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! 

The Gypsy Journal

My beautiful cousin and friend Missy made us matching Gypsy Journals filled with watercolor paper.  The journals are so gorgeous with a ribbon tie adorned with a metal key and heart. She even made a matching bookmark! I had originally sketched my first page while on our Bigfoot Adventure but had decided later that this very special journal needed a very special theme. I chose to fill this Gypsy Journal with "mini stories", each sketch/watercolor would include random words cut from one page of a book or magazine. The words from that one page would then be used to form a random story. The story would dictate the image instead of the image coming first. With the idea in place I cut the first page today, arranged the words into a mini story, sketched and watercolored the image:

I ran away

dressed in my petulant tears

holding my breath

Spellbound by

sparkling shades of turquoise

breathe

wearing a smile

like a globe of jelly.

This was a great challenge in that it could be done in a few hours. Fitting art into day is always a plus!