Yellow challenge

Hmmm this did start as my yellow everydaymatters challenge...i was going to paint the squash...but instead it turned into more Summers Bounty...bytw i think its funny that the squash were the easiest part of this to paint...and WHY didnt i pick out some interesting really crooked summer squash??? OH well..these wc are getting expensive buying fruit and veggies to paint...better get them eaten:>

My questions...too much NOT like a watercolor...colors to dense??? TOO realistic??? or does that matter...and background...should there be one...this is about 14x11 Canson watercolor journal

Painted on wc paper with W&N wc and DS wc....div>

Summer fruit

Bought some strawberries and blueberries yesterday for my son to feed into the ever whirring blender for smoothies with EWUUUU WWWW whey...he drinks them round the clock...
Painted in my moleskine wc tablet with DS WC....I scraped some of the highlights into them with the box cutter....all purpose tool!
I think this one needs a shadow under it...I was just trying out layering colors on the back of another sketch with this one...but it turned out pretty well i think...i actually was patient for once and let the colors dry in between instead of adding more color while they were wet...

So today i was at borders

drawing people...one guy was really fun to draw...lollying back in his chair completely relaxed reading a Pro Football mag...these were drawn in my wc moleskine with a hmm sepia pitt pen...now the problem is the paper is sooo thin i want to wc them...

I felt like the spider with a fly in my web when this girl sat down to read....it was ah ha someone else to draw...

Maybe i was caught in the act..this guy didnt sit long but got up before i was done...maybe he knew my drawing was bad:> he must have known i ruined his nose...he was a handsome guy...oh well...two out of three is not bad...

Requiem for three great trees

As some of you know we had a wild storm Monday...I painted this picture to remember three of the biggest and mightiest that are meeting thier sad fate with the chain saw right now...I guess they will keep us warm this winter but these enormous trees shouldnt be firewood...so which way do you like it better?

So do you like it vertically or horizontally? I painted it horizontally and threw some salt on the watery background....leaves l-r sycamore, white oak, water oak(70 feet easy and uprooted from the ground!)


This is a picture of posing bad kitty before the storm ...he was enjoying lollying on the back deck till the howling winds and rain hit....this cat has more poses in him than a paid model! and since hes an outside cat there is always a great view of him on the deck to watch his antics...

roses roses roses and a dog...

so i decided to skip three steps on the stairs today and try to break my right leg...dont worry...i landed on my too fat knee not the knee cab...and so far its just bruised...hopefully tomorrow I will not feel worse as all my friends are predicting so i have been sitting around freezing it to death with ice and keeping it raised...good opportunity for painting...and this is what i did...
I do need to paint and draw him more...one sad day he will be gone...bytw hes a jack russell terrier...all his spots are on the other side..this side is all white but his ear...his mom was a white jack russell from england...the brits love JRs...i think Prince Charles has several...great dogs...




first this is our old dog charley not a pig:> hes a sweety and he can be as fat as he wants at 14 ...that would be hmmm 98 in our years....an OLDDD MAN which is exactly what he is...
Rose 3 attempt with salt on the background...daniel smith wc in my large wc moleskine
SO i painted the roses i bought two days ago to draw ...and oh my were they a pain..this is the THIRD painting...and i still need to work on the one leaf...top right ....but its far better than the first two tries at the same rose...i kept rearranging the leaves...artistic license...so we have rose 1, 2, and 3 for your viewing pleasure

Rose 1 attempt Rose #2 attempt

So we met ETV Roadshow and

Getting ready for the big event...we got there about 5 i think...and i thought they could interview me then BUT NO...not till 7:32....it was LIVE OH NO...Broadcast LIVE across SCarolina....oh no oh no...you would have thought a crowd of people would show up BUT they didnt...of course McCormick County only has 10000 residents in the whole county. so huge crowds are not possible...but come on...only 30 or so showed for this event right in the center of town...tv cameras, stars of etv, interesting happenings so we were early and we were hungry...this tv stuff is HARD work:> Joyce and Kim heading to Fannie Kates...is that the name for dinner...interesting place...THe Barber shop quartet...waiting and waiting and waiting...I never did hear them sing..hmm I never did see what was on tv...except for jeff..we discovered that SCETV conveniently had provided a big flat screen tv for you to watch...when it was almost over...but just in time to hear the train blast thru town...

a few residents did show up-but most of them were involved in the taping...and are waiting on the steps of the Mac(center for the arts). The Mac is an old hotel that has been renovated for ...hmmm well jeff has a studio here and they give art shows...theres also a gift shopand this is what they were watching...WHAT you DONT see on TV....the crew setting up and the famous SCETV host Beryl Dakers and I am not sure what the other lady's name was ....was too nervous when she interviewed me...



are still alive to tell about it...and if you hurry you can see us again on Sunday at 4 pm BUT remember its SCETV as IN SOUTH CAROLINA....

there were cameras and lights everywhere...jeff kept saying SHUT off those HOT lights!! Jeff supervising...the quilts set up...hmm Kim couldnt you do better:> I mean you took a zillion shots of MOI which NOONE Is going to see:>
me saying THANK GOODNESS ITS OVER!!! and Jeff helping take the quilts down...

And NOW its time for Jeff to go on...let me outta here:> THats me in the bottom right corner ...barely:> Breathing a SIGH of relief!
SO finally Its JEFFS turn...and here comes the train...hooting and BLOWING its HORN ...not 20 feet from where hes being interviewed...what luck...

Heres another shot of Jeff...just cause hes so cute and photogenic...lucky there was someone there who was...it wasnt MOI! This nice lady's name is Bobby Kennedy ...shes in charge I think...isnt that what she told us...shes very nice...all the way from Columbia...I KNOW its only what 60-80 miles away???:>

OKAY...goodbye Joyce, Jeff and Sam and McCormick, SC...come on Kim lets go home...bytw i fell asleep on the sofa almost as soon as i sat down...

RERUNS of this FUN TIME SUNDAY 4:00 PM ON SCETV CHANNELS

Is it day number nine already??? & Challenge 118

Hair...i am counting this one as my hair challenge!!Emily in a ballet pose...this was taken probably at 1 am ...we were playing around with my new mac book pro...you know PHOTO booth...if you have never tried it ...go to your nearest mac dealer and try it out...great fun....and we stayed up wayyy tooo late playing with it...

Well i think i futzed around longer with this one but i did let it dry first in between layers of paint...around her mouth got a little ummm splotchy???but its not bad...and it rather looks like her...my sons fiance....you know ...the one whos graduating from law school Friday:> Shes no slouch herself...working on her phd in nanophysics...which is some kind of microscopic physics..inventing a microscopic computer...for ...i dont know what....i will just paint them and record their travails...

The cousins

is actually a grouping of a couple of pictures i took of the k kids dressed up in their sunday best or Easter best on Wednesday...these kids realy dont even know each other..well the two on the left do but they dont know the girl on the right...shes the one of barrette fame...her mom does such a wonderful job dressing and grooming her...shes always neat as a pin and dressed up so cutely...there are other kids that dress like she does but not on a daily basis....

OK i did this in the charles reid style...well i tried too...and it was easier doing one face at a time... i started with the one on the left working to the right...faces first( bytw i think the face on the right is the best), then dresses starting in the middle and then the legs and lastly the background...

I think they turned out well for my first wc of a human figure...the only others i have done have been with pen and wc usually wc pencils....one thing that following his way of painting does is that it keeps you from overpainting one area because once you are done he doesnt go back to the area other than small touches....anyway not bad i think

the weeks slew of daily drawings

i definitely have a fascination for these now....and keeping it up like crazy...which is something of an amazement to me...I rebel at ANYTHING i have to do on a daily basis...something to do with that a daily job is enough commitment???? SO HERE THEY ARE!!!!

These have all changed since i scanned them so i will be rescanning and post them again later today or tomorrow I HOPE:>

And these are my portraits drawn by one of my very talented kindergartners...I think shes pretty good even if i dont have a ponytail!

My altered fabrics sooo far and

Just to remind you of our great trip:>
This is the cover of Kristi Steiners altered fabric book I am a woman who......in this fun freeing class Kristi teaches 8 techniques to alter fabrics...someone please add to the supply list dont bring fabric you cant paint on...I brought a bunch of Kaffe Fassets and had a hard time messing them up since I think they are perfect the way they are...

