New Torn Paper Painting Fish

Yep...another goldfish. It had been quite a long time since my last goldfish...so I thought it was time to throw another one of them into the collection.

I know that the beachscapes are the big item at the moment...but I kinda like these guys too.

They do take more time and are certainly a bit harder...but the end result is lovely I think.

Happy Accidents

That's what some of my art teachers would call it when you discovered something wonderful...by mistake.

That just happened to me the other day. I was going to drop some concentrated liquid watercolor onto some rice paper for some colors I wanted to be using in my paper paintings.

The weather has been ugly, so I was doing it in my art room but needed something good and waterproof to put the rice paper on.

I had been given some wallpaper books quite a while ago that were these rather large sheets of vinyl wallpaper. I decided to use those.

I turned the wallpaper over so the most coated side was down, protecting the table surface. Then I got nice and messy with the watercolors. When I was done, I left the room to let them dry.

When I returned and started to pick the rice paper up...the wallpaper was almost as beautiful as the paper I had actually intended to paint!! I couldn't get over it. The colors blended sooo beautifully that, instead of it being something merely to protect my surface, it became something that I just NEEDED to use as well.

Sooo....that was when I decided to make an envelope out of it for the latest mail art swap. The theme for this one was "transportation"...and I think this will work out perfectly.

Don't you just love a happy accident!?!

The Painted Inch

I don't usually join in too many "Inchies" swaps because...let's face it...doing art on 1"x1" isn't all that easy.

There are, however, some themes that come up that I simply can't resist! Can you even image me not joining a "seaside" themed inchie swap!?! Roc...you had me at "sea"!

Soo...I did little watercolor beach dune inches. Hope I never have to paint on a smaller scale than this!

Koi...a new "direction"

I decided to give a try to changing the direction that I normally make my koi swim. Seems like a simple thing. After all, if someone wanted to buy two...it would be nice if I had more than one direction, right?!

Well....I finally did one swimming the other way. Wow. What an eye opener it was to do the first one this way.

Being a right -hander, I was comfortable in making them swim toward the right. Never really thought about why I was doing that...just that it seemed natural. I can now understand why being a righty has much to do with that decision. Making this one swim left was waaay harder than I expected. Not a natural move at all.

I'm hopeful that after having broken ground and made my right and left brain work together on this one, it'll get a bit easier to make others.

Big Eyed Gals

Just recently I took part in an art magnet swap. For the longest time I felt my muse had decided to take a nap every time I tried to come up with something for this. Then, thankfully, this little critter woke up and decided to play!

In my art room I discovered a collection of tiny wooden pieces in different shapes. Always amazes me what I can find in that room given enough time..lol

I started playing around with these pieces and .... after enough moving around of these things the light suddenly went on!! I could see what needed to be done! Yay!

I broke out the acrylic paints and glues and magenets.....and BAM..... my big eyed gals were born!!

New swaps

A new month brings along brand new art swaps! Yay.

For my Nature Challenge swap I decided the theme would be "mushrooms" this month. They have a bit of whimsy about them. I know that every year in my yard I must see about 20 different types of mushrooms. From the ones that look like sheer lace to others that seem to take on a life of their own.

For this challenge the format is a 3"x3" (trinchie) magnet. Here's mine. I had to take a pic instead of a scan because the mushroom is dimentional from the background. I don't know why but I so often think of red with white dots when thinking of mushrooms...lol