Spiritual Bouquet Card

 

I was asked to design a Spiritual Bouquet Card. I chose to do an accordion fold card with 6 panels. This photo shows the inside without text. I left the upper left and most of the 6th, last panel, for text. The back is blank and will have the list of Masses, Rosaries, Devotions, etc. that the group members will be giving to the recipient. The outside dimensions (including the covers) are 5.5 x 30.5. the covers are book board covered with original monoprints. The closure is a gold elastic string with a bow. For a closer look, click on the images to enlarge.

the back      and   front covers

Mountain Lake Landscape

 

This small gouache landscape is 2 1/8" by 5 1/2". It is in my 5x8 Moleskine notebook of buff cardstock. The image is an imagined location, perhaps a scene you might find in Scotland.

Rose Periwinkle

 

I painted this small flower at the beginning of this sketchbook on the same page as the Blue Anemone. I had planned to make more blossoms and add leaves but haven't yet. I have been going back and sketching in the open/empty spaces in this large sketchbook. So often the sketches are out of chronological order, but this doesn't bother me.

Oriental Art Still life

I have a beautifully carved rosewood brush rack that sits on my studio project table. My husband bought it for me while he was on a business trip many, many years ago. This sketch is incomplete and a little wonky. It only shows a portion of the rack and a few of my many brushes. I use the little teapot to add water to my inkstone when I grind my ink.

 

Mother's Day bouquet

Our son brought me flowers for Mother's Day plus a very nice initialed leather notebook. I am very lucky to have such a thoughtful son.

 

The remains of a bouquet

These are the flowers that have staying power from a recent bouquet. Then I added the yellow blooms from our cabbage plant out front.

 

Three Rose

 

These three roses were painted right before they were ready to drop their petals.

The Woods at Dusk

This print was created by multiple reprinting over each other.

 

The Crucifixion

This collage came together over September and October of 2021. These simple basic geometric forms create a bird's eye view of the Crucifixion of Christ. It is an appropriate post for Good Friday.

 

Kandinsky Circles #3

Another fun set of squares and circles. This one was roughly based on primary colors.

 

Kandinsky Circles #2

This set was done the same way as the first set. It was a fun color experiment.

 

Kandinsky Circles #1

After studying Rothko I pick up on Kandinsky. I did 4 sets of these and they were great fun. I picked out six different gel plate prints and cut out six squares and then 3 circles to collages on each square.

 

Silk Scroll

 

I printed directly in the book, collaged a square print over it, then collaged one of my oriental brush pine trees on top. It reminded me of a silk scroll.

Happy Traveler

An oriental brush painting from long ago. I can't remember the source image reference it has been so long ago. But this book seemed like a safe place to hold this happy little guy.

 

Year of the Ox 2021

This is an old suminagashi print that I put in the book to prevent it from getting lost or damaged. But since most of the prints in the Art Mythos III are from 2021 it seemed an appropriate entry. 

 

Off Balance

 

A print with the Rothko influence and a piece of collage from one of my Instax photos.

Open Door

 

untitled

I did a yellow series of prints in the style of Rothko.

 

Fragments

Most years I pick out a couple of artists to study. At the time I did this work I was interested in Rotko's color blockwork. For the past four years, I have been doing printmaking again but placing them in books instead of framing them. Some are prints others are prints combined with collage. Each book spans about one year. But I occasionally go back through a book and add to the images. All are entitled Art Mythos followed by a number. This one is from Art Mythos III. 

 

Pop Corn

 

This week at Making Art Everyday the theme is "at the movies." Monday is Pop Corn.  Not sure if I will keep up with the rest of this week's prompts.

Happy Birthday Cake

 Granted this isn't my best Procreate illustration but it is the second try at this subject and is soooo much better than the first one. This week the Making Art Everyday prompts are about growing in your art. One of the prompts is redo a previous drawing.

Robot

Trying to get metallic shading was a challenge. But here is my little alien landing at a place near you.

 

Fox

 

More fur practice. This time of a fox. His coat is a bit rough but I think his eyes are OK. Not as successful as my cat but I spent a lot less time on this one than on yesterday's cat.  But I have set an unofficial goal to make something everyday and post it to my blog. So that is a success if nothing else. Practice makes perfect or at least better.

Himalayan Cat

This was a fun tutorial but literally took HOURS. Not perfect but I did learn so very much. Plan on doing more furry creatures.

 

Five pots of house plants

 

Another play with Procreate on my IPad of house plants. A simple illustration of succulents and cactus.

Daffodils

The daffodils have been blooming for over a week. I went out yesterday a picked a few after the rain. Sketched and watercolored them this morning over a morning cup of coffee in my large Arteza sketchbook with my waterbrushes. Everything is starting to bud and bloom now.

