Some I've posted in years past from my fall adventures and crafts. I even found some that never got posted. Such a shame, right?!  I decided it's time to post them! Happy Fall!

Lemons and Blossoms

 Once in a while, my baby will take a decent nap and then I get some painting time in! 

I loved painting watercolor lemons with blossoms last year so much that I decided to add to the collection.  Here are two more lemon paintings that I just listed in my shop! 

Lemons and Blossoms 8x10

Yellow Lemons Watercolor 8x10

Want to try your hand at painting lemons? You are in luck! I have a free watercolor tutorial just for you!  How to Paint Lemons in Watercolor

Baby Land

Greetings from baby-land!

I'm late in sharing this news here, but we adopted a baby girl 7 weeks ago! 

It was a fast-paced, unexpected, stressful, emotional and miraculous experience.  After two years of trying to adopt, my husband and I had resigned ourselves to the fact that it might never happen and we were beginning to be ok with that.  We had done everything possible that we could do and it was in the Lord's hands.  Turns out, He had plans for us after all! We love our baby girl with all our hearts and we love her brave birth mama too.  We are truly grateful for this miracle in our lives.

Fall Watercolor Sale

Happy First Day of Fall!  To celebrate, I'm hosting a sale of all of my fall watercolor paintings in my Shop for one week starting today! Enjoy!

Art Tutorial: Paper Collage Landscapes

Have you ever tried making a paper collage?  So.much.fun!  My son and I created these landscape paper collages over the summer.  It made for an easy kid's art activity plus it helped me use up my paper scraps! 

This is a loose tutorial on how to make a paper collage landscape.  You can get creative with the shape you make your landscape on.  My son chose to use a rectangle, while I liked the circular landscapes.  They don't even have to be landscapes either-  you can get creative and turn yours into a monster, animal, or any other kind of creature like my son did with his!

Materials:

Solid Colored Card Stock- any size, any color
Mix of patterned and solid colored scrapbook paper
Glue Stick
Pencil
Scissors

Step 1: Using a large piece of card stock as your base, use a glue stick to attach random shapes of scrap paper in various colors, sizes, and patterns.  I cut geometric shapes for this piece, but you can also go with organic shapes of a mix of both.

If you are going for a landscape look, attach paper pieces at the top of your scene first, leaving some empty space at the top. The lower pieces that you add on later will make up the middle ground and foreground of your scene.

Step 2:  Layer paper pieces to cover the entire width of your base paper, leaving some space at the top. Layer paper pieces all the way to the bottom.  You can create mountains and hills out the paper pieces by placing contrasting colors and patterns against each other.

Step 3:  Once the glued on pieces have all dried, you can cut out the final shape that you want your landscape to be. Since I wanted a circle landscape, I traced a circle on the backside of my base paper and then cut it out.  When you flip it over- you have a nice trim circlular piece of art!

Here's another piece I made with more organic shapes. I used a large flower paper punch to create some of the shapes.  So fun!

My son made a rectangular landscape and then decided he wanted to turn it into a creature!  So he added some eyes and cut our a piece for the mouth.  My advice is to let your kids use their imagination with this project.  It's better that way!