Sun Flowers and Vase ala Vincent Van Gough

Well I did procrastinate and did not get this done until the eleventh hour. The post for Following the Masters was due today. I really have a hard time with putting that much paint on the canvas. I have tried this a few times before, check the archives! I like the bright colors and found changing up the direction of the brush strokes, well it did not come naturally to me! but here it is. I posted to late to get it on the web challenge but at least I am trying. :-)

St Mary's Cathedral and Old Burial Grounds In Halifax, NS, Canada

This months Virtual Paintout challenge is of Nova Scotia, Canada. I love the Google street gadabout, to find interesting images! This is of St. Mary's Cathedral and the Old Burial Grounds on Barrington St in Halifax.

Airport Travelers

This is my submission for the current DSDF challenge! I can't say I ever tried to draw or paint from this "looking down on" perspective before. Looking at the negative spaces was the saving grace for me, that way I at least got close to the ball park!

San Francisco Roof Tops

This was going to be my submission for the last DSDF challenge, but work got in the way of my fun and I didn't get it done on time. But I did persevere and finish it.

8 Knockbracken Rd S, Castlereagh, Northern Ireland, United Kingdom

This is my submission for the October Virtual Paintout. The challenge was to use Google Street maps in Belfast, North Ireland. I followed a road out of Belfast and found this really cool pastoral scene with old barns, hedges, and open greenbelts.

Anne's Car Journal

My mom is voluntarily hanging up the car keys at the young age of 86. So I made her a journal so that she can write and sketch about the process of stepping into a car-less life. I found car fabric and used nice watercolor paper, with ribbon place keepers and elastic to keep journal closed and to hold a pen. I learn something new every time a make a journal and I find that very exciting.

Sarah's Elvis Quilt

My daughter in law, Sarah, gave me this Elvis fabric and said to make anything I would like. So I made a quilt for her Birthday, today 10/20/09. I used some of the techniques that I learned in a quilting class with Sandi Cummings, at one of the Empty Spools seminars in beautiful Asylomar, California.

Jungle Journals

I got a small book press and a book on bookbinding and waded in. For these two journals I used USPS flat rate boxes for the book boards, fabrics for the overall cover and nice heavyweight watercolor paper inside. I gave the best one, the elephant to my Art Guru Susan. I am really happy with the way they turned out!

Praça do Comércio, Lisbon, Portugal

This is my submission for this month's Virtual Paintout. Praça do Comércio, Lisbon, Portugal. I saw these colorful seats with trees growing in them and thought this might be fun. Well there is a plethora of blue! Water, sky, oh my! In addition, I guess I have never really tried to do clouds before. Well I did learn a lot, not that happy with the outcome, but there you have it!

EDM116 Draw Something Green as in Iguana

I had this really weird dream about large green iguanas. I think that qualifies for Draw Something Green!

EDM17 Draw a musical Instrument

This is my old friend, a 1973 Alvarez Yairi. Back in the day I taught classical guitar at a music studio and studied with Celine Romero at San Diego State.

Rylie Ann Quilt

A friend is having a baby girl next week, so I made a baby quilt. I have three boys, one grandson, so quilting for a girl is a lot of fun for me. This is a log cabin design that takes 26 different fabrics.

EDM239 Draw something that has scared you

What scares me is Falling! I used to ride horses until I got bucked off going over a four foot fence and broke my back. I have to be very careful with my back now, I can't do anything with impact, but walking is your friend. So now I do artwork, quilting, and gardening.

Josh in New Mexico

Josh In New Mexico. My sister Barbara went on a road trip with her son Joshua, in the summer of 2008. They drove from Irvine, California to New Mexico, Arizona and back. Kudos to them! Barbara gave me this photo of Josh with a New Mexico sunset and I thought I would use this to hone my skills at silhouettes, man are they hard! Then the painting had dark areas and that was hard to photograph. Geez! This is the best I could do on the photography end. I really think this does not give the painting justice, but there you have it.

EDM236 Draw My Left Palm

Zentangles

I found this website on Zentangle, so I tried it. I find that it is somewhat like doodling with a purpose. The white 3.5” square did not talk to me at first, and then I remembered that: what do I do when I am on the phone for an extended period. I doodle. Yes, it is mostly stars, squares, and curly-cues…but that, as far as I can tell, is what Zentangle is about. Zen, well we all kind of know what that is, and tangle is a pattern. So you let loose and make patterns in spaces as you go along. Real easy, eh? No. You have to try it than tell me that it is easy to make REAL art of it…

Blue Dragonflies

Last Sunday evening, when my kid was off to work and my DH was watching the Little League Championships; I had a few peaceful moments to myself. I went to the porch of the cottage, to be with my garden. The thunder beings started rumbling, lightening flashed, and as I sat watching, a flight of dragonfly swarmed and swooped over my garden. The dragonfly antics always make me smile. Then all of a sudden all the dragonflies flew into the palms. There is a beautiful five-foot ponytail palm just outside of the circle of my medicine garden and near the porch, and the biggest blue dragonflies alit on the lower fronds. I went to the end of the porch closest to the ponytail palm and I could see their beautiful markings. Then it came to me, why were all the flyers finding shelter in the leaves of the garden? Then the lightening flashed and the thunder beings roared, and the rain came down in sheets. The big blue dragonflies were totally out of the rain, sheltered by the palm fronds. How beautiful! The dragonflies are so much more in touch with nature and creation; they knew when to wait out the storm, just Amazing. As quickly as the storm came, after fifteen minutes it was gone, and the dragonflies, took flight!

EDM235 Draw a Butterfly

I saw a photo of this Butterfly in a Magazine on Endangered Flora and Fauna that I get because I support things like the national resources defense council. I thought I would try covering an open spread in my journal using crayons as a resist, and watercolors and micron pens. I am pretty happy with the results, though I need more practice with watercolors.

Colorado River Drought

I am trying to get back into writing in my journal, so here is one of my first attempts. I saw this article on how the Colorado River supplies delivered to Southern California have been reduced by as much as half because of the record dry conditions for eight of the last nine years! I tried a new way of doing this, I put the watercolor down first and when it was dry I went back and added the details with Micron Pens.

Sun Flowers

My sister Barbara came to visit me in Florida and we did art. We had a great time setting up our still lifes and getting the lighting just so. We got new Hand-Book Travelogue Journals at Jerry's Artarama along with a new travel watercolor kit for me! :-) Cathie's Sun Flowers

Barbara's sunflowers

Feathers

My Sister Barbara Came to visit me here in Florida and I got her to do some are with me! The First Painting is mine, the second painting is hers.

Cathies Feathers

Barbara's feathers

Sanaiy Carpets, Chelsea, London

This is my submission for the Virtual Paintout challenge. This is very cool! The city this month was London, England. You go to Google Maps and let the little yellow guy walk you through the streets until you find something interesting. So there you have it. Sanaiy Carpets caught my eye because of the lady looking in the window with the stroller, and the Starbucks Coffee with people sitting street side enjoying café. I went to Jerry’s Artarama and got new Watercolor paints, and gave it my best shot. I know I need more practice!

San Francisco Street

July was not a great month for art for me. So I decided to start small with the current DSDF challenge of a of San Francisco street scene. I have been working mostly with acrylics lately so I got out an old watercolor set. It was so old that the tubes were harder than hockey pucks, so I squeezed out what I could and mixed what colors I could. I believe a trip to Jerry’s Artarama is in order! I have never been very comfortable with watercolors they are SO unforgiving! But I think I will get a basic set and try my hand at it again. I looked at some of the work by Danny Gregory and got inspired. Hope it rubs off on my Journal. :-)

Travels to Boone

I went to Boone North Carolina for three weeks vacation. Again I thought I would sketch lots, but intentions as you know don’t always materialize into reality. We did take a lovely drive up to Beech Mountain (one of the highest points on the east coast) and went to Buckeye Lake. My DH was fishing so I tried out some colored pencils. I haven’t done many sketches with reflections so that is what I tried to get in perspective. The sketch is so-so but the Lake and afternoon were spectacular. On the back deck of the cabin where we stayed were table and chairs to enjoy the wonderful cool afternoons. I got a beautiful pot of posies so did try to draw those using colored markers. Done very fast. I didn't do the posies justice but there you have it...

