Watercolor

The little things

/ Jodi / 38 Comments

PP241 Clean and Simple Watercolor Butterfly

Long walks on country roads and chats with neighbors along the way.
Raspberry lemonade sipped from a straw on a chaise lounge in the sunshine.
Sunday boat rides with your lifelong partner and a furry companion.
Simple suppers of sausage and potatoes and salad.
Red wine to sip while painting and creating.
Cool breezes and light showers at bed time.
These are the little things,
That are really the big things.

It was a great weekend….  full of “little things.”  So I ended it late Sunday evening by creating this Clean & Simple Watercolor Card for The Paper Players PP241 Challenge this week.  How could I resist a watercolor card?!  🙂  I knew exactly what I wanted to do.

pp241

I’ve been dying to do something watercolory with the SU Swallowtail stamp.  I’ve had it for a while.  It is a very large stamp, and just begs to be watercolored.  I envisioned it offset a bit, and the watercoloring loose and abstract.  I kinda love how it turned out.  A few splatters in blue and the sentiment from the SU Hello Life stamp set that says “the little things” just added the perfect finishing touches.

So Happy Monday!  Enjoy the little things that this day and week brings.

Cheers & Hugs,

Jodi

Watercoloring Week 4

/ Jodi / 29 Comments

watercolor cat tails

I’m trying to work at getting “looser” with my watercoloring.

I surely have a long way to go, but I am having so much fun in the process.

watercolor 6 hibuscus

This hibiscus flower and the cat tails were more tutorials by Lindsay @ The Frugal Crafter.  If this is something you’ve thought about trying, Lindsay really breaks it down into manageable projects.  Hers are so gorgeous and effortless.  I cannot wait to get to that point.  For now, I try – and I enjoy.  Learning to loosen up while drawing and painting.

I’ve watched a few other YouTube tutorials, but so far Lindsay’s have been my favorites.  If you know of others, please do share and let me know.

It is so amazing to allow myself to put pencil to paper again. To brush water on it, and then add paint and watch it spread.  I wish I could describe how glorious it feels.  This last one was just kind of a random time time filler while I was waiting for another to dry.  I was just using the colors and trying to be loose.  It is supposed to be the view I could see from my deck while I was painting (LOL!).

watercolor random trees

Yesterday was so gorgeous…  I started out the day with a long walk in the morning (with my camera and a friend) followed by a bit of gardening, then some relaxing and painting on the deck.  The sun was shining, a breeze was blowing – temps were in the high 70s.  It was simply divine!

Oh – and I was notified that my “Oh Happy Day” card was chosen as a winner in both challenges I entered Friday  The Paper Players and Can You Case It!  Woohoo! How awesome is that?!?  🙂

And then… a sweet friend let me know she was cooking and baking some of my recipes, and she and her family loved them.  YAY!  Lori made the Raspberry Chocolate Chip Cookies, Chicken Caprese Lasagne, and Poppy Seed Cake.  What a way to make a great day even greater – eh?!

I hope you are finding time to do things you love this weekend.

Cheers & Hugs,

Jodi

 

Watercoloring – Week 3

/ Jodi / 61 Comments

watercolor 5 magenta wildflowers in field 0415

Oh how I wish I had more time to play with this medium I am growing to adore!  I am thoroughly enjoying it.

watercolor 3 clover daisy buttercups 0415

Here are a few wildly varied samples of what I played around with this week with drawing and watercoloring.

watercolor 4 flower whimsy 0415

Do you have a favorite?

Thanks for visiting!

Cheers & Hugs,
Jodi

Discovering the FUN in Art

/ Jodi / 59 Comments

watercolor 2 tulip 040415

Can you tell what it is?

This is Watercolor #2 on my journey to learn watercolor painting.

So I have to admit……   I found myself struggling to post this….  Not feeling it is good enough…..  Starting to take this “art” business much much much too serious!  And then one of my sweet bloggie friends, Laura at CreateArtEveryDay, inquired about how my painting was coming.  I told her I was struggling with whether to post or not… what everyone would think…. not wanting people to feel obligated to “Like” or comment….  Wondering if it was “better” than my first  (hubby said yes – son said he liked first better…) Oiy Vay!  Then I worried – Does anyone care about my “art?”  Will they stop visiting my blog if I share less than lovely art work?  Sheesh!

Then wise, sweet Laura encouraged me.  She said (and she gave me permission to share):

If I let those feelings stop me, my blog would be private. I think the point here is encouragement and support and FUN, not perfection. I’ve done all of that second-guessing, but part of making something every day is really forcing me to not worry about what anyone thinks and just post it. Your first flower was really good, I thought. You definitely have talent. It just takes lots of practice to be happy with watercolor paintings (in my experience) and I’m still not there yet. I’ve come to the point that it’s about fun. FUN. And Relaxation. And DE-stressing. Forget everything else. If you painted it and you enjoyed it, that’s all that counts. Your followers love you and they want to share in your experiences and experimentation. At least, that’s how I see it. Otherwise, I’d post nothing, ever.

It’s all about fun. I just want to see you have fun with whatever you do. No one would expect to sit down at the piano and play Beethoven, but people put such high standards on their artwork. (I’m preaching to myself too, believe me.) But for me, this is about growth and happiness and relaxation and healing, more than anything else. So I just can’t take it seriously. I won’t. And I really hope you don’t either. If it’s not fun, it’s not worth it. I really hope you fly and just set yourself free, Jodi! 🙂

How lovely is that?!

Thank you, Laura!

And then I remembered WHY I started this blog…. not for “likes” (though I certainly LOVE your LIKES!)….

Not to “prove” anything….

It is a hobby…. It is my space to share the stuff I love to do at life in between!

So I’m posting it – and you know what?  It was FUN to do!  Fun to watch water and paint create something on paper.

Gallery worthy?  No!

Fun?  Yes 🙂

So last week for my first watercolor, I drew the flower with a pencil first.  For this one, I just “drew” the basic shape with water and paintbrush.  This was another tutorial by Lindsay at The Frugal Crafter.  Lindsay makes it look so simple!  She just whips these up in about 5 or 10 minutes while chatting away and being funny and relaxed and silly.

Wonder if I’ll ever be able to get so free and loose and relaxed while doing this?   I’m a bit “heavy handed” with the paint.   I want to just touch the paper with the brush and watch it “move.”   This watercolor stuff is HARDER than it looks!  (FUN Jodi – FUN!)     I have a new appreciation for some of the talented artists I know that do this now!

Thanks for sharing the journey with me my friends!

Cheers & Hugs,

Jodi

P.S.  Hope you’ll visit Laura’s blog too – she shares a fun new creative experiment every day @ CreateArtEveryday