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Tuesday, March 29, 2011

Pink Roses and Blue Birds

Welcome. I am so happy that you stopped by. My garden gate is always open for you to come in and sit and relax with a cup of tea while I share with you the inspirations for my art. Are you as excited about Spring finally arriving as I am? Southern California had a record rain fall this year and thank goodness our drought has just been declared over - we are still going to conserve our precious water supply and are happy that we can water our gardens this year.

We are so thrilled that the Blue Birds have returned to nest in our area and lots of people have put up "nesting" bird houses to attract the Blue Birds back to Southern California.


Nesting


Let's join Bentley, my Studio Assistant, in the garden to show you where our Blue Birds are nesting this year.




Finding Inspiration . . . . .
My pink Cecil Bruner rose is just starting to bloom - it climbed up over the fence and into a tree where a little Blue Bird house was placed and made the perfect nesting place for them.


Here . . . .
There . . . .
Everywhere . . . .
This is not a real nest - just one that I put out for fun in the garden.



The Blue Birds and pink roses were the inspiration for the little " nesting" painting.







I painted the bench with Blue Birds last year to celebrate their return.



"Even the sparrow has found a home, and the swallow a nest for herself, where she may have her young - a place near your alter." Psalm 84:3









Thank you for stopping by. I love hearing from you and cherish and sincerely appreciate your visits, comments, e-mails and those who follow my blog. Please let me know if you have any questions or would like to see me paint something special.

BLOG BREAK - I will be taking a mini break next week to work on a large painting for my new blog banner and will return on April 15th to show you the new work.
Have a lovely week. Blessings, Erin

Wednesday, March 23, 2011

Happy Spring Winner and Painting Zinnias

Welcome and Happy Spring. I am happy to announce that the winner of my Thank You Spring Giveaway is: Kathi. Congratulations and please send me an e-mail with your address so I can mail you your present. Thank you to everyone who entered. I only wish that I could have given all of you a present.


Thank you for stopping by. My garden gate is always open for you to come in and sit and relax with cup of tea while I share the inspirations for my art. We have had lots of rain in Southern California this past week and everything in the garden is starting to bloom. I was so excited to see the Zinnias with buds and little flowers. I could not wait to pick a little bouquet to paint as they are one of my favorite "happy" flowers.


Lets join Bentley, My Studio Assistant in the garden to see what we can pick to paint.

Finding Inspiration . . . . . .



















Here . . . . . . .






The orange Zinnias seem to be growing faster than the other colors.






There . . . . . .







My old vintage wagon is the perfect container for pots of blooming plants. I am very careful not to let water stand in the bottom of it so it will not rust out.








I love the little garden Bumble Bee signs and have them tucked here and there.




Everywhere . . . . .













I painted the little bouquet on a small canvas and "faked" the lavender Zinnias as I do not have any in bloom yet, but thought the painting needed some lavender. The two orange Zinnias look more yellow in the photograph of the painting .




Happy Spring


" See the winter is past; the rains are over and gone. Flowers appear on the earth; the season of singing has come, the cooing of doves is heard in our land". Song of Songs 2:11-12


Thank you for visiting and for entering my giveaway. I only wish that I had a gift for everyone who left a comment. I love hearing from you and sincerely appreciate and cherish your visits, comments and e-mails and those who follow my blog. Please let me know if you have any questions or would like to see me paint something special.


Have a lovely week. Blessings, Erin

Sunday, March 13, 2011

Painting a Spring Garden Sign and Giveaway

Welcome. I am so glad that you stopped by. My garden gate is always open for you to come in and sit and relax with a cup of tea. Today we are going to look for inspiration for a Spring Welcome garden sign that we can paint together. The weather has been beautiful in Southern California and it seems like everything in early bloom in my garden is pink.



Bentley, my Studio Assistant, is already in the garden looking for inspiration for us to paint.





I have several pots of pink Hydrangeas that are in full bloom. The blue and white Hydrangeas have lots of buds but are not quite in bloom.












The old fashion fragrant geranium has tiny pink blooms.



The pink Geraniums love the sun and are in bloom.






"The mountains and the hills shall break forth before you into singing". Isaiah 55:12

Hydrangeas are very easy for beginners to paint. Let' pick a few blooms and put them in a basket and get started painting.



Notice how many different colors there are on the blooms.








Here is a close up of the basket so you can get an idea of how to paint it.





I like to paint on an 8X10 100% cotton canvas as it will hold up out side, however, you can paint on a wood board or piece of slate that you can purchase at Joann's, Michael's or any craft store. I use acrylic paints. You are welcome to copy my drawing - in the past I have used my computer to print out sample font for the lettering - you can also purchase a CD with various samples of font to use for your lettering.