Travels to San Diego

I went to San Diego for a mountain retreat up in the mountains around Julian. I was very busy, and had planned to sketch in the journal more, but for all my intentions I only made a few quick sketches. There were about fourteen women and we had great conversations, ceremonies, and hikes. We stayed at a lovely house with a fantastic view of the mountains.

The house, “Corgi’s Castle”, as we called it had a lovely vegetable garden.

One of the exercises we did was an art project. We wrote questions on the back side of the paper, mixed them up so we didn’t know which was which then started answering the questions with collage and paint. These are mine. And it was amazing how the art answered the correct question. Synchronicity!

The Sweat...

The Bee Goddess...

Desert Fire Hawk

A birthday gift for Laura.

Golden Fire Eagle

A birthday gift for Marilyn

Shining Turtle

A birthday gift for Dina

Owl Dreamer

A birthday gift for Ciny A

Lotus Flower

A Birthday gift for my sister Barbara.

Summer Veg

This is the current challenge from the DSDF blog, Georgia grown summer vegetables, corn, tomatoes and onion, lots of color and a fresh look. I hope I have achieved that!

Pennsylvania Farmland

This is my submission for the DSDF challenge. We were to take a black and white photo of a farm scene in Pennsylvania and give our own color take on it.

La Bonne Franquette

Susan turned me on to a new challenge! The Virtual Paintout! This month’s challenge was of Paris. We were to peruse the Google street views of Paris and choose a scene and paint that. I chose a tavern in the Montmartre district. This is a very cool challenge. I spent a week in Paris with my sister Barbara and my son Daniel in September 2003. This brought back really nice memories!

Moon and Stars

Well since the last painting ala Vincent didn’t go quite so well, Susan and I decided to try again, this time of moon and stars with clouds. I did manage to get the paint on really thick. I tried using a pallet knife, and I have never used a pallet knife like this before. The color combinations are better this time, and I feel that the brush strokes were better. The stars are a bit out of proportion to the moon, but this is a learning experience after all.

Grand Canyon

Susan and I had a challenge to paint the Grand Canyon ala Vincent Van Gogh. This is my attempt. I think I need to study Van Gogh more carefully. I have a really hard time putting paint on the canvas really thick. I got the paint on there but I am not sure of the color combinations or the brush strokes. But hey, I did give it a good try!

New York City Street

This is my attempt at the current DSDF challenge. I cannot remember doing a street scene before this. I have only been to NYC once and that was way back in the summer of 1981, when I went to visit my sister Barbara who lived in Manhattan. To help get a feeling of tall buildings I chose a 6x12 canvas. Then just started sketching and found that getting the perspective right was really hard for me. Then the photo was just too busy so I simplified. I am pleased with the outcome though.

Cathie visits Boise Idaho!

I made my annual pilgrimage to Boise Idaho April 16-26. Susan and I have been friends since elementary school and “Brownies”. I know I am one of the lucky ones in life to have a long and fast friendship, like the one that Susan and I share, that has lasted through getting married, having kids and moving to different states. This friendship is a true treasure and a blessing.

This vacation we hiked the foothills around Boise, picked out roses for the garden, Cooked, painted and a real treat for me, camping! In Florida, camping reeks of bug spray and bugs, heat, humidity, sand, and did I mention Bugs! So camping in cool, dry and a new place for me was great! We camped in the Craters of the Moon National Preserve.
Susan is a great art teacher, or as affectionately call her, Oh Art Guru! I got to try a new technique for me, glazing. We set up a still life of a green cast iron tea pot and cup, carefully marking where the cup and tea pot were situated as to be able to drink the tea as we worked. The first painting in each pair is mine, then Susan’.

Next we drew from an image from Wet Canvas of a flower pot on a shelf. This time we started with black gessoed canvas and the goal was to save some of the black to define the image. This was great fun. I really liked this style.

The last set of paintings is from a photo I took of a very happy Susan resting after great hiking in front of her new trailer.