Christmas in July!

Watercolor

ALMOST JULY ...

I did this illustration in Feb 2011. Christmas seems never to leave my mind and heart....grin.
This is our kitchen.
Hope you like it!!

Summer is time for fishing!

Summer is time for fishing....

At least here at our farm!!!!!!!*grin*

I hope you are enjoying your summer no matter where you are!!!

You can buy a print here!

Psalm 8

" When I consider your heavens, the work of your fingers, the moon and the stars, which you have set in place, what is mankind that you are mindful of them, human beings that you care for them?" Psalm 8:3-4

One of the very first Psalm chapter to be memorized by my children was Psalm 8. I love the assurance and the Majesty expressed by the words of king David. It is a comforter to know that we serve a God that is sovereign and all power.

This illustration is again a little different than most of my children's illustrations. I am always wanting to try something new....a new approach... in drawings and painting . I am discovering that i like a the soft side a lot. I think it tells a lot about the picture mood. As you can see , i did not use black and did not highlight the edges. I worked mostly with the shadows . In my mind this is a evening were the moon was full and bright, just like when I was a child growing up in Brazilian farm land.... the moon seemed always brighter there than here and now.*grin*

I would love to hear from you with your honest feedback. What do you think? Is it too light, muddier, or it soft and fits the story?

**I still can not see my followers and nor can I follow others. I am not sure what to do. I can visit and leave comments but this is so upsetting to me.

. It is available here

Have a blessed weekend!!!!

Today is a Fairy Party!!!!

Welcome to the "Fairy Day Celebration"!!!!

I finished my painting just in time to participate to this cyber celebration. *grin*

If you like faeries and would enjoy viewing other blogs that are participating, please click on the tab on the left and a link will take you there!!

You can buy it here! Enter the special code FAIRY and get 20% off.

what is on my desk!

Like any other work that I do, I have lots of materials that I use when I am creating. When I first started to paint with watercolors , I used the very inexpensive watercolors. There were few reasons for that: One was for the fact that I was not sure what was the difference from paint cakes and paint in tubes, and the other was -price.
I guess I did learn that we get what we pay for it . I will make a confession and tell you that only *very * recently that I finally spent the time, in learning about the difference, and the money... should I say ..LOTS(!) and bought a hand full of paints.
I bought some very fine artists color - Winsor & Newton series 3 and 4 and some Grumbacher as well.
Wow! what a difference. I am having so much fun with these new paints. i also bought some iridescent watercolor paint and they are beautiful for details too.
I then decided that I need to make a color chart. I have made couple but as much as they are helpful to me, I realise that I truly should make more for reference. the concept is one that I knew from glazing pottery as I find very helpful and I still don't understand why I didn't do this before.

Next are my watercolor pencils. LOVE them! Of course I use brushes too. I have lots of them, as a matter of fact, my birthday is next month and my children knows that this is my number one item in their list of present for me!:-)

I use plastic pallets. I don't care for porcelain. It works well for me and is washable.




BUT my favorite one is my handmade pallet from a acrylic board that I stop my husband from throwing in the garbage. I use this as a portable table specially when I want to paint outside by the pond or sitting any where under a tree or by the pastures. I have a place for my water cup in which was a special Christmas gift from a dear friend that is 86 years old.*grin*


On the bottom left of the picture above you cab see a circle and it was made to fit her cup. ( forgot the place in when took the picture, dahhh)


I love this Because is unique and attach the paper so tight avoiding the curliness when its wet. also all the paint is near and so the water--- perfect!*grin*





Next to my work is normally my models.... oh am I blessed?!!!* big smiles*


My children are focus in my life and art. when I draw I use LOTS of old pictures of when they were toddlers , as I love the details of the natural gestures specially fingers and toes but faces... faces are very important too.

I like to draw a little older children too . My sweet Becca is often called to pose for me. As you see I took 3 pictures of her and choose one. I want to make a faerie under a mushroom in a raining day.





I doddle my first idea and I like it. I use a very fine mechanical pencil and draw straight into the watercolor paper. If one day I buy a good light box, I will then work on my sketches but for now as I don't have one, I work so light on the watercolor paper that when I erase my mistakes I don't ruin the paper. If I try to copy eye to eye from my sketch I always end up loosing something like an expression.. and I hate that. I will then start my project already not liking it sigh so a while ago i decide to only sketch the idea , like the one above and then work on my lines and final drawing direct on the WC paper.ugh! I hope I made sense with my broken English!






I spent a good time thinking and thinking while I was feeding the chickens. I then walked thought the pastures back home ( my barns where the chickens lives is in the other side of the pastures) I got back to my picture and prayed . I prayed as I was walking too. I always ask God to work thought my hands and to show me what to do and to help me improve.





I then felt ready and start drawing. to my completely surprise , my little faerie became more like a princess. I start out with a crown but later I removed because the children told me that she look like Thumbelina. The large frog was drawn appears in my mind . I made him into a "prince to be".

