For you it is a Rose

Back to my colored pencils.

The sweetest flower that blows,
I give you as we part.
For you it is a Rose,
For me it is my heart.
- Quote by Frederick Peterson

And from Janis Joplin “I need a man to love”

The quote and the video have related themes of unrequited love.

I’ve always loved Janis. She passed the year I graduated high school. (boy does that date me.)  It was a sad day for rock n roll.

Linking to Paint Party Friday. Thanks to Eva and Kristin for hosting and for giving me a reason to finish my journal page. :)  Be sure to click the link and visit all the participants.

A girl and her dog!

Something a little different than my usual fare.

The text says:

My Dog!

I talk to him when I'm lonesome like; and I'm sure he understands.  When he looks at me so attentively, and gently licks my hands; then he rubs his nose on my tailored clothes, but I never say naught thereat.  For the good Lord knows I can buy more clothes, but never a friend like that.  ~W. Dayton Wedgefarth

I used gouache mixed with water and I spread it all over the page. When it was dry, this is what I saw! 

I’m linking to Summer of Color 2 - week three

Her name is Emmaline

I am so intimidated by watercolor paints (not pencils) that I’m surprised I had the courage to try this portrait. Then I got to thinking….It’s only cheap paint and cheap watercolor paper so why not? Sometime ago I bought a set of Reeves watercolors ( yes the cheap, cheap, cheap …seriously cheap brand) so that I could use them for background color in my journals. I never did use them for that purpose and I still had them around.  So really what did I have to lose except time? 

I penciled in the girls face and then procrastinated painting it. I liked the drawing…what if I ruined it? “OMG”, I told myself, “Shut up and paint!” So I did, I guess I just needed a good talking to.  You talk to yourself too, don’t you? ;-)

I have to say, watercolors are a different medium from what I’m used to. It’s going to take some time to get comfortable with it.   I’m not liking the dark, dark shadows of her hair around her neck nor do I like the obvious lines on her face from a not well blended changes in skin color. But I guess it not a terribly horrible first attempt.

I did learn that you must tape your sheet down or the paper buckles badly. I had to rewet the back and place a book over it to flatten it. I hoped it wouldn’t ruin it. I also learned I need to practice drawing flowers. 

For your listening pleasure “Emmaline” by Hot Chocolate.

Be warned, it’s got some sad lyrics toward the end.

I’m linking to Paint Party Friday. Thank you Eva and Kristin for hosting the fun party. Everyone else please sure to click the link to visit this week participants.

The Summer of Color: Week Two!

As I’m sure you’ve heard by now, Kristin is hosting the The Summer of Color 2: Ice Cream Inspirations! blog event. Thank you Kristin. We are now in week two and this weeks theme is Mint Chocolate Chip.

I worked mainly with watercolor pencils, stamps for the background, and printed text. I think mine turned out a little greener than the inspiration. Oops.

The quote on the page is from the song titled “Green-eyed Lady” from Sugarloaf. It’s an oldie but a goodie.  If you’ve never heard it before, click the video link below. PS: Even though it’s a video link, it’s just the audio and the album cover. For a real video check www.YouTube.com  for the 7+ minute version.

I didn’t get a chance to visit all the participants last week but I hope to this week. I had planned to spend the weekend blog hopping but I ended the week with a case of food poisoning after a visit to a local restaurant on Friday. Yuck! Weekend ruined. All is A-OK now, thank goodness.

Be sure to visit all the participants, there is some lovely art work to be seen.

Your Unique Spirit

Hi everyone.  I haven’t been arting it up much this last week. Don’t know why, probably just a little tired. The hot weather seems to do that to me…even with air-conditioning. Yet, I’d rather it be summer than winter. How about you?  Are you a cold weather person or hot?

This is what I did manage to work on…. I used mainly watercolor pencils for the painting and markers for the lettering. To create lettering, I used Photo Shop Elements and after printing to regular paper, I traced them using graphite paper.  Then used Pitt markers to color them in.

I had previously colored her outfit blue but had a change of heart and wanted it pink instead. I used scrapbook paper to change the color.

I’m linking this to:

And to:

Thanks for stopping by. I appreciate all your sweet comments and constructive criticisms. ;)  

Sometimes computers just tick me off.

Yes I am ticked off.  Several weeks ago I configured my blog to collect comments using a third party service named intensedebate.com. Over the weekend something happened to “turn it off” and I lost all but a few of the comments in my “Girl Painted” post.  What’s funny is that it’s still turned on in other posts… What the #@$%?? 

