Paradise Found

 Very pleased with how this one turned out. M Graham watercolor on paper. This sketchbook isn't 100% cotton watercolor paper as it began to ball up with heavier water usage. Still like how it turned out.

The Hawaiian Monk Seal

The Hawaiian Monk Seal resides in the northwestern Hawaiian islands, and is on the endangered species list. About 1600 remain today.

This is the final of a series of four paintings dedicated to marine life. The links to the others are:

The Sea Turtle

The Blue Whale

The Giant Squid

As with the others, watercolor on fine watercolor canvas.

Roses are Red, Creepy Eyes that are Blue...

 The inspiration behind this painting was a weird one to start, plus it didn't quite turn out exactly like what had given me the idea in the first place. My youngest plays Sims a lot, and I love watching her decorate her houses within the game. One house was very gothic, and one particular room had ornate wall paper with oval paintings of roses with gaudy gold frames.

This painting took on more character when I got the idea to put in eyeballs everywhere. I thought painting plain roses would be boring. This is gouache on 100% cotton paper. I painted an old picture frame dark wood to frame it, and it now sits on an end table in my eclectic studio office. My husband isn't a fan of it, but that's okay because art can disturb sometimes.

The Dragonfly

 Guess I'm on a bug painting roll. Another small one on paper this time using Daniel Smith watercolors. 

Seven years of paintings

 In April of 2015, when I went to my first sip and paint class, little did I know where I would be years later. Those first couple of years were definitely experimental, and it kept me progressing in my style. Lately I've been feeling that I'm stagnant in my progress perhaps because I lost that sense of enjoying the journey rather than making a finished piece.

Below is a set of lotus flowers I did in 2016 in gouache. I had these hanging somewhere in my home, but took them down once I felt these were my more basic works.

Now, nearly seven years later, I found them again and thought it would be fun to spruce them up, add my style I have currently progressed to. The re-do used acrylic this time, with a gouache background.

It will be interesting to see where the next seven years take me on this journey of discovering my creative side.

The Honeybee

 One of those quick sketches in watercolor that turned out exceptional. 4x6 on hot pressed 100% cotton paper.

Teal sweater in wool and alpaca fibers

 Teal is my favorite color, so I needed to knit a sweater in that color. This is a very simple design by Cleome Smith which I really appreciate! So many garments have intricate patterns which are pretty, but my style is quite simple. The yarn is by Drops Yarn and is a fingering size, so this sweater took me about 2 months to complete. I'm very happy with it, and plan to knit another with the same yarn in a gray.