Notice that I drew the horizontal weave of the basket - it is important when you paint it that you paint the weave as shown on the real basket of Hydrangeas. I like to paint in the darks first.







I used Raw Sienna, Burnt Sienna and Raw Umber. If you do not have these colors, don't worry - just use a light and dark brown. After I paint in the darks I go back with the same colors and lighten them up with a little white or yellow to get the look of the weave of the basket.
Notice how I painted the flowers in a dark color first - I used Alizrin Crimson and will later add white when I paint the actual petals. Your can use red and go back and add a little white to get the light colors of the petals. I also used a yellow/green mixed with white on some of the petals to get the variation on the petals. Hydrangeas have lots of groups of petals on the main flower - most have 5 per group of petals. I mixed my Crimson with white and highlighted some of the petal groups. Then I painted a little yellow/green center on the highlighted petals. Also add a little yellow or light brown to you leaf to give the look of the veins on the leaf.





The last step is to add a little shadow under the basket, varnish with 3 coats of non-yellowing matt acrylic varnish and attach screw hooks on the back and add a little ribbon and ENJOY.







SPRING THANK YOU GIVEAWAY




Giveaway -$100. Pottery Barn Gift Card and Welcome Garden painting of your choice.



To enter, please leave me a comment and let me know which garden sign you would like to receive with your gift card. You do not have to have a blog to enter - simply leave your comment under Anonymous. As a special THANK YOU to the followers of my blog your name will be entered twice. Just let me know when you leave a comment if you are a follower. The winner will be announced on March 25th.







If pink does not work in your garden, you can pick the other Spring garden sign shown below.



Our thoughts and prayers go out to the people in Japan. There is power in united prayer. Jesus said: "For where two or three come together in my name, there I am with them." Matthew 18:20
Thank you for stopping by. I love hearing from you and sincerely appreciate you visits, E-mails, comments and those who follow my blog. I read and cherish each and every comment and e-mail. Please let me know if you have any questions or would like to see me paint something special.



Have a lovely week. Blessings, Erin

Sunday, March 6, 2011

Art Lesson - Yellow Bird House and Pansies

Welcome. I am so happy that you stopped by. My garden gate is always open for you to come in and sit and relax with a cup of tea while I share the inspirations for my art with you. Several weeks ago I shared with you a still life painting that I "repurposed" by painting out some of the objects and adding new objects. I received a number of e-mails from some of the new artists who paint along with me asking for more information on repurposing art. . . . as well as expressing reluctance on their part to "paint over" and start fresh. I thought it would be fun to devote this post to sharing more information on repurposing in hopes of putting some new artists at ease.



Let's join Bentley, my Studio Assistant in the garden and look for inspiration for repurposing .






I love the little yellow birdhouse sitting among the pansies and think it would be fun to add it to a repurposed painting.



Finding inspiration . . . .









Here. . . . .







There . . . . .












Everywhere . . . .









This is the painting that I repurposed several posts back. I decided to repurpose it again as an example for my painting readers who asked for more information.


To show you how easy and "fearless" it is to repourpose your painting - I painted out the pink roses and tea pot and tea cup. Painting out the pink roses opened up more of the window with the ocean view and changed the feeling of the painting.






Next I added the little yellow birdhouse and pots of pansies that were found in my garden. I later decided to paint out the blue and white pot of yellow pansies as I thought there would be too much yellow in the painting. I did not take a photo for you. I also painted out two of the white roses as I felt there were too many for the vase with the pink roses gone.






I added another pot of white roses to balance out the large vase and bring balance to the painting.








I also added another terra cotta pot for harmony and two pansey seed packets. I feel the new tin pot of white roses is too close in color to the ocean and sky and will paint it white at a later day. See . . . you can repurpose and continue to make changes just by painting over the items you want to change. Remember - be fearless and do not be afraid to make changes to your painting.







Here is the completed "repurposed" painting. I hope that this was helpful to everyone who sent me e-mails with questions. If not, please let me know and we will work on another repurposed painting.




Spring is almost here . . .


Flowers appear on the earth; the season of singing has come, the cooing of the doves is heard in our land". Song of Songs :2:12


NEXT WEEK WE WILL PAINT A SPRING WELCOME GARDEN SIGN
AND HAVE A WELCOME SPRING GIVEAWAY
Thank you for stopping by. I love hearing from you and sincerely appreciate your visits, comments and those who follow my blog. I read and cherish each and every visit and comment. Please let me know if you have any questions or would like to see me paint something special.


Have a lovely week. Blessings, Erin