 

Donut

Once more having fun with illustrating in Procreate. My very favorite donut is the simple glaced one but the pink icing with sprinkles is so much more interesting to make.

 

Shamrock

 

HAPPY BELATED SAINT PATRICK'S DAY

May your pockets be heavy and

your heart be light.

May good luck pursue you

each morning and night.

I forgot to post this one that I made in Procreate on 17 March.

Cactus

Cactus was my fourth houseplant prompt. There are so many different types of cactus and succulents to choose from for subjects. But this is the one that pops into my mind when I first hear the word, cactus.

 

Calathea Plant

I was amazed by the diverse leaf patterns that can be found in the Calathea plant when I went out on the internet looking for reference files. This was my second house plant illustration for the week.

 

Snake Plant

This was Snake Plant was the first prompt for house plants this week. It was fun to play around with different texture brushes like the wood grain. It would have taken forever to draw that texture and I see Procreate as a fun playtime, not a sketching activity I want to spend hours doing.

 

Fiddle Leaf Fig Plant

I have been enjoying playing around with Procreate on my IPad. You can get so many different looks by using the different "brushes" that are available. Most of the illustrations I was creating looked like cartoons, which is fine, but I really like this more painterly style. This week I have been making illustrations of house plants based on prompts from Lisa Bardot's Making Art Everyday.

 

Rhododendron

 

I prefer to paint from life but occasionally I will paint from photos. This is one of those times. We have a purple rhododendron brush in the woods at the side of our house. Every year I plan to paint some of the flowering branches and just don't get around to it before they fade. Well, here are two practice blossoms and a promise to myself to paint the real thing later this year.

Peony Bud

I thought I would try a botanical sketch of this peony bouquet in my large Arteza sketchbook. Not sure why I thought I could do a botanical illustration on this paper. The paper is great for quick simple watercolor and ink sketches but the paper is rough and not framable painting quality. But it was fun. Also this paper is too rough for my good watercolor brushes but works great using nylon bristle waterbrushes. So I decides to just finish the sketch off with ink lines and no additional watercolor.

 

Fresh Lunch Veggies

 

We are still enjoying Blue Apron after about 4 years, maybe longer. It means 3 new recipes every week, so no need to plan every meal; the exact quantity of foods so not a lot of wasted food to throw out; and everything is fresh.

Kalanchoe Plant

 

Enjoying just making simple sketches of everyday objects from my life. This poor plant has gotten very "leggy" and needs some pruning and repotting.

Winter Bouquet

Yesterday I added two pink carnations and the open lily to the freesia sketch. It's interesting that by sketching the flowers separately and only some at a time the bouquet looks quite different.

 

Freesia flowers

At least I think that is the name of these flowers. There were 4 of them in the bouquet I have been painting from. The paper in this Arteza sketchbook is OK for sketching but not fine quality watercolor paper. The sketchbook was very reasonably priced. It is perfect for sketches.

 

rose buds and white mums

More flowers in my large Arteza Sketchbook. There is a nice variety of flowers in this bouquet my son gave to me. Yesterday I sketched the dying roses buds. Then today I did the white mums that remind me of shasta daisies. 

 

Butterfly White Pole Plant (3 different views)

 

I saw a challenge on YouTube, draw the same object from 3 different points of view. So I chose this little potted Butterfly White Pole Plant. I had to go out and find the name of this common house plant.  It came in a pot with some other plants at Christmas time a couple of years ago. It must be very hardy because not only is it still alive I divided it when I repotted it and the other one is doing well also. Well, at least they are both alive.

view at eye level

view from above

view from below

Scarlet Red Ink

 

I received a present of 2 bottles of MontBlanc Scarlet Red Ink to use in my MontBlanc Arthur Conan Doyle fountain pen. The text on the box was drawn with my pen and this ink. This little sketch is in my new large Arteza sketchbook. The weather has been very cold the last few days and now it is snowing. So I am not getting out to photograph my watercolor sketches. The outdoor lighting is so much better than my flatbed scanner. But I want to post more so this will have to do. 

Gerber Daisies

 

Not quite keeping up with my daily page sketch. I did this ink sketch of these flowers yesterday and started to add watercolor. But it was today before I finished. The vase could use a table to sit on for grounding. But I am posting more regularly.

Blue Anemone

I bought 2 Arteza 8.3"x11.7" cold press watercolor/mixed media sketchbooks last year. I had hopes for sketching in ink and watercolor every day, filling a page a day. Well, maybe I will meet this expectation before 2023. This little flower only filled half of one page.