I had over 30 comments in that post and I was lucky to have been able to read most of them. However, I hadn’t had a chance to respond and now they are g-o-n-e.  If you were one of the many sweet people who left me a very kind message and I didn’t respond…now you know why. 

Thank you for leaving such encouraging comments. I’m just sorry that I didn’t respond right away.  I took it for granted that it would always be there.  I should know better.

Girl painted

I drew this face with graphite pencils for the 29 Faces challenge but I just got around to painting her.  I used Watercolor pencils, gouache for the final highlights and regular colored pencils for the final dark shadows.

 

Linked to Paint Party Friday.

By Golly, I Got It.

The face from a few days ago has been bothering me for a while now. I know I probably shouldn’t let it bother me…. buutt…  It’s like I should know better and yet couldn’t figure out what was wrong. That is, until I visited Tam’s willowing's ning site site. In the forum, she had taken the time to critique user’s painted faces.  She, very kindly and generously, told them how she thought they could improve the painting.

There was a face up for critique that was very similar to the one I did.  What she said about that painting that also applied to mine was that the forehead/top of the head was too small. Well duh! That was it.  Plus I thought the lips were too large as well.

I didn’t redo the actual painting, I took the image into Photoshop Elements and made the adjustments there.  Sheesh! It might have been faster to correct the actual painting. Don’t look too closely at the corrected image: it’s a mess because I’m not a real whiz at PSE. However, I think it was a huge improvement. Also, it helped me “see” that little changes can make all the difference in the world. (the forehead and the lips were all I changed).  Here are the before and after.

Before:

After:

With all the surgery she’s gone though, poor girl deserves a name. (With a nod to my friend Jenny, because she names all her girls.)

Meet Bernadette.

Sniff, sniff…she no longer looks like a flat headed child that only a mother could love. Oh wait…I wasn’t too crazy about her before…I’m a bad mama.

If you’re still reading, what do you think? 

Thanks for your sweet comments.

OK I feel better now.

After my last face I had to go back to my pencils and it makes me feel better.  The only bad part was trying to get a decent image of a black and white pencil drawing. Neither camera or scanner would show the paper as a true white.  I used Photoshop Elements to turn the background white but the girl doesn’t look true to color. Not to mention that there are specks in the image that are not on the drawing.  Oh well not going to worry about it.

Her hair looks a little puffy but I actually de-puffed it (is that a word?) after the first photo I took. Can you imagine?

I read somewhere that if your drawing looks elsewhere than straight on they appear to be more expressive. Not sure I managed to do that but it was an interesting tidbit nonetheless.

I will probably color her later on but right now I will enjoy her as is.

An Exercise in Frustration

I don’t know why I’m posting this as it frustrated me while I was painting it and now just to look at it. I’ve drawn worse, much worse, but after all the nice faces I created during 29 faces challenge to come up with this one is just WRONG. lol! 

I guess I’m posting it to remind me that the supplies I use do make the difference when you’re inexperienced.  I used Fluid acrylics on scrapbook paper covered in clear gesso. What? Yeah that’s what I did. What can I say in my defense except that I wanted in my journal and that was the next page. 

In an effort to make it look right, I added layer after layer of paint and colored pencils and nothing seemed to make it look any better. I redid the eyes…still nothing. By the time I got to the hair, I just didn’t care anymore.

If that wasn’t enough, I knocked over the bottle of black paint and got it all over my dining room table given to us by my mother in law…you know what means. Yeah me too.

And I got it all over the cover of my journal, so now it’s a mess too. When that happened I said “F#@& it, I’m done.”  So here it is in all it’s glorious ugliness. 

It’s OK, I’m laughing. 

Thanks for visiting and for your lovely comments.

Change is good or so I tell myself

I like to think that I’m good with change but in reality I’m not.  It takes me a while to adjust and accept the new reality.  Like moving to New Mexico, for example.  It took me more than a year to resign myself to my new life away from California.

I think it might be the same for painting faces with acrylics rather than colored pencils.  That’s not to say that I’ve never painted a face in acrylics before. I painted a portrait of my daughter a few years ago that came out rather nice. But I worked on that painting for months before I was happy with it and even then I knew I didn’t get the highlights and the shadows right. It was very even in tone. You can see it here.

I worked on this face painting yesterday and hoped to get it done completely in acrylics. However, I just couldn’t get the shadows right. I ended up using my colored pencils after all. Comparing it to my colored pencil drawings makes me feel like I’m back to square one. Oh I know if I keep practicing with the paint, I’ll eventually get it.  It’s just tough to adjust to my new self-imposed reality.  I just have to remind myself…that’s how I learn. 

 

Thanks for your visit. I love comments so please leave me one.