Ancient Ritual 129 ACEO

This aceo ( Artist collection edition or original) is 2.5 by 3.5 watercolor on paper, fits standard size trading card  sleeves and albums.

I painted this yesterday but ended up staying up too late, got tired fell asleep & never posted my painting.  

So I'll post two paintings right now.

this one and the one I painted today.  I started it last night and finished it this afternoon.  

Koi's eye view

3.5 by 7 watercolor on gessoed masonite.  $35.00

Somehow the red makes everything seem so surreal. 

Chili

This little 8 by 8 ( I've cropped it in photoshop to fit my blog) is a watercolor on paper. $50.00.

I've always loved to look at the produce stacked up in piles at the grocery store or farmers market. Chilies definitely are a beautiful fruit, I think they actually do fall under the category of fruit, but who knows.  My mother used to sew them together and hang up big bunches of them to dry.  

Fresh or dried, their beautiful either way.

Golden Boy

This 5.75 by 5.75 painting is actually a little darker than the photo looks. I didn't get the painting finished till 11:00 pm. I had to take the photo under warm lights. Its a bit washed out.

Perseverance Revisited

16 by 20 watercolor on canvas

$350.00

I painted this painting several weeks ago and hated the background, it was too colorful, too busy and didn't really show case the Koi.  Like in any play there can only be one star and the Koi have to be the star. Now, the painting is a better painting just because the background isn't competing with the foreground and the colors are cooler providing contrast and pushing the warmer color forward. 

"Monet" in Green

This is part of my tribute to Monet  as a pond series.  I did a lavender pond and then a blue and now a green. Their all unique and interesting.  If you've seen the Monet pond paintings you know that he used multiple colors one on top of another and some of the paintings were about 1/2 inch thick. Others weren't thick with paint but they had so many colors, it was head spinning at times. 

My actual favorite painting of his is a snow scene of Giverney, it looked so peaceful. 

  It was a beautiful day here in South Carolina, the lake was full of boaters.  I would venture to guess not nearly as many as in previous years, perhaps the high cost of gas is hurting some folks and they decided to just  have a cook out and bar be que some dogs or burgers out in the back yard.   I was invited to canoe down the Catawba River but decided to work in my yard. Usually I just have to put in a few days and its good all year.  So far Its coming along.   I’ll take some more photos of it so you can see how things are growing.   I fell asleep for a few minutes out on the back deck this afternoon.  The sound of water bubbling and the birds, it was really calm.  I repotted the plants I bought yesterday and fed all my plants.   My dogs thought it was too hot so I sent them in the house.  They love the good ole AC.  Who doesn’t!  I’m going to work on my larger project tonight its coming along too.  I’ll post it’s progress in about an hour.  I worked on it till 11 pm last night and would have worked on it longer but everyone wanted to go to bed.  

Ancient Ritual 127 "Looking In"

Five inches by five inches acrylic on illustration board.  $35.00

This is matted in a white mat and looks great!

This little painting is an abstract and is part of the ancient ritual series.  This series if you don’t know and aren’t a regular visitor, is basically about how we mark the passing of time and the events in our lives with ritual.  I thought I was finished with this series but every now and then another one just appears on my easel. Like magic.    

 

I had a wonderful day today, it started out with me getting up at the crack of dawn to go into Charlotte NC for a life drawing session.  The session went very well and I hung around the gallery talking to the host thinking that perhaps a customer may come in to view and possibly buy one of my larger works.   That didn’t materialized.  Just down the street from the Art league is a small farmer’s market so I walked down there and wouldn’t you know it, a sudden squall came up and luckily they had tents, so I walked thru the tables of flowers and cakes, vegetables and of course fruit.  I bought some organic lettuce and some other vegetables, talked a bit, the usual “wow isn’t this weather crazy?” and  just like always the storm blew over almost as fast as it came in and it was only sprinkling as I walked back to my car.   

Flowing Waters

This is a small Koi Painting that I did today and I tried to make it look like the water was flowing all around and over the fish.  At first I detailed the koi and water a bit to much so I pulled back the color and softened the lines and now I like it much better.

