30 Paintings In 30 Days - Day 20

I sold Day 18 & 19's projects today at Arts In The Park, so while I sat at my booth I painted some replacements to count as today's project. I'll try and be a little more original tomorrow. 

30 Paintings In 30 Days - Days #18 and #19

Yesterday and today I worked on a few small projects for Arts In The Park coming up, yikes, TOMORROW!

Three different trees on three different types of media.

The bonsai tree on the left is watercolor on 3x5 watercolor greeting card stock.

The willow in the middle is watercolor on 5x7 watercolor canvas.

The cherry tree on the right is watercolor on a 5x5 gesso treated wood block.

Watercolor Tree Paintings 

30 Paintings In 30 Days - Day #17

A little miniature brush painting was my project for tonight. I also painted a quick tree for the Art Show this weekend.

Bamboo Brush Painting On 4x8 Watercolor Paper

Watercolor Tree On 5x7 Watercolor Canvas

30 Paintings In 30 Days - Day #16

Tonight I attempted to paint a Weeping Cherry tree. Had no clue how to make this one work, Definitely going to be trying this one again now that I know what does NOT work.....

Weeping Cherry - Watercolor on 5x7 Watercolor Greeting Card

30 Paintings In 30 Days - Day #13 and #14

A few pieces for the upcoming Arts In The Park festival.

30 Paintings In 30 Days - Day #12

Tried to incorporate a few of my favorite brush painting elements in today's painting.

Watercolor Heron On 9x12 Paper

30 Paintings In 30 Days - Day #11

I still get a visceral reaction every year on this day.

30 Paintings In 30 Days - Day #10

Was going for loose, light and dreamy, almost surreal. Think I may have gone TOO light..,

And then the border tape ruined the edges. Grrr....

Watercolor Tree On 6x6 Paper

30 Paintings In 30 Days - Day #9

Scrolled through my "Things To Paint" folder tonight and found a photo of a field of flowers. Decided to give it a shot as a quick exercise before hitting the sack.

Field Of Flowers
Watercolor on 4x6 paper

30 Paintings In 30 Days - Day #8

Today one of my Facebook friends changed their cover photo to a beautiful scene of a tree on a country at sunset or sunrise. I was very intrigued by it and immediately knew I wanted to make an attempt at painting it.

I also knew there was NO WAY I would be able to handle the lighting and the mist in the photo, so I figured I would try painting the scene at mid-day instead. Harsher, "easier" light and less shadow.

Here comes the word I use frequently - FRUSTRATING. This is the kind of attempt that hits home and makes me realize why I stick with small, simple compositions. I simply do not have the skill or vision at this point to make a scene like this work, much less pop.

Tree & Country Road - Watercolor On 9x12 Paper

30 Paintings 30 Days - Day #7

Today's project is one of my standard tree paintings. I have my first show coming up in a few weeks, and I need some simple pieces to fill out my display. My plan is to complete several of these before the show. They are plain and simple, but I enjoy painting them. I also REALLY like painting on the watercolor canvas.

Autumn Tree In Watercolor On 5x7 Canvas

30 Paintings In 30 Days - Day #6

Tonight I had the urge to paint a new flamingo for my mom. I found a photo I liked online. I loved the blues of the ocean and the sky and they way they contrasted with the pink of the flamingo, so I gave it a shot.

Watercolor Flamingo on 6x8 Paper

30 Paintings In 30 Days - Day #5

Wasn't feeling overly inspired yesterday. Started one painting and totally hated it and trashed it. Decided to work a little on calligraphy instead. Took more practice strokes and overall time to paint this symbol than any of the paintings I have done over the past few weeks.....

30 Paintings 30 Days 2014 - Day #4

I actually painted twice today.

For the first, I saw a painting online that I liked . I only had a few minutes before I had to leave to pick Aubrey up from school, so I decided to give myself a little challenge. 

I wanted to see if I could come up with my own interpretation of the painting with my preferred palette of colors in 10 minutes. This was the result. 

I did not have the time to be as careful with the tree as I normally would, so that was probably my biggest disappointment. There was a time though that I could not have even gotten something like this in an hour though, much less 10 minutes, so I will take it. Definitely a fun exercise that I should not have gotten away from doing.

Watercolor Tree on 6x9 Paper

The second painting was the one I had planned for the 30 Day Challenge. I have been experimenting with flowers lately. A few weeks ago I tried a loose bouquet, and tonight I wanted to try a bouquet in a glass vase. 

Ehhhh. Learning experience. 'Nuff said.

Watercolor Flowers on 6x6 Paper

30 Paintings 30 Days 2014 - Day #3

Today was a blah day. Not enough sleep last night combined with a lingering feeling of just general "down-ness" made it a little difficult for me to get into choosing a subject for today's painting.

So I visited the folder I keep in my Dropbox of photos and other paintings for inspiration, and I saw a photo of a tree I liked. I remembered that when I originally put in in the folder I had planned on painting it as a springtime cherry tree.

Needless to say, I was not in a springy mood tonight, so I decided to go with fall colors instead. Hey, at least I did not opt for full-on dreary winter!

The original tree was by itself in a field, but since I had gone with the plain tree last night, I decided to add a few more simple elements to the composition and sketched in the mountains and a little fence to give it just a few more lines to draw the eye.

I briefly considered some buildings off in the distance but decided I was too tired to go there, and Lord only knows what kind of disaster I would have turned them into anyway.

I was prepared to very unhappy with the end result. Goes with the mood I guess. But now it is photographed and up on the shelf where I put all my latest work. Sitting here in my chair and viewing it from across the room, I like it.

From a distance, its hard to see the little flaws that normally drive me nuts. From a distance, it looks like a scene I would like to step into. A tree I would like to sit under on a cool fall day and get lost in a good book.

Sometimes our days and lives are like that, aren't they? When we are all up close and nitpicky, they seem so flawed, and its easy to let our mood take a nosedive. But if we take a few steps back and view them with some literal and figurative distance, sometimes we can see them for just how beautiful they truly are.

Now, I just need to remember that the next time one of these moods hits!

Fall Tree Watercolor On 6x6 Paper

30 Paintings 30 Days 2014 - Day #2

Wasn't really sure what I wanted to paint today, so I started looking back through old paintings to see if there was anything I wanted to change a little bit. One of my most popular little trees (meaning someone actually repinned it on Pinterest) was one that leaned to the left, so I decided to see if I could give it maybe a little more depth and life.

I ended up with the tree below. The dreaded bloom monster reared its ugly head again. Maybe one day I will slow down enough to keep the monster at bay, but I'm starting to think its going to be one of my many curses.

Its not a huge change from the original painting, but I think it does have a tiny bit more "life." So I'll give myself a slight "mission accomplished" rating.....

Watercolor on 6x6 block paper.

Lone Watercolor Tree

30 Paintings 30 Days 2014 - Day #1

My family and I spent Labor Day Weekend at the beach. It was our first beach trip since 2011, so it was great to feel the sand underfoot and breathe the salty air!

How could I spend that much time at the beach and not attempt to transfer some of that beauty onto paper?

This is my attempt to do so. I have a hard time with perspective, so I removed a lot of elements from the scene in order to keep things as simple as possible, a common theme with my paintings.

Watercolor on 4x6 block paper.

Myrtle Beach