First step, pencil sketch (chicken scratch?)

Laying down watercolor paint. I purchased a new set of watercolors recently that I’ve been beyond happy with. Highly pigmented, affordable & in pans! I have a fairly strong dislike for watercolor paint in tubes.

More layers of paint.

A close up. I used a bit of colored pencil, the paper lends an interesting texture.

The final piece, approx 8.5″x11″

Sketches and first paint strokes.

More in process shots. Looks weird without the eyeball, eh?

Work table and tools. The water in this piece was created by dropping alcohol and salt onto the wet paint. I only had sea salt that was super coarse, sort of like pretzel salt, when I made this – I wasn’t sure about using it, but the effect is kind of interest.

This little space whale painting was submitted for the ArtPM Challenge at Buoy Gallery in Kittery, Maine. (If you’re local to the area, the show opening is tonight!)

All of these are acrylic on canvas, except for the blue abstract piece – that’s ink & acrylic on canvas paper – it’s for a collage. It should be noted that not all of these pieces are finished – some are infact more than likely to be discarded & painted over. & some photos only show portions of the full piece.

This is the original photo that I used as a [very] loose reference point for this watercolor study. I snapped it this fall while out on the walking trails at Adam’s Point in Durham, NH. The photo on the right is the sketch I started out with, right before beginning the painting – it’s pretty much just a few scribbles.

The photo on the left is an in progress shot. The painting is about 8″x10″ & because it was a quick & for fun project, I didn’t stretch the watercolor paper or even tape it down to a board. From start to finish it took about an hour or so. The photo on the right is a print that I had made – it’s an archival print on watercolor paper & when I received it in the mail the other day, I was kind of shocked about how identical it looked compared to the original.

I’ve been working on a few watercolor paintings inspired by the leaves changing here in New Hampshire. I’m working from photos that I’ve taken over the past few weeks – mostly from walking trails around the Seacoast area in NH. I’m planning on posting a few more photos from these trips in the next couple of days.

The leaf study painting above is watercolor on 7″x9″ cold press paper.

Happy Valentine’s Day.

[This is the final day of the ArtLove Project.]

Wikipedia has a fairly large list of flower meanings here.

The above photo is an origami paper lily that I folded (directions found here). The original plan was to make paper roses — but I couldn’t find any detailed directions with super clear diagrams and it turns out they are quite difficult to make. I thought if I could make paper cranes, that I’d be able to knock out a few roses with no problem. This was not the case. :-)

This is day 13 of the 14 days of love illustrated. You can read more about the ArtLove Project here.

The above photo is of a glossy black laser cut & engraved acrylic charm I had made. It’s relatively small – less than 2 inches wide.

This is day 12 of the 14 days of love illustrated. You can read more about the ArtLove Project here.