Red, White, Blue Quilt

I really want to finish this quilt. I've decided to leave the top as it is and not make it bigger or put a border. So I need to figure out what to do with the back. I've already decided to make it something like Pink Lemonade with different fabrics cut into blocks. And I want to make it with all the colors, so it will be like a two-sided quilt. So I sifted through the old stash and picked out this group of fabrics.

Now I just need to whittle it down to something reasonable. But it really is so fun to look at all these wonderful colors!

Watercolor painting of a village on a hill, v2. Plus, fall colors

Recently I posted about a watercolor painting of a village on a hill - I gave the first version to someone and needed to make another one for someone else. Here is the second version:

I added some foliage in the foreground to give the bridge something to disappear into. You can't see from my cropping of the first version (below), but the bridge just ended without really going to anything on either side. The buildings are smaller in the second one. The coloring is a bit different. I do like both, for different reasons.

Fall colors spotted yesterday:

And:

Also, here are some greeting cards I made using the painted page from my last post. I cut up my favorite parts, then cut out some bristol in various sizes (but particularly 10"x7", folded in half = 5"x7").

Experimenting with: Viva Inka Gold Metallic Rub and Luminarte Artist Pigments

We found some new colorful pigments and inks to play with! First is the Inka Gold Metallic Rub by Viva Colour, which really looks like shoe polish in the container, and it's rubbed on nearly the same way. You can't see it in this photo but it's really shiny and quite a nice gold. I also tried two colors of the Primary Elements artist pigments by Luminarte. The pigments come in a small jar, and it's powdery and you add it to medium - I added it to matte gel medium. The dark orange color at the top and around the blue circles is 'Ginger Peach' and the blue circles are 'Bolivian Blue' - they really are very shimmery and lovely.

I used watercolor and gouache for most of the underlying colors, plus a little bit of green and yellow Golden Fluid Acrylics for the green, then added some block printing inks (Speedball) with a brayer and stencils - we also got two new stencils, including the large circles one that you can see on the left side over the yellow and orange, and a hexagon one on the right side over the yellow. Some shimmery Irridescent Pearl Golden Fluid Acrylics on bubble wrap pressed over the middle added a wonderful shine to the whole situation.

And this is a little piece I did recently when showing a friend how to play around with paints. We were originally making a house in the middle with trees on either side, a stormy sky above, and a river in front.

Mine became quite a bit abstract in the process and I added some circles at the end. I love color and there really is no wrong way to make art. There are certain techniques and 'rules' you can follow if you're trying to accomplish a certain thing, but otherwise, it's wonderful to be able to add color wherever you want on the paper, and make shapes and you can always add a layer of white gesso to cover up something you don't like and go again! I put my name on there with a Montana Acrylic Paint Marker, which writes nicely over dried paint.

Bird with a gold hat on a ball, salamander, lemon, flowers, birdhouse: Process Post

I had an idea for a bird on a ball with a grid of colors. I wanted the ball to stand out (appear round) with most everything else appearing flat in comparison. I made this idea sketch:

Then I made a similar sketch with pencil on a 14"x17" piece of Bristol 100lb vellum (Utrecht Art Supply) which is my paper of choice recently. It holds water well and pen does not bleed. I used watercolor, gouache, Golden Fluid Acrylics, pencil, Pitt Pen and Sharpie pen for this painting.

I started filling in colors, and adding designs, with no real idea in mind ahead of time except for the bird and the ball. I added a salamander (or whatever that is) and some latticework and flowers and dots and stars. I added a birdhouse and a lemon and some stripes. Of course I've got to throw in some little houses!

At some point I realized the colors were like rays emanating from the lower right corner, so I tried to make each 'ray' its own color. Plus there is that stripe of yellow going from left to right a few inches from the top.

More than anything, it was interesting to watch this evolve, color-wise. I love bright colors, of course, and I love having a flow of color and value across the page. In some ways this composition of color and value reminds me of a quilt I made. I love the colors in that quilt.

And then I finally got around to painting the ball and the bird. I gave him a gold hat!

Plus a few more details, then I went over parts of it with a black pen (a Sharpie fine point as well as a Pitt artist pen (Black 'M' - I think the M stands for the fineness of the tip, but I'm not sure). Here are a few detail photos: