Dalia Flower Garden and paint

When in bloom, the Dahlia garden in Volunteer park is so beautiful and full of color.  Here is one of my favorite photos.  

For this project, I tore a photo in half and glued it to a painted canvas board.  

In order to have the photograph ripped where I wanted, I brushed water along the tear line.  After gluing the left half of the photo onto the canvas, I painted the right side to match.

Tulips ... photo and paint.. 30 Day Art Challenge

Again, this year I entered the 30 Day Art Challenge. I have to complete 30 8x10 canvas boards within 30 days.  The Art who will take place at the Pioneer Square Art walk on December 4th. It is an unburied show with over 3000 canvasses!

I love taking photos at the Skagit Valley Tulip festival every spring.  For this project, I selected an 8X10 canvas board. the background started with papers and tissues that I added with a Golden Gel medium.  I added a layer of blue acrylic paint..  The bottom third of the canvas I painted a couple shades of green.

I cut the photo of the tulips into sections.  The largest tulip I cut out to add last.

Two sections of the tulips were glued on the canvas. 

Then I painted the tulips across the canvass at the horizon line.

The leaves and stalks were added next.  

The large tulip was then added. 

The last touch was a tulip bud that I had cut out of the photo.  From a distance it is hard to tell the photograph from the painting of the tulips.

Poppies and Lavender

Starting from scratch painting a field of flowers would not occur to me.  I wouldn't know where to start.  Here I took a photo of a field of poppies with lavender in the background.  I ripped the photo in half and painted the left half.  It is a good exercise choosing and mixing paints, looking at the layers, and blending the photo and the paint.  

I use acrylic paint and just mix colors as I go.  The photo is printed on Kodak Matte paper.  I run a line of water along where I plan to rip it so that it tears where I plan.

Little Boxes

There is something special about a decorated box. Craft stores often have kraft paper boxes that I paint first with gesso. Then I paint the box. When i paint, I often put two or more colors on my brush.  On this one I took a napkin and separated the design so it would only have one layer and decoupaged it on with Golden Matte Medium. 

Precious butterfly book

One of my favorite art projects is altered books. This is a small children's board book. I peeled off the shiny layer and cut the edges in a wavy pattern. Then painted the pages a green color most often after treating with gesso.  The butterflies and flowers are from fancy napkins I decoupaged on using Golden Matte Medium. I have not decided how to use the book. Often I put in treasured photos that are printed on Kodak matte paper. 

My words in ink

Practicing my pen lettering with a new pen on watercolor paper decoupaged with napkins. 

Wildflowers

This small 5x7 card has a textured background.  The flowers were made with splotches of paint.  I just love color. 

Maze of color book

This small 4inch Square book has wood covers. When opened it reminds you of origami with interesting folds and flaps. I'm not sure what I will use it for, yet. 

Story "book"

Books and stories can be created in many forms. It's great for me to personalize a story with information about my granddaughter ! I added photos of her and her parents. 

The "book" is about 12 feet long and 6 inches tall. The paper is stiff artist drawing paper painted on both sides 

Spring and the flight of the blue butterfly

You can use just about any material and for some reason mixed media creations with color seem to just become beautiful art.  Here I have used layering, paint and fancy napkins on a canvas board.