Lilacs complete

Here it is finished:

Interesting how much that green background changes it. I think because of how much yellow is in it, the background even manages to warm it up a bit. It certainly helps the flowers pop foward.

And go here to see the time-lapse video of me painting it. The video is a little bit longer than usual because all those tiny flowers take a long time to paint! No big swashes of space to throw color into quickly. Darn details. 

Northwest Art and Air Festival

So I survived my first art festival! That was a bit of a wild ride. It's kind of like stepping into another world. A world that pops up for a weekend at a time and then disappears into nothingness. I spent way too many hours prepping and stressing and reading articles, along with way too many nights rehashing all of that in my brain instead of sleeping. But overall, I think it was a good experience. I can't say for certain because I'm way too exhausted at this point! I have no idea how some people do like 30 of these type of things a year! The coolest part was probably the night glow:

How cool is that?

 But back to the art side of things - I learned lots, got plenty of compliments, distributed business cards, met lots of people and sold a few things here or there. And I got some painting done at the same time! This is an 11x14 watercolor on aquabord that I painted out there for people to see as they walked by. I love the bright trees on the right and the clouds I added into the sky. I fought with the water for a crazy long time, and am mostly happy with it now except it really looks to me like there are snakes in the water. Ha! And ew.

 

And I got mostly done with this one as well: 

I'm really digging the sky! Kinda nervous about adding the water, which is silly because that's usually my favorite part!  Fingers crossed!

Purple Flower time-lapse

I'd been waiting on some music from my talented brother to finish up this video, but decided to just go ahead and use his music on a later video. Gets a little crazy with my other hand spinning the aquabord around to give me a better angle for my painting hand. Ha! It's kind of a funny idea, but it's not always easiest to paint with your painting right side up!

Aquabord instruction Video - Tulips

After another go at the Ampersand Aquabord, I felt like I'd learned a couple of things so added my hints to the beginning of my time-lapse video in case they can help anybody else. I was a little worried - the painting went through a lot of stages of ugly along the way but pulled together at the end and now I kind of like it. Isn't it funny when that happens? That's why you can't give up early in the process, no matter how discouraging it may be! It's super helpful to have somebody nearby to remind you of this in case one of those "stages of ugly" make you forget. 

 Oh and another thing that is great about the Aquabord is how easy it it to lift color. It just comes right off! Hope you enjoy the video and please leave any suggestions if you have them!

Oh and they really are tulips as the title says, they're just super open with the petals about ready to fall off. Makes them look a lot less like tulips but also made the deep yellow a lot more visible. 

Tiny Columbine

So I'm not quite as thrilled at my second attempt on the Ampersand Aquaboard. It is just tricky. When I paint flowers I do a lot of controlled wet-into-wet where I wet one petal, then being the paint in and move it around and let it mix and the Claybord doesn't do that a ton. Then I come back in with layers on top of that when it dries, but on Claybord, that just lifts the color is already placed there. So I have to change my mindset when painting. Great it a bit like a different medium altogether. Relearn how to paint. 

And while I'm not head-over-heels for tonight's results, it was a good learning experience. Or at least that's what I always tell my students when they don't like their end product! No but seriously, these little 6x6 inch Aquaboard are the best time to practice.

Light Runs Through It

I think she's done. Not sure why my painting has suddenly become female but she has in my mind. And I like her. It was really, really fun to paint on this aquboard and just play with the shapes and colors. I love painting.