Etsy

Just added two new paintings to my Etsy shop, as the first two have sold. I thought I'd try kittens and froggies this time and see how people liked them compared to my usual birds.

Comparing Papers

I am still playing with different art materials, trying to come up with the best possible combination. For this most recent painting, I tried Fabriano Artistico extra white hot press paper. I really liked how bright the colors look on the extra white surface. And unlike the hot press Strathmore Mixed Media paper, I was able to do some lifting of highlights, although not as much as I could with cold press watercolor paper. The hot press surface allowed me to get very tight details too.

However, when removing masking fluid, I noticed that the surface of the paper "pilled" a little bit, which meant that some of the washes didn't go down quite as smoothly as I would have liked. Has anyone else noticed that? I wonder if it had something to do with the fact that my masking fluid was a bit old and congealed!

Thanks to Jacoba for her advice on working with Blogger in my post from a week ago. Seems like Blogger has changed their format and I think that probably had something to do with the problems I was having. And now, back to the drawing board, yay!

Etsy at Last

Well, I have decided to take the plunge and start selling my original art on Etsy. I have only listed two paintings so far, and will add more once I have the whole thing figured out. I'm not the most computer savvy girl in the world, but if people selling collages made from their toenail clippings can figure it out, so can I! Check out my shop:
http://www.etsy.com/listing/98166723/beautiful-watercolor-painting-of-birds

Now, does anyone know how to add an etsy button to my blog? Blogger has changed everything around!
Hope to see you there!

Silly Blogger!

Well, Blogger is being silly and won't let me type any more on the previous post! It isn't letting me type after I post photos on this post either! Does anyone know what I am doing wrong? Anyway, the photo above is me with some of my products in a gift shop, and the mansion photo in the post below is were we had high tea. It is called the Miramont castle and is in Manitou Springs. Manitou is a very artsy, hippy village, with lots of galleries and cute boutiques. I liked the paintings on all the windows:

Spending Time Together

Today I am thinking about what a treasure it is to spend time with the people you love. My dear mother is visiting and she is sitting beside me sewing as I type this. Mum, Margaret, and I spent the weekend down in Southern Colorado in Colorado Springs and Manitou and we so enjoyed being three girls together!

Have a Blessed Easter!

Multi-media Paper

I recently purchased some of the new Multi Media paper from Strathmore. This is a portion of a painting I just finished and I did like the new paper very much. Some of the pros are that it took watercolor washes quite well, and colored pencil worked much better on it than on the coldpress paper I had been using. For this painting I used watercolors, watercolor crayons, and colored pencils.

Some of the cons were that the watercolor seemed to have less depth, and the washes seemed more flat. Also, I was unable to lift highlights out with clean water, like I do with regular watercolor paper. I think I will try hot press watercolor paper at some point, as it will probably have the same texture as this paper, and I can buy it in a block, which is what I prefer. Watercolor paper comes in different textures: rough, coldpress, and hotpress. Coldpress had a medium texture and is more absorbant than hotpress.

All told though, I enjoyed using this paper and playing with my new watercolor crayons, and can't wait to start a new painting tomorrow!