Jolly Jester?

What are Jolly Jester's you ask? Why they're nothing but fantastic looking bi-color marigolds! I sketched these this morning and colored them in with colored pencils. It is a little gift for a friend along with the seeds. Shhhh... she doesn't know about it yet. 


I just love marigolds. They are supposed to keep away mosquitos so they are great in containers on the deck or porch. They are said to keep away other bugs that eat up your plants. They are a great companion plant, tuck them in-between your tomatoes. I just love their smell, I love how perky they always are and how they just last forever in my area. Really. I'll have marigolds blooming all the way to Thanksgiving unless there is an ice storm. If you've noticed, there is a beautiful marigold in my header up above, straight from my garden :)


This is actually the first creative thing I've made in my new art studio!! I have some tweaking to do in it. Nothing like working in a space to figure out what is all wrong about it. Lighting for one needs to be more directed and brighter. Next, legs on a work table to make it higher and I am a sitter while drawing. I still have some piddly little things to put away and I swear my books and more art supplies are up there multiplying in the dark. I'm really tired of making the trip up and down the stairs but I've just about got it licked.


Oh, remember my dehydrating experiment? Well... what like 4 days later and that thing is still running! I've got the very last of batch number two in there now. I discovered it is good to check them every few hours and move the trays around so dry evenly. The ones at the bottom are rather crunchy. Oh well, still fun and wow they pack a punch of flavor! Very condensed tomato taste.


Here's what they looked like whilst drying...

then after...

If you need a lot, you'll be busy for quite a while...

It was fun, I look forward to trying them but probably not until my tomatoes quit producing which hopefully won't be until late October and maybe November if this heat wave continues!

name doodle icad

name doodle icad, a photo by Jaime Haney on Flickr.

icad doodles.

Boy these late night photos are not so great :o/

Don't forget to see everyone's icad's here.

iCAD drawing 2

JaimeHaney2012iCAD2, a photo by Jaime Haney on Flickr.

Via Flickr:
about 1000 calories

scootin' in again late, but I've made it two days in a row now =)

see all the cards from everyone here

iCAD #1

JaimeHaney2012iCAD1, a photo by Jaime Haney on Flickr.

Here's my first icad (index card a day) and I am sliding and screeching in on two wheels but I made it.

First attempt at oil painting

This past Saturday night, my friend Amelia and I took an oil painting class. It was an absolute beginners and neither one of us had a clue as what to expect.


We had a really nice teacher and this was her first time to teach to adults. She is an art teacher for either middle school or high school, I can't remember. There were about 8 of us in this tiny space and sitting at card tables, 4 to a table. It was tight. So tight in fact that I was afraid to scoot my chair back for fear of knocking over things behind me.


So she taught us just a few very basics, handed out canvases, pencils and directed us towards a still life she had set up. It was so close no one really could see it and there was no room to get up and get closer to draw it. Luckily, she handed out pictures she had taken of it. Unfortunately, they were taken from a still life that she had practiced setting up in her home... haha it was kinda dark. But it worked.


This is what I was able to accomplish in the short 2 hours that it lasted. I sat so close to my canvas and held up my picture so close to it that I was unable to even see what I was drawing at the bottom of the canvas. My foreshortening is all wrong. Had I been able to stand up and away from my drawing I think it would have turned out better.


Oh well, I'm pretty happy with it. It was great fun and took the mystery out of oils for me. Who knew how easy it was?! Not me. I've been scared of them for ever. Not any more! I plan to paint more on this and hopefully I can correct the little sugar bowl and its wonky distortion. I'm up for any critques or advice =)


I am just about sick to death of Roses for the Dead. I haven't even really worked on it for a while, but now I'm all fired up for the oils but need to finish this to get it out of the way So it hopefully will be finished very soon if I can make myself do do it. I'm sure I can, I get into it once I get started. I'm anxious for it to be done. It's one of the largest pieces I've done. I'm ready to start going big!

Braggin' Time

I've got to brag about Asher's painting that got 2nd place in the School ARt Show for the Kindergarten class unbeknownst to me. I just happened to be walking in the school to use the restroom and saw it on the wall!


