Happy Valentines Day

After weeks studying and practicing the style of 1920's greeting card art (colorful, flowerly, idyllic scenery, and flat -- no dimension or shading), I've concocted and painted an entire scene from my own little brain.

Here is the first draft, without a background. I found I had limited my choices for a background color or pattern by drawing in the house and the line of the hill behind the couple. Ideas I had will no longer work for a background, unless I paint over the current one. Lesson learned! Plan first, paint second!


For the background, I wanted something different -- a geometric or graphic patterned background (something like the side panels), so the scene didn't look too realistic. I didn't want green grass and a blue sky. But guess what I did? Painted the grass green and the sky blue.

Well, that didn't look right at all. The green and blue were so mid-range that the man and woman disappeared. So I darkened the blue and green. Better, but now it looks like nighttime! Nighttime, with a parasol. Maybe she doesn't want to get a moon-burn.


But it's not too late, and I have a plan. I know some people won't like my plan, but I'm going back to the original geometric pattern idea. I'll post the final result later. First I need to find some ink or paint that will sit on top of the acrylic paint background.

Ta ta! (Or as Jody says, TTFN -- ta ta for now.)

Hibiscus and other bright flowers

Hibiscus blusher, digital photograph 8/27/07 (all rights reserved - I know you want it!)

Have you noticed what's back in style? 1950's-1970's surfing, tiki, and Hawaiian/tiki themes. That means hibiscus floral prints (I put a white hibiscus decal on my car's rear window), surfboard and beach icons, and maybe even tiki paraphernalia. My favorite related color scheme would be aqua blue, leaf green, and buttery yellow or tan -- beach colors. I did my part to stay hip by buying a hibiscus bush (photo above).

I know the one-image-per-day blog rule, but I couldn't wait to post an image I created from cast shadows (below)! I noticed some attractively-shaped shadows on our sidewalk and wanted to use them in art. So I photographed the shadows, uploaded them to Photoshop and applied a couple filters to get the image below.

Lights From the Shadows, Digitally Altered Photograph

Mandala

It's so much fun to draw a mandala! I know you're supposed to meditate on finished ones, but my meditative process occurs while drawing them. If you'll click on the image you can see the detail, which is the whole idea of the mandalas I draw -- lots of small detail. Sometimes they look like an ant farm on a busy day.

All About Flowers Today

I want to say thank you to those of you who have sent such encouraging comments via my blog and personal emails. Blogging isn't as good as face-to-face relations, but in our fast-paced society, it's starting to feel personal.

I've been -- well, all over the place lately. In my blockprinting class, I'm focused on chine-colle prints, like the previous post. But at home it's a different story. Today I'm posting a couple flowers I photographed then passed through a filter in Photoshop Elements. They aren't altered much, really, just enough to make them more artsy.

About the first image, the pink rose: We grow these curly, almost neon-pink-and-orange rose bushes in our back yard which no one can see but us, and I'd bet Joe's not looking much, so that leaves me and the cat. But I really do like them. The black dots came from the filter. The image below it is a Japanese Plum tree twig from the tree in our yard.

This is one of those California ice plant flowers that open at sunrise and close at sunset. This one was just about to open up. I say "California ice plant" because my husband never heard of ice plants until he moved to California. It grows all over the neighborhoods where I grew up, near the south bay beaches, especially around the Playa del Rey dunes. I vividly remember seeing ice plant on my walks to school and the beach as a kid, and outside my old Playa del Rey condo.