Announcing The Opening...

Of my Etsy store! When I first signed up for Etsy, I never gave a thought to having a store, hence the boring user ID I chose. But I finally decided that I really can't keep every thing I paint or make. I give handmade gifts to almost everyone, but still I just don't have the room for it all. So, I opened Color Enthusiast, so that others, who love the same freedom, color, and joy in art as I, now have the option of owning one of my original works!

Shipping is free for US customers unless stated otherwise (currently, all of my listings have free shipping). International customers will need to PM me so that I can give them the best shipping option possible and a credit of $20 for artwork! All paintings will be shipped with insurance as well.

Additionally, I will be donating 10% of each sold painting (minus shipping costs) to charity. My preferred charities are St. Jude's, thehungersite.com, Nothing But Nets, America's Wetland Foundation, and the ASPCA.

Starting a new composition

I have been inspired to try painting on watercolor sheets again, and today I started a little composition. This is a unicorn, obviously. I usually think of unicorns as something like a mix of a deer and a horse, neither quite as light as the one nor nearly as heavy as the other. Immediately recognizable as a unicorn, but whether more horse-like or more deer-like, who knows? Peter S. Beagle had it right; they are certainly not just a horse with a horn, and I hope that comes through in this quick drawing. I drew the unicorn directly onto my watercolor paper, and then outlined it with black acrylic. I haven't gotten around to the background yet, but there will be a lot of shrubbery, bushes, and the like around, some tallish grasses, and (hopefully) a magical atmosphere. Color scheme is undecided as I haven't randomly chosen colors or looked to a spirit card yet.

In pencil: (I like how you can see my shadows on this photo)


And outlined in black:


Also, have been working on (the third [??] go-round of) Sylvi (finished the back, one front, almost done with the second front), reading as many books as I can manage (I swear for every book I read on my list, I add two more), and trying to finish a belated Christmas present.

Speaking of gifts, I can now post pictures of things I made for Christmas. Here's the gift I painted for Dusty's mother. This is her favorite kitty, Sugar. Acrylic on canvas, 8x10"


And here is a photo of the painting I did for my Paulette Insall class. I've posted it before, but the colors are MUCH truer here! Mixed media on canvas, 8x10"

All About Faces - Finished Portrait!

So, I finished my portrait. Painting is so addictive; once I am started on a painting I don't want to stop until it's done! Anyway, here is my finished portrait. Unfortunately, the camera didn't capture the depth of this painting. Her skin has a lot more depth to it IRL!



And a close-up.


This painting is really a self-portrait, despite the girl not looking exactly like me (although my mom and Dusty both said she does look like me). I selected snippets of a few of my favorite quotes - the uppermost quote says "There is nothing more artistic than to love people," a van Gogh quote. Then the quote in black says "Every artistic dips his brush in his own soul and paints his own nature into his pictures", by Henry Ward Beecher. The last little quote says "Born into color." I love color and these three little words really speak to me, and this is a painting that definitely is from the soul. In the uppermost right corner is the word "inspire," which I clipped from the same note card that held the hummingbird I also used.

In the background, I've included a dandelion seed head - something about those little flowers always makes me so happy, and to me it symbolizes something spiritual; a promise of hope, a newness and a cleanliness of spirit; a gift from God. There is a hummingbird, too, from a note card I just loved and couldn't think of a better way to preserve it. The fish scales are just a visual texture I like in my paintings.

Anyway, so there it is!

All About Faces - Background

So, tonight I started on my background. It's not nearly finished, but while waiting for it to dry, I took a couple of pics.

Here is step 1:


Step 2:


Don't worry, it's not done yet!

All About Faces

I signed up to take Paulette Insall's online course All About Faces. Her artwork is so wonderful, and I'm very excited to have a chance to do this course. I'm a little behind (due to schoolwork!). Tonight, I did my first practice drawing. I'm going to try to do a quick drawing every day. This is just a quick sketch, not a serious drawing. I like how it came out; very whimsical, and I've decided the young lady I drew is most certainly a ballerina. She started out as an impression of me, but she sort of took on a life of her own! Although I do still see a resemblance. She is a fiery redhead, and she has freckles, but they are hard to see in this photo I took with my phone camera. The nose needs some work, but it is nice to know I can still pick up a pencil and get something I'm relatively happy with without much erasing!



