A new watercolor just completed of a pair of Ladybugs titled "Lady Luck Too"

Have you ever had one of those days when you see something or you go somewhere and the inspiration hits you to paint something?  Well, that's what happened to me today.  This is being done for the Doodlewash April 2018 challenge - paint something you loved as a kid.

I happened to be in the garden at our house and I had a ladybug land on  my arm.  I love ladybugs.  The are so brilliantly colored and those distinctive black spots so perfectly shaped on their backs always amazes me.  

I was told as a child that if one lands on you, you should hold perfectly still, make a wish and then let it fly off and your wish will come true.  LOL, well I am not sure that is true but I still get great pleasure out of them landing on me.

So, long story short, I decided to paint a ladybug (or two) in watercolor.

I have to be honest though, this painting started out as a 5X7 and I hated the bottom two inches of it so much I cut it off to make it a 5X5.  I show it as an example in a 9X9 frame with a mat.  I'm particularly happy with the leaves on this.  I wanted the blue background to be more opaque so I painted it with white gouache and then dropped in indigo and green and let them mix on the painting.  I love the effect.

"Original Watercolor painting titled "Flamingo Rising"

I decided I wanted to do a watercolor painting of a Flamingo.  If the Flamingo spirit animal appears in your life, it means it's time to turn to your emotions and use them.  Whatever you do, you should follow your heart because it will help you choose the right way.  I named this watercolor "Flamingo Rising" .  I wanted to use bold bright colors as if the Flamingo were rising from the flames.  I started the background first with several washes of bold colors and painted the flamingo in colors of red, fluorescent pink and flaming orange, leaving touches of white.

This is also a 5X7 and fits in an 8X10 frame with a mat.  It is painted on 140lb/300gsm premium watercolor paper.  All of my paintings are for sale on my facebook page DKJartoriginals

Cyclamen pen and Ink watercolor times 2

I decided that I wanted to do a pen and ink watercolor of a fuchsia colored Cyclamen.  I had never seen one before and on our first trip to London, I saw them in window boxes everywhere.  At first I thought they were fake flowers because it was so cold and they were so stunning and perfect.  I saw some in window boxes outside of a pub and finally went in and asked them what type of flower they were because, spending most of my youth and adulthood in Virginia, for some reason, I had never seen any grown there.  

Anyway, I wanted to try my hand at painting them.  The above photo does not do the painting justice as I scanned it and the scanner did not seem to pick up the beautiful fuchsia color well.  The framed photo below is what it actually looks like.  This is a 5X7 and fits in an 8X10 frame with a mat.  It is painted on 90lb/190gsm premium watercolor paper.

Ok, so now I have a fuchsia colored Cyclamen and I wasn't sure if I was happy with it or not, so I decided to do something different with the same drawing - I'm not sure this would be considered an abstract, but it is definitely different.  I decided to put a triangle in the center and only paint what was inside the triangle.  The rest I just left my pen and ink drawing.  I'm not sure what I think about it, the jury is still out!  And again the scan of it does not show the true color of the fuchsia I used but the framed photo does.  This also is a 5X7 and fits in an 8X10 frame with a mat.  It is painted on 90lb/190gsm premium watercolor paper.  All of my paintings are for sale on my facebook page DKJartoriginals.

Thank you for looking!

Mixed Media Canvas Fanny Pack

I had an old fanny pack just gathering dust - I think it was probably 20 years ago that I might have bought this.  Back when I was doing tole painting.  I decided to do something with it.  I had drawn and painted some faces following Jane Davenport's Beautiful Faces Book in my journal.

I decided that I wanted to do a mixed media piece with it so this is what I ended up doing.  I traced the paintings of the "ladies", scanned them and then reduced their size.  I then traced them onto Muslin and went to my sewing machine to sew in all of the details.

Here I show what they looked like and then I applied watercolor paints to give them life!

I then trimmed around each one and placed them between two sheets of baking paper and heat set them.

This is what all three looked like after heat setting:

This is the canvas fanny pack that I had.  It was not pre-primed so I primed it with gesso, added some Liquitex modeling paste through a stencil that I have from Decoart Americana ASMM39-K Short Circuit stencil and added some Indigo and some green watercolor for the background.  I also added some Ranger Jet Black archival ink through my mini "Art Is" stencil from Crafter's workshop.  There are some touches of Mango oxide inks from Tim Holtz as well.  I thought these colors would compliment my ladies!

 I then decided I needed a pop of black so I stitched on some black twine. 

 After I had added the black twine, I decided I need to add some beading and I wanted vines/leaves and flowers so I found a video on youtube showing how to make these flowers and this long winding leafy vine here by Jill Wiseman called Ramblin' Roses and I thought it was stunning so decided to give it a try - here is an image of the vine so far:    

Once the length of the vine was established and I had an idea of the placement on the bag, I decided to finish the vine and add the leaves.  Once I had completed the vine and roses, I layed them on my bag with the Ladies and took a photo so that I could remember the placement when I stitched everything on.  Here is an image of the placement I decided on:

After I was happy with the placement, I lightly traced around the ladies and took everything off.  I put fabric glue on the back of the muslin keeping away from the edges because I knew I would be reinforcing them with stitching.  Then I added some organza and netting bits behind each image, stitched on the vines and flowers and tacked down the images around the edges.  

These are images of the finished design:

Thank you so much for taking a look!

Travel Art Journal

My husband and I flew to South Africa in January/February for 2 weeks and had such a wonderful time.  It has been one of the most wonderful trips we have taken so far.  Here is a view of the travel journal that I kept while we were on the trip.  When we arrived in Capetown (which was the end of our two weeks in South Africa), we then boarded the Queen Mary 2 for about 17 days and disembarked when we arrived in Adelaide.  We spent 3 days in Adelaide which I thoroughly enjoyed and then flew home.

Below are some images of the pages of my travel journal.  I just wish I had started travel journals years ago for all of our trips because we have been on some amazing trips.

I took along with me a Winsor and Newton watercolor palette with the small brush that came with it.  A refillable waterbrush, some small stamp sets (mostly words), small stencils, distress ink pad and applicator, permanent black archival ink pad, some rub ons and some stickers that I thought might apply to this trip, my black permanent ink pen, washi tape and of course my Jane Davenport Journal and some of her watercolor paper inserts as well as her plastic dividers/stencils.

"Peace" pen and ink watercolor wash fashion illustration

I just completed this pen and ink wash of a female in her favorite tank and jeans with the iconic peace sign around her neck.  All of my paintings are for sale on my facebook page DKJartoriginals.

Thank you for looking!

Another watercolor Pen and ink of two ladies at the beach titled "Chin Wag"

Just completed this watercolor pen and ink of two ladies enjoying the day at the beach.  I have titled it "Chin Wag".  All of my watercolor paintings are for sale on my facebook page DKJartoriginals.