Getting Fancy Didn't Pay off!

Hi There,
 I just looked at the post that I sent out yesterday. My " Bird of Paradise" painting is followed by line after line of pale yellow stripes. That was my attempt to place a background color behind my text. FAIL! I will have to contact my Blog Support Staff ( Yes, that is YOU Dianne) to see if I can fix it.
Stay tuned!

Bird of Paradise

I think that creating a painting is like opening a  present. With much anticipation you unwrap your gift to see whats inside. The present might be something that you have been expecting or it might be something that is a complete surprise.

A heavy piece of blank watercolor paper is like that present. In my mind, I know what I am anticipating my finished painting to look like. As I put paint to paper, my gift slowly begins to appear, much like the unwrapping of that present. What my finished picture looks like is always a surprise! That is the beauty of watercolors, they often have a mind of their own. When I work with watercolors there is hope and anticipation and magic, LOTS of magic.

 When I started to think about creating this work, I knew that I wanted to use the same materials that I enjoyed using when I created my duck painting...  Glossy pages of colorful magazines, acrylic paints and of course, watercolors.  I began by painting the image of the flower. There is nothing quite as magical as a Bird of Paradise in full bloom. I then used both acrylics and watercolors to paint the foliage. I finished off with the soft painted paisley background. I worked on this on and off for 2 weeks. Life's obligations always seems to get in the way of my creative time. 

The Happy Artichoke

Creating a painting is a learning process. Lessons are learned...some remembered. What I learned from this artichoke painting is --Do Not Begin a Painting in One Year and Finish it 4 Years Later! Its not that its a bad painting, its just that I feel that its not a super successful painting. It looks to me like the green areas were painted by one person and the purple areas were painted by someone different. Actually, that's probably true as my painting technique has changed over the years.  As long as I learned something while creating it, I am happy.