ETA: Also, yay, I made a banner! Not a fancy one, but it features my artwork. It doesn't match the blog, and I don't care. I don't know how to pretty up the blog and I hate all of their templates except this one in this color.

Just a quickie to mention a site

So, I just discovered that Loretta, one of the wonderful ladies with whom I took M. Douglas Walton's painting workshop, has a website now! How awesome. She is a fantastic artist, and you should check it out.

New painting - Lycoris radiata

I've finished another painting... at least, I think it's finished. I'm not really quite sure. Right now, I've left the background white, because I like the contrast of the white against the red, but I'm also worried that it makes the painting look unfinished. I was considering doing a light, warm-tones color gradient radiating from the flower. Should I go for it?



On the knitting front, I'm working on Sylvi. Lots of mods, let's see if I can actually finish this one! Usually when I try modifying a knit, I get frustrated or bored, and forget about finishing it. This time, I am determined - I so want to have my very own lovely Sylvi!

Also, I finally can wear my Noble Collection Arwen Butterfly ring again. I know it's nerdy, but really I wanted this ring because it's just lovely, not because it's LotR-related (although, of course, I do LOVE LotR). My mom got it for my birthday one year. Unfortunately, the quality was not so great - not long after I received it, the clear stone fell out - there are no prongs on this ring, and I guess it was just glued in. I super-glued it back in, but it fell out again, and I couldn't find it the second time. It had been too long for it to be replaced by the company, and I searched for a replacement stone, but couldn't find one. So for a long time, I couldn't wear it. A couple of days ago, I had an idea. I had an old ring that was too large for me, with an lab-grown opal in it. The opal was nice but the ring itself was blah, and I couldn't wear it anyway since it was too large. So, I loosened a prong, took the opal out, and, since the shape of the bottom was off and I knew glue wouldn't hold anyway, I green-stuffed it to the ring. I was able to do it so only a teeny bit of the green stuff showed, and that I painted silver, which happens to match the sterling silver almost precisely. It looks great, and now I can wear my ring again, yay! I'd post a picture but I couldn't manage a good, non-blurry one. I don't know how people take pictures of jewelry.

Soon, I'll post photos of the dress I decorated for Ornament Premiere, as Tim Burton's Corpse Bride. I don't have the photos right now.

And, is it terribly nerdy that, I bought makeup from EyesLipsFace partially because they abbreviate it as ELF and I thought that was awesome? I mean, yes, I mostly decided to try it because it is inexpensive (although it would be easy to over-spend on that site!), but the name totally makes me happy.

Finally, I thought the Blogger tab that says "Monetize" meant you could make your blog Monet-ish. I was excited. Alas, it is not so.

Paintings

If there is anything I love, it is painting. Granted, I am no true artist, but I enjoy it and that's all that matters. Here are the paintings I've done thus far this year.

The first two paintings are not "originals." They were done at CorksnCanvas, a place where you do a painting in an evening. There is an instructor who tells you what to do, and everyone in the class does the same painting, but they all come out remarkably different. I went with a couple of people, and we had a blast. We really liked the New Orleans house paintings, so we did two of them (on two separate occasions).


This pink house was my favorite of all the paintings they offer. I just love how mine turned out, but I forgot to add some potted plants, which I still need to do.


We go saltwater fishing, usually once or twice a year. I have taken some great photos on these trips, and I always wanted to do paintings of them. Well, I finally did, at least started my "series" of Louisiana wetlands paintings. I did the red tugboat first, and then the shrimping boat. More will follow.

Surprise!

My first ever paintings!

All of these, except the fish, were done on watercolor paper with house paints. The fish is on canvas, and uses house and oil paints. They are posted in the order in which I painted them. I did this in a weekend Watermedia Encounter class offered by M. Douglas Walton.






This was such a great experience, and I can't wait to do it again! Not sure how long it will be, though. I loved every minute, and I am very happy with my first efforts. Hope y'all like, too! :-)