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I'm Hanging In A Museum. Surprise!

Jeanette Jobson found the craziest website somewhere online and posted a link on her blog. I just had to try it out. Ever wish you could have a piece of your artwork hanging in a museum? C'mon...I know you have. Well, now you can...sorta.

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Go to Jeanette's blog(I have her on my blog roll), check her April 19th post and you too can be hanging in a museum. *grin*

Twinrocker Paper Samples Received

I just received my samples from Twinrocker Handmade Paper. They sent 81 samples(!) in all, each approx. 3"x 5". I wanted to post a few of my favorites but it was so hard to choose. This is just a small sample of the gorgeous papers they offer. Some are decorative tissues, others more substantial, some very textured and others quite smooth. They even included some crinkled metallics. Where the samples were cut from the edge of the main sheet you can see a deep feathery deckle which I love.

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The Cripple Creek, Willow Creek and Fifth Avenue samples have an almost flannel-like appearance. Heartland(which I didn't include in my post) is made with bits of corn husks added. It's very subtle and would work beautifully with watercolor. Even though the Midnight Bamboo would NOT work with watercolor this one blew me away. I love it!

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p.s. my scans don't do these samples justice.

WIP~The Cat That Swallowed The Moon

I've been hard at work trying to make the vision I have in my head for this piece come to life on paper. Nevermind that I have no real reference(this is from my imagination...scary, huh?), I'm working on HP watercolor paper which I'm not used to working on with a brush and I'm going for effects that a digital artist could probably whip out in no time flat. Ok...enough excuses. Whether this one turns out the way I'd like it to or not I can always try again with knowledge gained.

Starting from left to right, the first image is my grisaille, done with DS Moonglow over a very light wash of D/R permanent yellow. I've applied frisket film over that and I'm preparing for my washes on the background. I drew a circle with an 'F' pencil to indicate where the Moon used to be and added a few drops of Misket fluid to mask out the stars.

The second and third images are successive washes done with DaVinci Indigo and D/R ultramarine violet. I'm shooting for that 'night sky in the forest' look. Before I applied my washes I drew in my fireflies and used Prismacolor colored pencils for the fly's 'fire' and to act as a 'resist' for the paint. I still had to carefully dab out my fireflies with a tissue after each wash. I also gently scrubbed out my ferns after each wash.

The last image is where I'm at now. I've started applying darker and darker washes to the tree and cat, indicating the cat fur, creating texture on the bark. etc. I've left the cat's tail for last for some reason. Maybe I will add some leaves tucked into the tail fur? Right now it's all fine tuning.

Twinrocker Handmade Paper

Recently Robin Neudorfer sent me a link to Twinrocker Handmade Paper. I've been interested in trying out different papers for ink and watercolor...particularily tinted papers. I like the look of certain ink and watercolor washes on antique-y(?) looking backgrounds. Twinrocker offers a variety of papers including watercolor paper and their prices are very reasonable. They also offer two different sample swatch sets for $15 and $30. I ordered the $30 set and can't wait to see what the possibilities are with these papers. I'll keep you posted.

Miss Willmott's Ghost~Revised, Reshot & Reframed

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I revised Miss Willmott. The hard edge/line that ran diagonally from a shadow line on the viewer's left, through the center of the flower and connected with the vein line on the bract on the right bothered me a lot. I softened that and broke the connection by carefully scrubbing it down. I also softened the bottom of the flower center to read better with the light source...hopefully. I recropped to 21"x 13 1/2" and reframed her in a wider frame. I reshot my photo outside. Yes, it's sunny and fairly warm here today! Consequently the colors are much more accurate.

Miss Willmott~First Trial

Still fiddling with the composition on this! I also used the Fabriano Uno 140# paper. IMO, it's lousy for glazing but I managed to get some interesting effects in the background. I was slapping on paint, spraying it down with water, rolling my board and letting it do it's thing. I had water and paint everywhere. Man, it was fun! After cropping, this wound up approx. 18" x 13 1/2" and I 'virtually' framed it with a white mat and frosted pewter frame. My palette was primarily Daniel Smith Moonglow and Phthalo green(I think I got a little FUB in there somewhere for good measure).

Any and all opinions are welcome on this one. The photo isn't the best(it's yellow-y) but it's cloudy today so it's the best I can do for now. When we get some sun I'll repost this.