$40.0 5.9 by 5.9 inches

My condo back yard water feature

This is a photo of my back yard, its a bit small so I put in a little water feature I made out of a metal tub.  I may bury it, but it looks pretty good next to my deck.  You can see by the pots along the fence... Its still early spring here, most of my flowers haven't grown large enough.By the end of summer they are tall and growing up the fence.

  The water is blue because I put in a  special non toxic coloring.  Its so the algae won't grow.  There's a small bubbler which keeps the water moving.  I bought another water plant it looks like a caterpillar.

Blue Waters ACEO

This ACEO is for sale for $15.00 plus 1.00 S & H Mixed media on paper 2.5 by 3.5

blue on blue

7.5 by 7.25  45.00 Acrylic on gessoed masonite.

I need to cut up some more painting panels. I run out of them pretty fast. Usually I buy the masonite myself and have someone cut the wood into different sizes.  Being thrifty I have had them cut by folks who have trouble figuring out how to cut a straight line.   This is why the odd sizes.  For instance this piece was to be 8 by 8 but he, (I’ll keep his name anonymous) kept having to cut another bit off here and there.  I guess I’m lucky I didn’t end up with a 3 by 3. 

This painting is part of my “Monet” series.  I like these blues, and greens with the brown and white.

Its very soothing.

Of course…

I think I’ll paint another with the colors using ( yesterday’s painting) the palette of ancient ritual 126.   

 

I’ve been thinking about buying an Internet card for my laptop, u know so you can go anywhere not just where they have wifi.   Are they worth the money?  my cell phone is with A T&T so should I buy theirs so I can get a  possible discount for bundling my service plans or should I get a different brand because they work better.  Any ideas on this folks? 

Ancient Ritual 126

This is also part of any ancient ritual series. It explores the ways in which we mark the passing of time and events in our lives with ritual.

I love these colors. and may do a pond scene with them.    I was pretty sleepy last night and I went to bed and didn't post this painting.  It rained here in Lake Wylie and this morning every thing is wet and beautiful.  South Carolina is really green this time of year and if you ever get the chance you should come here in spring. Its nothing short of vibrant! 

Ancient Ritual series

7.5 by 8 mixed media on gessoed masonite.

This is part of my ancient ritual series. It's a series in which I explore the way we mark the passing of time and events in our lives with ritual.   After Art's mom passes away last week I painted this piece

Perserverance 08

11 by 14 Acrylic impasto on Canvas panel 150.00

This painting is done impasto which refers to the thickness of the paint. Its very thick and can give the look of oil without using oil paints. I combined a golden gel medium with the acrylic paint to increase the body of the paint. It tends to paint like whip creme, which is a little hard to control but is very smooth. Also, it gives the paint a slight gloss which is similar to oil paint.
Artist Tip:
When using these gels its best to use a pallet knife and mix the paint into the gel uniformly because if not mixed well the gel will look translucent white. Sort of like dried glue, not a look you really want.

A crazy weekend, hope yours is going well. Its windy here in SC and cool, unusual it seems for May.

Koi, or Follow the leader

I painted this little guy and some folks might wonder why his head is off the picture plane. Well... so many people wrote me to say I often paint the heads and not the tail which is to them the most beautiful part of a Koi. So here is one beautiful tail.

Water plants

This is my little water feature, I have a few plants, The water lily shown was one I purchased from ebay for $7.00 it has three baby lily pads. I was so excited because when I received the plant it was just a cutting from the mother plant. To see the little pads growing under the water and sprouted within a few days, was fun. The plant seems to be getting healthier each day. You can see my reflection in the water, also you might be able to see my red gazing ball which is also reflecting back a little.

Ladies a fine art original by Shanti Marie

50.00

watercolor on masonsite.  This is actually slightly larger than this, I cropped off about 1/4  of an inch off the bottom for the upload. 

I painted this a few weeks ago and decided it needed something and put it aside... I couldn't figure out what it was. Today,  I put in the cigarettes and the headband and voila it's finished!

