Painting Fun and Flowers

I was having difficulties uploading photos in my last blog post, so a second post this week. Paint has been dripping in the studio.  ;-o  But that's a good thing. And fun. Starting with a sky and some water:

adding in the trees and some rocks

The rocks around the island disappear in the morning mist, and everything looks a little magical.

ink and watercolour

a revisited painting
I added more rocks and sand, and dropped some rain

This was an old painting with just the leaves. I added some darks in the upper right corner

and some along the bottom.
Is it finished?

Hmmm, I don't know yet.

maybe it looks better this way?

no sketch, but a few pen lines

the road is out of perspective with regards to the figure and the dog

The perspective is better, but still not correct. I lost the freshness of the greens, I think. I wonder  if I can bring it back?
maybe...........

My mother-in-law's tongue has flowered again. It must like the south window shaded by the large maple tree.

In the gardens, the rose of sharon are blooming. Since this is their first year, I was surprised that 3 of the 4 are in flower. So far they're all the same colour.

The petals look so soft and delicate.

 pretty purple blooms

The marigolds are planted around the tomato plants to help keep pests away. Because of the summer drought, the tomatoes grew poorly: the marigolds, however, have done very well.  hmmm
I hope you've had a fun and creative week.

Thanks for visiting.
Hugs from Suz

August Begins

Happy August! I hope this month brings us more rain and cooler temperatures. Sorry I missed last week's posting, but I was having technical difficulties with our internet and had to wait a day for the technician to arrive.
On those too-hot-to-garden days, I hid indoors and played with thread and paint.

These are repeats of former paintings that I'm doing for practice. Some of the originals were done in a rush on location, so this time I'm considering and painting slowly, trying to improve on the result.

I liked the bold yellow in this exercise, but felt that perhaps the painting could be a little softer.......that might allow for a gentler foreground.

So then I began another in softer tones. I stopped at this point to let the paint dry. I may continue just to see the difference a softer beginning can bring to the final result.

Then I began this rendition of an old painting.  Sorry I forgot to take more photos, but I was in painting mode.....

This one turned out much nicer, brighter, and fresher than the original, so I'm quite pleased with it.

I might punch up the foreground flowers a little with some added definition. Maybe.











I've been spending most of my stitching time on the wrapping cloth, adding a buttonhole stitch edging to each piece, then joining the pieces together, also with buttonhole stitch.

the right side

another piece to add

the left side

growing

draped over the loveseat

there are edged pieces awaiting their placement

the free-form tat is getting another addition, but this is how it looked before I added another row, more beads and picot rings

How the tat looks now. Sorry it's a bit blurry. I think once the beaded picot rings are finished,  the motif will be complete. But, you never know. I may change my mind. lol




That's all the stitching so far. I'm working on another fabric card which I'll show when it's all done and mailed away. Here's how my desk looks:

The fabric card is for my sister, and she loves blue!

In the garden, there is a lovely crop of beans. I picked a few for supper.

Yum!




Thanks for visiting.

Hugs from Suz

March Wanes

Even though March roared in, it doesn't look as though it'll be creeping out in a lamb-like fashion. The weatherman warned that more snow and an artic vortex is coming our way. !
Aw, c'mon! It's almost April!
My DH shared his cold with me. Sometimes I think he takes that "share and share alike" concept just a little too far!    lol      So that means I've just been doing some simple stitching.
Lots of buttonhole stitch, buttonhole lace, and a few french knots on the wrapping cloth so far.

I laid out the completed wrapping cloth pieces (and 2 awaiting tacking) to guage just how large my wrapping cloth might be when all the pieces were edged and joined together. The measure on the tape is at 48". I suspect the finished cloth will be ~ 3.5' x 4.5' if I don't add more pieces (except to fill in holes)

This piece of lutradur was painted with metallic paints. I then drew a pattern onto the surface with a brown sharpie.
Using 2 of  Lorraine's threads, in variegated green/yellow/blue  I began to backstitch.
(#8 perle cotton colours #28 and #158)

The metallic paint made the surface glow beautifully and the result reminded me of  beautiful verdigris on copper.

 I began to stitch on a second piece of painted lutradur. I used another of Lorraine's variegated threads for the fancy stitched hexagons.
(#8 perle cotton colour #6)

I love how rich this looks.

 I wanted to play with some paints, so I made several background pieces. These will turn into cards, or doodles, or maybe backgrounds for stamping or gelli prints.

 I love the drips and watching them merge to create new colours.

Wanting a bit more play with paints, I made a pile of small doodle-bits. Some may be a bit dark, but I'll have fun experimenting.

a small selection

 Using gel pens, markers, gelatos and paint, the following 3 pieces took shape. I may use them on cards or in a journal, or as a tag. They are fun!

You can see the shimmer of the metallic paint

These doodle-bits could become addictive. ;-)

Will I add stitch to some of these?
Maybe.



That's my week. I hope yours has been a fun and creative week, too.

Hugs from Suz