This is the only page that I have almost finished....its the collage page...I am sure more beads are coming...everything here is glued together...this page is inkjet transferred images with acrylic medium....you surely do have to rub alot to get them to transfer to fabric...the two on the left lifted and moved around...practice practice practice is needed here:> The one on the right did MUCH better....but i rubbed MUCH more...
This is a stamped page...we all had a great time using everyone's stamps...I blotted it with Sues rust colored stamp pad to get the odd color ...got better at it the more i blotted it with the ink pad...this was supposed to be done with walnut ink but i thought it was too dark..started to dunk it in my tea butt....there was none for once...This is another dyed and stamped page ...it was dyed with Kristis creative dye kit from Country in the City which is supposed to be great for dyeing laces and other fibers too...as well as paper...


This is the second piece of fabric that i did ...i call it the murdered fabric because I did everything to it trying to get it over the uglies...finally got decent overdying it and then I tried to mess it up again making sloppy stenciled fleur de lis...too much paint


This tag was made the same way and I splatted it with hmmm...well they have a tip shaped like a stamp pad inker...but makes these wonderful spots...why didnt i buy some while i was there....got everything else but these!:<

Dyed, dried out by the daffodils and then stenciled using a piece of plastic that wraps clementines....Kristis looked like fish scales but i was in tooo big a hurry when
This was done with gesso mixed with whatever was on the table...then you draw and stamp in it...fun technique

so many more pages to go....and beads to add and trims and who knows what else....after all i am a woman who loves to make art...any art ....

So I promised i would blog our trip to Random

Arts in Saluda NC but darn it took me a while to get to it. We had a terrific time on our trip to Saluda NC to take a class with Kristi Steiner making an altered fabric book...


OK so one of the reasons it took so long was this journal page of our nite and day in the WNC(western North Carolina) mountains of Saluda NC....It takes you from the beginning of our trip to Saluda....if you follow the road.....it was a great trip with great company!!

We spent the nite at a great motel...The Saluda Mountain Lodge....all new, great beds...and an awesome view of the valley...

We went to a terrific little place called the Wildflower Bakery and Cafe for breakfast. The food was awesome....fresh baked breads, danish, a wide assortment of cookies and even fresh dog cookies....YES Kim of course I bought some for my furkids Charley and Jazz!


Then it was on to Random Arts on a lovely spring morning in tiny downtown Saluda NC....here are pics of the town ....Evidently Saluda used to be a booming railroad town with 37 hotels back before the railroad stopped and the depression began....Shots of Main Street...Saluda is now on the Historic Registry because of all the old buildings...down the street the other way...this is an old gas station remodeled into a neat little cafe...hear it has great breakfasts...
We parked in back of this suv advertising GS cookies...too funny....
Our fearless leader during this trip...Ille scoping out the store...and upcoming workshops are behind her ...alot of nationally known artists wander thru this shops doors...


Jan the owner of Random Arts chatting the crowd up! And it was very crowded....twenty or so people in this store...Randoms Art started life as a stamp store but evidently was quickly changed to an altered book and art store...the shop is crammed with all kinds of goodies to alter just about anything...and all kinds of neat things everywhere you look...they even have stuff hanging from the ceilings!!
Lots of goodies for the altered book fan...very interesting stamps...and different from the normal ones at Michaels or Hobby Lobby.....
Ille checking out the stamps...I wish i had gotten some of them...

Shot toward the front door...which
Still shopping
Ille and the owners partner in front of the store...evidently this used to be a movie theater and then a gym for the local highschool.
Kristi Steiner warming up to her subject matter teaching her students altered fabrics. The class project- an accordion book using 8 different fabric altering techniques...it was alot of fun...and I will blog the little i got done next...meant to work on it when i got home but you know how that is!!!


Ille really working on that piece of fabric. I think i killed at least one or two peic
It was a very busy day and every one was working hard....an awesome lunch was served from the Saluda Grade Restaurant...

These daffodils at the church kept guard over our altered fabrics as they dried....
Margaret and Sue with thier loot...there were two margarets on this trip...

Margaret heading down the block to the grocery store for snacks for the trip home...

Thompsons grocery store....