Koi in the Wild

Watercolor on paper 16″ by 11″ $300.00

I felt very sad today and didn’t think I was going to paint. But after watching an art video of another artist painting, I got the bug and painted this piece. This painting started out very gray and as I painted I felt my spirits lift and it became a bit more colorful. Its funny how my color choices are related to my emotions.
Art’s ( my husband)mom passed away last night and since her stroke twelve days ago we have had some ups and downs. Thank you so much for your notes and words of encouragement.

His name is Jack

Pastel on Wallis Paper 11 by 15  $300.0  www.dailypainters.com  for pay pal button

I loved this little guy, he had such a personality, The one ear up and the other down, he was kinda fun to photograph too.  I love painting dogs, so if you have a dog portrait you want done in pastel, watercolor or acrylics, let me know, I'll give you a decent price and a great painting.

Raccoon Rascals

11 by 15 $300.0Raccoons are cute little guys and very frisky. I’ve raise a few and have found them to be a handful and don’t encourage you to try to keep one as a pet. I just raised them till I could turn them over to a rehabilitator who taught them to get their own food in the wild and set them free.

Blue water lily

This little painting is a real gem at 3.5 by 7 inches. It's unique size makes sit a great painting to place in an unusual spot,or on a small easel. These painting make great gifts too.
$50.00

Blue Water Lily

This painting is a watercolor on gessoed masonite. It is 7 inches by 3.5 inches.

Water lilies bloom for only three days ( there are some exceptions) and so when they bloom you have to make sure you take a picture. My waterlily that I planted lst week already has three little round leaves with two more coming out of the root. The lily pads are only about 2.5 inches across and I assume they will grow larger as the plant matures. I'm very excited its growing at all. I bought it on ebay for $7.00. The seller says it's a very hardy variety so I may have a chance to see it bloom. If it does, I'll take a picture of it.

Calico Cat Standing by a Wisteria Vine

This video is almost ten minutes long. It isn’t sped up and is painted in “real time” It shows the wet into wet techinique needed for fur. This is where you wet the paper first then apply the color leting it float onto the paper, guiding it to create form.

You don’t have to use a chinese paint brush you can use a number 6 up to a # 9 round and get the same effects. Rice paper is used here but regular watercolor paper also works great, use a bit more water with watercolor paper. Isn’t it great… how the artist gives the cat an asian look with the eyes. The slant is exxagerated, you can do this or put them in straight across rather than angleing them up at the edges. If you want a more “fat” western like cat you just think about the body like a bowling pin and that is the shape you need.

RED on RED

40.00 6.96 by 6.96

Lisa

watercolor painting on paper 15 by 22

Sunshine and peace

16 by 20 Acrylic on canvas 300.00

Watching Koi you find yourself calming down your heart rate slows and you become mezmerized by their movement,& the reflections of the water.

Some of the Koi seem to have personalities which I wouldn't have believe till I saw this for myself. They are very eagar to come when called in hopes of getting dinner. They also have a pack type metality with some fish being bossy and others being shy or frightened.

Koi or colored Carp

I love these underwater shots!

Check this out How to draw a rose!

I thought some of you might like to see this video, its a simple drawing. In fact you might like to try this beautiful drawing of a rose.

In the weeds

Impasto acrylic 11 by 14 on canvas

Koi Impasto

8 inches by 8 inches

I'm experimenting here folks. impasto is like painting with whip creme.
Also, I'm making a little water feature in my back yard.

I got my water lily planted today and it looks like its growing. It has two little leafs coming out of the root. It's sitting under about 6 inches of water in a pot. I'll take a picture of it just to show you.

Koi impasto

close up of impasto...

I think she likes me!

watercolor on gessoed masonite 6 by 6 $40.0o
This painting is part of my “all dogs go to heaven ” series… it seems very popular and I’ll always have fun with it. My explanation for this painting is pretty straight forward… I see this little guy from the wrong side of the tracks bringing his goofy sidekick along with him as he looks in at the pretty little poodles on their cushy red sofa.

This has been sealed and it may be framed without glass. It would also look great framed with a mat and under glass .

Koi Pond

8 by 8 watercolor on clayboard.


Now there calling clayboard, aqua board, I'm not sure if this is the new name but since most people won't know what "Aqua Board" is, I'm still calling it clayboard.