seascape

Take Flight

/ Jodi / 52 Comments

Take Flight.

Take flight
above
the turquoise sea,

amidst
the pink and golden
sky.

Stretch
your wings
and soar so high,

let
freedom
guide your heart.

Embrace
the feelings
that you get

when you are
creating
art.

Cheers & Hugs,
Jodi

Just some words and feelings that came to mind when looking at this 5-minute practice painting I did one day experimenting with techniques.

What did I do?  I dropped in some granulating colors – lunar black and quinacridone gold to a wash of alizarin crimson.  I then splashed in some creamy white gouache to create a soft, but dramatic sunset sky.  I scraped in some flying sea gulls with a couple simple scrapes of a palette knife.  I blended cobalt teal with a dab of prussian blue and splashed in some more creamy white gouache.  I then splashed some drops of water from a mister bottle and dropped in just a couple flakes of sea salt.    I then walked away and waited for the magic to happen…. (the hardest part of all).

 

Watercolor from the Beach

/ Jodi / 56 Comments

sea turtle watercolor card

It was fun to do a little dabbling in watercolor painting while at the beach last week.  And it was hard to think of anything besides the beach to paint while there!

One of the highlights of our little trip, however, was seeing a nest of endangered sea turtles hatch and make their way to the ocean.  72 hatched from the nest of over 100 eggs, and only about 1 percent will make it to maturation.  There was a group of volunteers that guarded the nest and helped them make it to the ocean safely without being scooped up by the birds waiting nearby.  Chances are many will not make it in the sea as so many predators await, but those that do make it to maturity can live up to 80 years.  It is quite fascinating actually, and you can learn more about sea turtles here and here.

So one of my paintings is of a sea turtle making its way into the ocean.

sea gull watercolor card

Another is a very abstract sand, sea, air  painting with a sea gull silhouette flying.

ocean sail boat watercolor card

And the other is just a simple seascape and sky with a sailboat.

I made these three little paintings into note cards to send to my three chicas to thank them for a great GFC week.

Hope you have a great day wherever you are and whatever you are doing.

Cheers & Hugs,

Jodi