Rough Seas

This painting is not a daily painting but a painting I painted in a day. What’s the difference? I spent a lot more time on this and its a lot larger. about 15 by 20 $200.0
This is a technique I learned from Billy Shellburn at Wild Acres, I thought I would show it to you because the white caps are white ink. In regular watercolor you would leave the white of the paper and in this technique, you use an eye dropper to paint the white ink on top of the waves, then spritz it with water to make it look like its a wave turning over or breaking. The ink is thicker than watercolor and more opaque so it sits on top of the blue color beneath.

Also… Rather than paper, you paint on Illustration board.

This is a picture of the moon at sunrise. It was still out and very beautiful at Wild Acres.

This was sunrise at Wild Acres. A wonderful retreat where I have spent the last two days resting and painting. It was very nice. Billy Shelburn was there and she shared several techniques using watercolor, ink and tissue paper, all of which I will share here on my blog. You can go to the web site http://www.wildacres.org if interested in this wonderful non profit retreat for artists and educators.

Children’s toys

I love the look of glass and marbles offer the painter a chance to paint in primaries which can sometimes be fun!
This piece is on sale $30.00 4 by 6 inches

Southern Koi ll An aceo by Shanti Marie

This little gem is for sale at a very low price of $10.00 this is 5 dollars off the regular price for an ACEO.

1.00 for S&H

Painting ACEOs is a wonderful way to keep up your painting skills and also to work on your design skills. These small works cannot be filled with too many shapes or they easily become cluttered looking. It forces you to think more about the shapes and less about things.

“Koi in Motion” ACEO 2.5 by 3.5

15.00 plus 1.50 S&h

I ordered some new paper and was a little disappointed to find it wasn’t what I expected. After working with a few sheets I came up with this little gem that I felt was good enough to put on my blog. For any artist, their materials are very important and they don’t usually make too many changes once they have become familiar with them.

Non- painting folks think if you can paint on one surface you should be good with almost any other surface. This isn’t always the case.

Since watercolor works with the absorbency rate of the paper, this needs to be consistent or you won’t produce the same result when you go from one paper to the next. When starting out with this new paper, I had to paint another small painting to “test” the paper.
Then I allowed it to dry before checking to see how glazes worked and found it had a few quirks. Usually I try to work with its limitations and explore what it does best, then go in that direction.

This is always a good idea before committing yourself to a large piece. You can avoid a few hours of frustration.

A frosty night, trees in a landscape at night

11 by 7 60.00

I painted these trees using Friskit and waited for it to dry then painted the background, allowed that to dry, then pulled off the friskit and
dry-brushed the trees. Its a great way to paint tress at night or birch trees. The colors used in the background are ultramarine blue with purple and sometimes mixed with green. These colors are mixed in several puddles of color and painted on so that they merge together. The lighter areas of the background are lifted color, while still damp, use tissues to lift off color.

Storm approaching, a landscape watercolor

4 inches by 4 inches $30.00

This landscape painting, painted with colors I love to use. The green with the brown also the pink and the blue, They seem to play off of each other and enhance one another.

Woodland’s Light

15 by 22 $500.00 watercolor on paper.

I have been so busy I haven’t had the energy to paint these last few days. I have posted an older painting I painted earlier last year.
It was part of a series of paintings of woodlands. Specifically the ground cover and flora one finds growing on the ground under the tall trees and in the woods. Its amazing how many wild flowers grow in the woods where ever light peeks thru. This is hot press paper and it gives the piece a look which is a bit different from the cold press paper. The hot press paper doesn’t have any bumps or texture, you can’t really stroke the paint too much either. Yo have to put it down and leave it alone, other wise the paper seems to lose its vibrancy right away. Its a bit more difficult (you have to paint fast or think ahead) to soften edges as you go because the paint sinks right into the paper before you have a chance to go back and change things.