Birth of a Dragonfly

Blue Darner Dragonfly

Mixed media on watercolor paper

Got ya with that title, didn't I?  It is a birth of sorts...from sketch to finished painting.
As promised in my last post, I'm sharing a painting I did of a Blue Darner dragonfly.
This time I kept my iPhone camera next to me and snapped pictures of the work in progress.
I'm still having a hard time focusing so finishing anything right now seems like a huge accomplishment to me!
I hope you all enjoy this "birth of a dragonfly". :-)

Beginning with a contour sketch...

 Laying in some colors

 Adding dark colors to the leaves and body

The wings were a bitch. Took forever. 

As a final touch I sprayed on some walnut ink. I plan on adding some iridescent acrylic ink in gold and white to the wing but this is pretty much the finished painting! Yay! I kinda like it! 

Back to Creativity!

Finally! The pool and patio renovations are finished for the most part. I'm still having a custom potting table with sink built for the patio and furniture has yet to arrive. Oh, and the pool is green right now. But let's not dwell on the negative and instead focus on the positive! I finally got a chance to enjoy a weekend at home with no workers. I processed images from my archives:

This one is from a trip to Charleston in 2009! Yes, that is how far back my unprocessed images go. :(

And one from a trip home during Christmas 2010:

My mom's cat Bozo, a tuckered out Tom who is quite the scrapper as you can tell by his poor ears.

Today was also good for traditional art. I started a painting of a dragonfly (to be shared later this week!) and completed a watercolor for Catherine Constance. We are swapping art pieces across the pond. She is sending me a little French girl drawing and I'm sending her a watercolor of my wildflower thicket. I wanted to create something that was very me and as you all know, my garden is just that! :) The hand-lettering freaked me out a bit as I was afraid I would mess up and spell something wrong and I was doing it all in ink the first time out.
But it turned out a-okay and will now be on it's way to Catherine. Catherine lives in France and is such a talented artist. Check out her blog.

"The Wildflower Thicket". Watercolor and ink on 8x8 watercolor paper. 

It felt good to be creative again. I'm not good with distractions and renovations are a big one. The only thing I managed to do while the patio was being torn up was go to the mall and Butterfly World (thus all the pictures of butterflies I've been posting on Flickr and Facebook) and I did one little sketch in my Moleskine that had a nod to Cubism and I practiced drawing hands:

Sorry for the blurry photo but I took it with the iPhone at night. :)

In the Moleskine: practicing stylized hands.

Other than that, the last few weeks have not been motivating or kind to my creative brain but I'm ready to ratchet up the creativity and go full steam ahead...at least until the driveway/walkway renovations begin in August. I do have a plan to escape somewhere fabulous when that happens. A place where I can still be creative with the camera. For now though it's back to processing photos with breaks to the art room to play with pencils and paint!

Wordless Wednesday: Dressed in Nature's Jewels

Dressed in Nature's Jewels

Fun With Friends!

Me and Gina at Butterfly World

Howdy my dear readers!
Long time gone, I know. I had a busy couple of weeks which included my friend Gina coming down for a week of fun, food and laughter as well as a patio renovation taking place. I've had little time for art, although I did manage to create something for Lita for her birthday but other than that it's been all about taking Gina to some of my favorite places in Florida. So, come join us as I take you through our little adventure and check out my day with Lita at the end of the post...
*Shot mostly with the iPhone, although there are a few gems taken with my Nikon.

Mojito Time at The Outback!

We went shopping at the Sawgrass Mills Mall where we had a great lunch at Cheesecake Factory and spent WAY too much time in Burlington Coat Factory.

Gina, Glam Gator of the Glades

I took Gina to my favorite peaceful respite, Butterfly World:

Gina, ready to become one with the butterflies.

A Moment's Pause

Tweety Bird

 Pineapple

 Pretty Parrot

On one of the few days without rain, Gina and I headed to my favorite Florida destination, Sanibel Island. Our first stop was a morning spent on Bowman Beach for a little sun, surf and shelling:

Bowman Beach

 Lovin' the shells, surf and sand!

 Beachy Girl

Gina on Bowman Beach

 Gina heads off to gather some shells

Ah, this is the life!

 Lunch at Island Cow!

Sanibel Lighthouse

We had just one other great day of weather and we took advantage of that and headed to the Everglades:

Swamped

 Southeastern Lubber Grasshopper

Mosquito Crossing

 This guy was huge. We saw him take a big, deep breath which he exhaled slowly. We stared at him in awe for quite a while before moving on. It was a thrill to see one this big.

 In the Muck

Swamp Grass

Lunch at the Swamp Cafe

Gina and I love to shop so we hit up H&M in Palm Beach and had lunch at Brio:

Brio Tuscan Grille, Palm Beach Gardens

We even had a fabulous sunset to share with Gina during her stay:

Sunset colors captured with the iPhone 4s

The day after Gina left, our patio and pool renovation started which meant I would be spending a lot of time out of the house and away from the noise:

What a mess! They left piles of sand on the deck which Sookie thinks should be used as a litter box, so needless to say the cats have been forced to stay inside and have been driving me a bit mad!

Thank goodness Lita had some time to get together for a birthday day of shopping! More fun than sitting around listening to construction noise and viewing the mess out my windows!

Lita with the painting I made for her for her birthday. It's of her favorite butterfly and done in watercolor. It was the only art I've been able to create these past few weeks. She loved it! Here is a closer view of the painted butterfly:

Malachite in Watercolor

Of course we did some shopping in Barnes & Noble but then also headed to the Boca Town Center Mall to get some inspiration while shopping our favorite store Anthropologie:

 Artful Reflections

Of course, we found a mirror for a duo selfie! This one in Macy's:

Shopping Selfies!

All in all, it was a fun couple of weeks spent with friends and next up is another busy week that is going to include Sports Fanatic Bunco, a retro shoot with Leanne, a concert, movie and just maybe, a Heat/Thunder playoff game! Summer is all about having fun and enjoying life! I hop you all are gearing up for some summer fun too!