Chickadee, Pansies and Watering Can

A series of references featuring watering cans is posted on the Wet Canvas Water Media Challenge for the month of April.  Who does not love a watering can?  I think we have at least four around our home - one only decorative and has holes in the bottom... I discovered when I tried to use it.

I chose a photo that included pansies and decided to add the chickadee birdie.  I am having fun (most of the time) exploring the watercolor medium.  I love the blending of colors when they are runny and connect with the adjacent color.  There is just something extra poetic about painting with water...

"Chickadee, Watering Can & Pansies"

Patricia Lee Christensen

9" x 12" Watercolor on 140 lb Arches Cold-press Watercolor Paper

I have joined Daily Paintworks and will share more information as soon as I learn how to navigate and set up my gallery there.  I hope you are having a most creative week!

Puddles of Color!

Having never considered watercolor to be my strong medium, it has surprised me how much I have been enjoying this soft, runny, often unpredictable way of painting!  I visited the Weekend Drawing Event at Wet Canvas and was happy to see one of my favorite people, Maureen, of northern England, to be hosting last week's event.  Each week a member posts 16 images for others to draw or paint.  Each artist then posts what they have accomplished at the two-hour mark.  I choose some to work from & am sharing three below.  The first two were done within two hours each:

'Sheep May Safely Graze'

Patricia Lee Christensen

Water Soluble Graphite Sketch on 8" x 11" Drawing Paper

(Note I rearranged the ewe and lamb to improve the composition.)

'Water Lilies'

Patricia Lee Christensen

9" x 12" Watercolor & Graphite on 140 lb Cold Press Watercolor Paper

"Cotswolds Cottages"

9" x 12" Watercolor on 140 lb Cold Press Arches Watercolor Paper

(Again artists license was used on pathway, canal & fence.)

I have another watercolor sketched out & hope to be able to paint a while today.  Here's wishing you a most creative day!

Shipping a little Owl watercolor to Wisconsin today - 

I wonder where this little Sparrow collage will fly off to? 

Singing House Sparrow

Patricia Lee Christensen

Watercolor / Collage

7" x 5"

Available in my Etsy Shop

Merry Christmas!

Sending you love & best wishes

for a

Merry Christmas!

Some Collage Fun & Watercolors

I was able to take a fun watercolor class from Ian Ramsay this past month which was both inspiring and motivating!  He is an amazing world-renowned watercolor painter.  We are trying to convince him to produce some instructional DVDs as he is also an excellent teacher!

I produced a some little watercolors the past week.  The little scene below was inspired by what I saw looking out the window of a restaurant as we were eating lunch.  All these little sparrows seemed to be so gleeful and enjoying their little bird life!

14 Sparrows (SOLD)

Patricia Lee Christensen

Watercolor on 140 lb Arches Cold Press Paper

(Flying on its way to a buyer in the UK)

I added an element of fun by doing some collage work with rice paper over watercolor on heavy cold press illustration board.  The deckle edge watercolor below is on 140 lb Arches cold press and mounted over the collage.

 Winter Mourning Dove

Patricia Lee Christensen

!0" x 8" Watercolor and Rice Paper Collage

Available at my ETSY SHOP

In the small work below I used little bits of lovely fabric scraps given to me by my Mother who is a quilter.  The deckle edge painting is mounted over the fabric collage which is adhered to heavy illustration board. 

Winter Chickadee

Patricia Lee Christensen

7" x 5"  Watercolor and Fabric Collage

Available at my ETSY SHOP

I hope you are having a creative week!  Thanks for stopping by!

Patricia

A Demo / Lecture for 70 People!

It has been a very intense week leading up to the elections yesterday - Lots to do to prepare for a demo / lecture for a group of mostly non-artists discussing the creative life of an artist.  I was so in the mood to do something new for this event and decided to do a painting with a November theme.

When I was a little girl one of the vivid childhood images I remember was the sun burning through a foggy, hazy sky on Thanksgiving day.  The painting below is an attempt to capture that feeling.  The child who posed for me is our youngest granddaughter.  I was never cute as her - but she consented to pose for photos for a reference for me.  I have shown a few of the progressions on the painting...

November Sun

by Patricia Lee Christensen

20" x 16" Acrylic on Canvas

Looking forward to the demo for 70 people!  Wish me luck.
Have a great day!
Patricia

Busy Summertime!

It has been an eventful summer!  Lots of fun family times, preparing art for sale, completing commissions, and most recently laser surgery on an eye to repair a torn retina!  It is a surgery that should not have been painful but somehow my nerves are wired weird & it was not a pleasant recovery.  However, all is much better now.

I just completed organizing some of my art prints to accommodate iPhone 4 & iPhone 4S cases.  I have been looking for a way to present art in a functional way - other than just hanging on the wall.  At the suggestion of a customer at the Ogden Farmers' Market a few weeks ago, I put these ideas together.  Here are a few of my favs...  All forty designs can be found at my ETSY shop.

 The most exciting event of the summer will be the welcoming of our newest family member.  Our youngest daughter, Amy, is expecting her 2nd little son even as I type these words - any minute!  I hope you are having a wonderful summer and able to create wonderful memories as well as art!