Lovin' the watercolors

About 6 months ago I bought a book on quilling. I knew that eventually I wanted to try this but not right then. When my mom asked me what I wanted for Christmas I told her that I was interested in learning how to quill and that I had only purchased one book so far. She's a very artsy type of person too so I knew that she could find me the right stuff. As Christmas got closer I decided that I wanted to learn how to watercolor (previous blog post). And when my mom asked me if I still wanted to learn how to quill I said "Of course!" I knew quilling was going to be one of those things that once I learned how to do it I would say "Ok I got it, let's move on..." My next post will be on my experiments in quilling.

I still haven't learned all there is to know about quilling but I think I have somewhat of a grasp on what it entails. And sometimes when I have two new mediums I'm working with at the same time I like to cross-breed them and that's what I did with my mom's birthday card. I first painted a watercolor background then quilled a cat and the sun on the front of the card.

My mom's birthday was January first and my best friend's birthday was January second so I decided to paint her a yellow flower on a card...
Watercolors, watercolors, watercolors. I am really starting to like this medium. I'm starting to loosen up. I've borrowed some of my mom's books on the subject plus some of her watercolor paintings to get even more ideas. My first "loosening up" project was to paint pumpkins.
My favorite one is the furthest one to the right NOT touching the edge.

I am also borrowing a book from my mom called The Flower Painter's Pocket Palette by Elisabeth Harden. My first love has always been photography and I have millions and millions of pictures of flowers so here again is my opportunity to combine two mediums... paint pictures I've taken with my camera. My first flower attempt was the gerbera:
They are ok but they look like they're floating in mid air. But I have to keep reminding myself that I'm still practicing. I'm one of these people that likes to get it right on the first try. Last night I practiced painting pansies and I really like the way these turned out.


Yes the bottom right hand corner has a green wash on it. Again, experimenting. I wanted to paint the entire background a very light green but when I did it halfway I liked it just like that.
If the artist Georgia O'Keefe comes to mind when you look at my pansies I will take that as the highest compliment. I love her work. I'm still trying to feel my way around this medium though... will I be a landscape or a seascape painter? Flowers or animals? Portraits? I don't know. But what I do know is that I will try each one. (Right now flowers are in the lead!)