I the background also start to come to me... this is when I get excited. I have a vision!




I see that my pictures are not good. I was not checking the light source when I took them and some were taking at mid night anyways.

I called Becca to see and she made a "face"- she hates frogs... in all animals , she is scare of them!

I then promised her that I would make him very lovely and not freighting at all!*grin*

ps. clicking on each picture , will enlarge it and you can view it better!

I will post my finished piece next time!*grin*

Fairy & Fireflies

Last post I talked about freedom. I truly feel more free now but I also feel that my art is changing as I am. I am glad I am because I want so badly to improve, and I don't mean to make it perfect but to grow to the direction that will please God.

My next post will be about the materials that I use and (((WHAT))) I have change in this area. I am discovering new techniques and ways to use it. This may be a interesting post for some of you that uses watercolors too.

I wanted to try something different and challenge my self. I absolutely *love* to draw and paint from reality with a twist of old fashion ; however I felt a need to come out of my shell and do something completely different.

This is how this little fairy child and the fireflies came to me.....*grin*

I have lots of new ideas and as an artist this is precious. There are many time that I get discourage with lack of inspiration but right now I am glad I am not there.*grin*

I had a lovely day today. Truly a blessed one. Our pastor preached about pride and I was humbled by it. The world that we live in teaches us about self-steem and to have pride but all this is against God's word. Pride separates man from God because it lead us to self boasting and not to give credit to God.
Pride refuses to look to God for help and also creates disregard to Him AND others.
Our culture feeds us with the "Gospel of self steem" and the bible tells that this is not a virtue.
We read about the arrogance and violence of Human Pride in Genesis 4 17-24.
In contrast of this is the humility of Christ in our Salvation. Philippians 2:4-11 , describes it so well.
So my dear reader and friends, I will leave you now wishing you a wonderful and blessed week ahead of you!
Love~

Finding myself

When I was a little child, I was told to try my best in everything I did. Yes, I do tell my children the same thing, in fact I tell then that what ever they do , do it as if you were doing for Jesus.

Well, one thing that sometimes as parents we forget to stress is that our best is not always even close to be perfect and that is perfectly fine.*grin*

I was a ballerina and all I heard was : "You are doing great now you can get better".

The question " when (things) will be good enough" only came to me after I had all my children and after I started to draw and paint with watercolors.

My main purpose painting a flower , for ex, when I painted with oil paints was to make as "perfect" as possible. I wanted to full one's eyes and to make it as realistic as possible and please what I am saying here does not mean that if you work that way , I think is wrong.... not at all, I am just sharing some conflicts and some answers that worked for ME and perhaps you too have gone through the same ... or maybe not.*grin*

I have never been truly happy with my art work ( mostly paintings) and had no idea why. Then I start drawing..... my drawings were somehow funny lines trying to imitate perfection ...all in vain.

Ohhhh it was not working. I didn't spent time drawing and all my oil paintings would first get a sketch with my brush only and the shapes would come to life as I painted so I had no "real" practice with drawing.... but a desire to paint with water color was growing stronger in my heart.

I figure it was a matter of practice so like in all I have been told- Make it perfect.

What is perfection? Does the bible tells me?

I begin to pray about this .....mmm ....about 4/5 years ago, I think. I also was "searching " in God's words for answer.

It was with much excitement that I found out that there was not such thing as 'perfect' and the only perfection in life is the Lord- The Trinity.

This truly became real to me and in so many aspect... my life changed....my art changed.*grin*

Tasting freedom...

I began to experiment some sort of freedom that I did not know and has affected me tremendously.

I also start to look through a window that was new to me.... other artists like Tasha Tudor, Lisbeth Zwerger, Renee Graef even my "favorite illustrator " Beatrix Potter... just to name few.

I saw a freedom when they illustrated that did not call for a ruler, a perfect line ,or even perfect watercolor combination.... and yet a lovely , most amazing illustrations that combined not only a beautiful finished piece but some imperfection that brought so much charm and , if I may say, realism to the illustration. Realism I say , because life is not perfect.*smiles*

I have been dedicating my self to drawing a lot these past 2 years . One can see me drawing just about everyday.
I sketched this little girl and her dolly today.... this is not perfect ... but I like it!*grin*

Color or Sepia: Would you kindly help me decide??;-)

Hello dear readers & friends~*grin*
I would graciously appreciate if you could help me with this post. I need an outside opinion. If I explain too much it may influence on your decision so I would only ask you to take a look at these 2 illustration and leave me a comment which one you like best and why.Thank (((you))) so much in advance for take time in your busy schedule to do this for me!!*grin*

Family Dolls Stop Motion Video

Gabby and Becca surprised me with this little film today. I laugh a lot ,but mostly important to me is to see them playing with our family dolls and with each other despise of today's time where most of the teens don't even care for dolls and simple play.*grin*