Plein Air….Plants

Hello….Spring!!



I really enjoy this view from my study in my new house.



So, one day I tried to capture it.



I first, just got some basic shapes down, and lots of green for those trees.



When I was done, I went back in and outlined with my micro pen.  The above portion is not outlined and the lower portion was.  I prefer to outline but I don’t dislike the look when it’s not.



Here’s my cactus for my daily Watercolor month last July. 



My front door with a potted plant that stayed strong the entire summer!



My Christmas tree sans ornaments.



Here’s a truck from a flower farmer (@floretflower) that I follow on instagram.  Drawn from my ipad feed.



And most recently, my precious plant that was given to me a few years ago.  Grown from a cut off of my grandmothers stock.  A most interesting house plant that can handle my neglect.

Now, I’m off to enjoy this nice weather!

Plein Air….Structure

My back porch is THE place that I gain Calmness!  Drew this for the July World Watercolor challenge.



I’m an inspiration “junkie”!  I’ve had this little Angel for more than 10 years! 



Since I wasn’t in Rome painting this weekend, I painted the next best thing.



My view from my desk chair, and just trying to keep things loose.



It’s really all about perspective…. and my entertainment center gave me lots of practice.



Headed out to a local park last Fall and drew this helicopter.  I’m trying to take advantage of those beautiful day, in a drawing kind of way! 



I’m on board to “Make America Great Again”!  But apparently I miscounted the stripes!

Plein Air….Birds-n-Bridges

Lets hear it for Friday!!!



I have a thing for Cardinals, so during the July World Watercolor Challenge, I drew this candle holder.



On another day in July, I drew this bluejay off of an image on the internet.



You got me!!! This is not a bird, but she’s a bit of a beast!  A lovely beast….Our City has many artistic horses throughout town in honor of Horse Country or Derby…not sure which?  The program is called Gallopalooza.  Life size horse statues are painted colorfully and are bought by individuals or cooperations.



Took myself out to dinner last winter and found the perfect spot!



Bridges can be intimidating….but…the trick is to “see the patterns”, cuz they are there.



That same bridge, but on the Indiana side!  Beautiful day for drawing too

Plein Air….Florals

So for the July Watercolor Challenge….I thought I’d try florals in a still-life mode.  It was fun!



Then later that month, I thought I’d try a single rose.



In August….I tried this floral. Should’ve done more flowers…I think I was concentrating on the greenery.



And who amongst us does not like hanging florals?  Good July purchase which doubled as a Daily July watercolor challenge.



Another July watercolor daily challenge piece!  I believe in florals…bring them in to add to environmental beauty and health benefits!  All that Oxygen (O2)…gotta love it



One early summer day….I stayed in the car and painted these gorgeous hanging florals from an outdoor nursery…..then it started to rain!  Thankful for the cover.



And most recently….last week…my view from my studio!  My Christmas cactus is blooming…so I must doing something right

Plein Air….Sports

I have used Windows Live Writer as my blogging editor since 2010.  I loved it and it was intuitive and Free!  But Windows dropped supporting it back in Oct 2015, which left me in a bind.   I posted a few posts thru blogger in 2016, but found it cumbersome and lacked much of the functionality that I enjoyed with Live Writer.

I am happy that Live Writer went open source and there are people out there that have figured out a way to make this work for your average non-html code writer like me.  I’m back to blogging and will be posting picture/drawings here that I drew last year but was unable to post.    If you follow me on Instagram you will be familiar with some of the drawings.  Since my head likes to keep things organized and I have missed this way of indexing my art.  I will be posting them now with my notes about the process.

Here goes…

I was getting stir crazy to draw after Christmas last year and found my way onto some competitive wind-surfing sites.  So….I did what I do and drew a picture from my computer monitor.



Ideally I would’ve rather drawn these in person….or better yet…wind-surfed myself.
But alas, since I haven’t wind-surfed since my late 20’s, I don’t think I would’ve been up for the physical challenge…so that left me with the mental challenge.



Every time I sit down to watercolor things like this, I picture beautiful and whimsical watercolor paintings, where you catch a glimpse of small details thru the way the colors of watercolor have been absorbed onto the paper!…..Well, that’s what I pictured…but what happens in real-time….. details…..I start drawing in all those little details.



When I come to terms with the fact that detail-painting seems to be my style… I’ll take a shot at something like this.  I find that I can relax amongst all those angles, features and components.  And....change the color of my bike in an instant, haha.



When my instagram feed was loaded with images like this during the Summer Olympic Trials last July……Again….my head saw more flowy-colors and swirling-whimsy…but my hand drew details.



So…for this drawing I girded myself to just go-for-the-detail and not worry about recreating a whimsy-watercolor piece.



And to close… a simpler piece from a few years ago…that I took out and touched up last year…..Detail-Apparent!

Block Letters.... I, B, Z

After nearly 2 years, I’ve completed this Alphabet Block Series.  I liked it and it was lots of fun.





If I had a scanner with me on the go, I would’ve scanned each letter at this stage.

But hence….I own no such on-the-go scanner.  Bummer.









And here’s the B…..I did two B’s, the first one back from this post, was a freehand B.  Early on I started using alphabet stencils.  Kept things consistent.












And to finish this series off, here is the Z.












Now….what to do with all these letters!!  Oh my, the options are limitless.  I cannot wait to get started!