Saturday, May 29, 2010

Blue

Blue
Inspired by the "Photographs of British Algae: Cyanotype Impressions" by Anna Atkins
Watercolor & white acrylic ink on Twinrocker paper. 10" x 14"

Friday, May 28, 2010

Stone Collection

Stone collection
If you click on the photo it will take you to my Flickr stream
where I've put tags on each of the stones so you can see where they're from.
The crochet covered stoned are mostly made by my friend
Margie Oomen from Resurrection Fern.
The little porcelain pebbles are from Manos by Karin Eriksson.
The big white porcelain stone was handmade by Paula Valentim from Otchipotchi.

Thursday, May 27, 2010

Flower Pattern

Pattern
Playing around with some flower doodles I drew with a micron pen.
These pens are my all time favorite to draw with & to write on my journal.
I always buy the 005. I love the precision of the ultra thin line.

Wednesday, May 26, 2010

Felt birds WIP

Felt bird WIP
Working on some felt birdies I was working on two Xmases ago :p
I had totally forgotten about them.
I modified this cool pattern to make my birds.
And I bought the beautiful vintage wool from my friend Carlene.

Tuesday, May 25, 2010

Sketch

Sketch
Watercolor and .005 micron pen

Monday, May 24, 2010

A Clean Slate

June page
A clean slate
May page
This is what my journal/planner looks like before I fill in each day.
I sit down every two weeks and collage/draw/paint on it
making sure I leave some space for writing each day.
I'll show you what it will look like after filling it all up.
Hope you have a great week!
Thanks Sofia for the beautiful bits from New Zealand
that are now part of my journal :)

Sunday, May 23, 2010

Bouquet

Bouquet
Flowers for you.
Digital collage using my illustrations.
It will be available as a print soon with the Lizards,
the Echeveria and the Japanase Paradise Bird.
I'll let you know when they're in my shop.

Saturday, May 22, 2010

Lizards

Lizards
Brenda Dumont, one of my lovely blog visitors wrote to me this week suggesting I should paint some lizards. I thought it was a great idea, so I did & here they are :)
Thank you Brenda, I had lots of fun painting them!

And the winner is...

And the winner of the flash giveaway is...
Congratulations!!!
Her favorite color is saffron.
Poorvi, please email me your address so I can send you the book & print.
Thank you all so much for participating,
I really wish I could send everyone a little gift!
Have a great weekend :)

Friday, May 21, 2010

Flash Giveaway!

Teal Nine
I just got that beautiful bold vintage teal metal "Nine" at Three Potato Four shop.
It has a "Five" on the other side. I bought it because it's my favorite color and also because since I was a little girl my close friends and family call me "Nine"
(like "Nina", but with a short "e" at the end).
I even have a cousin that calls me "Nueve" (number 9 in Spanish)!
Easy Crosswords
I received some copies of the Posh Easy Crosswords yesterday and I'm going to give one away with a signed print of the "Three Little Birds" they used for the cover.
Please leave a comment in this post with your name & what your favorite color is.
I'll pick a random name tonight (I'll be closing the comments at 10 p.m. Central Time) I'll announce the winner tomorrow morning! Thank you for participating :)

***Comments are now disabled. Come back tomorrow to know who won!

Thursday, May 20, 2010

May Page

Journal May 2010
Those pretty pressed hydrangea flowers were a gift
from my dear reader Marni in Malaysia. Thank you so much Marni :)
Journal collage
Thank you so much for your comments & input on my previous posts.
What would I do without you guys?! Seriously.

Tuesday, May 18, 2010

Un-Pinked

Un-pinked :)
Ah! The wonders of Photoshop...
I like this version much better. I can't change the original as easily unfortunately.
Tequisquiapan
Here's a pretty color combo I saw on a recent visit to the quaint town of Tequisquiapan. It might be the reason you've been seeing more shades of red incorporated into my work lately :)

Sunday, May 16, 2010

Japanese Paradise Flycatcher

Japanese paradise flycatcher
Nothing subtle about this one :p
This is the sheet I dyed with jamaica petals. A little too pink for my personal taste. What do you think?
Watercolor & acrylic ink. 6" x 8"
Inspired by this photo by John Soong, my favorite bird photographer.
If you love birds like me you must check out his Flickr stream.

Saturday, May 15, 2010

El Maguey

El Maguey
This is the handmade Twinrocker watercolor sheet I dyed with green tea.
Watercolor & acrylic ink. 6" x 8"
The colors are a little more subtle than the last one I did.
The dyeing process was really easy,
I just made a batch of really concentrated tea
and submerged the sheet while the tea was still hot and left it there
for approx. 30 minutes. I took it out, sandwiched it between two paper towels and left it there to dry for an hour or so. Same with the coffee.
It's going to be very hard for me to go back to plain old white paper now :)
Hope you're having a lovely weekend!

Wednesday, May 12, 2010

Echeveria

Echeveria
This time I dyed the Twinrocker sheet with coffee. It smells SO good now :)
Watercolor & acrylic ink on paper. 6" x 8"
I dyed a sheet with matcha (powdered green tea) and another with jamaica petals that await to be painted on. I'll show you those later this week.

Friday, May 07, 2010

Tea Party

Sundry Persons
I was inspired this morning to do a little experiment
and printed an old ledger page image onto a sheet of beautiful handmade Twinrocker paper & then used tea to dye it before painting this bird with the flowers.
I recently treated myself to a new watercolor set!
I got a Schmincke Horadam Aquarell set with 48 half pans
and I've been so inspired by my new color palette.
I had been using the same Cotman tubes for 15 years
and it was really great to make a change.

Tea, watercolor & acrylic ink on paper. 6" x 8"

Tuesday, May 04, 2010

Crossword Puzzles

Crosswords
Here's another cover I'm really excited about!
My birdies are gracing the cover and pages of Posh Easy Crosswords,
available for pre-order at Amazon and at select book stores :)

Monday, May 03, 2010

Book Cover

Blackie book cover
Look! One of my birdies landed on the cover of this book published by
Blackie Books from Barcelona, Spain.
You can read more about the book here (in English)