This is also one of the paintings that I put in the art exhibit with mine this weekend. The other is a self portrait that I will share later.


So I had to get a 3x5 card ready with his name, name of the piece and media and I asked him what he called this painting and he said with a very serious tone "Caterpillar on Table". Makes sense to me :) Be still my heart... the nut doesn't fall too far from the tree ;)  sniff sniff...


Here's all I've done on Roses for the Dead... not too much but it's coming along.

Have a great weekend!

Old Man Sun

Happy Friday! One week until Christmas Eve, can you believe it?!  Have you got all your shopping done? I'm pretty much done, a few little things here and there.

It's Paint Party Friday! Yay! So today I want to share a drawing that I've actually re-drawn and re-purposed. It was fun to do different things with this piece and I kinda had the feeling of reckless abandon since it was a print. I got the idea from my friend and artist Diane Salter of My Art Journal. If you've not visited her blog, you need to go if for nothing more than inspiration. I'm linking up with her tutorial page.

Here's my original

I drew this with Prisma Colors quite a while back and like it and plan to frame it, so I don't really want to sell it. I've had offers to buy it, but I can't let go. I'm bad about that. So I found this idea on Diane's blog and tried it with my Old Man Sun.

You scan or photograph your original. (I photographed b/c it was too big) Then print it out with some thick paper and do whatever you want on the print. Easy peasy, right? and fun! I wanted to bump up my colors on my print so I ended up drawing the entire piece over again only this time with these new (to me) crayons called Caran d'Ache Neocolor I Artist Crayons. Wow! What color and fun these are. They are water soluble so that just adds a whole new dimension to our projects. As I was getting the link for this post I just discovered they have metallic crayons too! Oh be still my heart. I'll be getting those for sure, cause I love me some metallic.

I ended up doing a few different ones including this one with my favorite metallic shimmery powders and made a treasure box that I'm happy with. I've got it in my Artfire and Etsy shop.

I also made this other one on a board and don't know what to call it, a plaque? or wall hanging? they both sound silly so I haven't listed it yet. Any suggestions?

Here it is, slightly different than the box and for a different use. I love the streaky look of the metallic. Pictures are hard to capture the shimmer, but shimmer they do!

So there you go, new uses for old art. Thanks to Diane :)  Now go visit the other Paint Party Players.

Toodles,

 

Ahoy me matey

I hope everyone's Thanksgiving was wonderful. I had a rather dull one this year. We had plans to eat with Daryl's family but I had been sick and they were 7 and a half hours away, so that fizzled. I had no intention of cooking, so we had to hit the town to see what was open, and not a 2 hour wait. After checking three other restaurants we ended up at Denny's. Woo Hoo. Actually, it was really good but not terribly traditional. I got the turkey dinner, Daryl got a cheeseburger and Asher got chocolate chip pancakes. But we were all happy and we were together so that's all that matters.

On the artfront... I have been busier than a one legged man in a butt kickin' contest! I've got a show this weekend and I'm trying to get some new stuff ready for it and it is coming together rather slow. I've got new ideas but they are not quite coming together, yet.

I've drawn the pirate ship along with other pirate stuff for some boxes I'm making for boy treasure boxes. Or girl, I guess. I mean, I like pirates. Surely some girls do too.. haha

So here it is all painted in. I made the mistake of not using watercolor paper. I used 300 series Strathmore Sketch paper which says it's for watercolor pencils wet or dry, but I got a little ambitious with the water and then added real watercolors on top of it. I tried to iron it with my regular iron which helped a tiny bit, but it still looks pretty warpy. I've seen tricks where they spray the whole sheet of paper on the back with water to straighten it out, but I'm afraid to do that since it's not watercolor paper. Any suggestions?

I'll be 'round to visit all ye skally wags soon.

Paint Party Week 23

The weeks keep passing by like "sand in the hour glass... these are the days of our lives..."
That phrase will be in my mind forever, it was my grandma's "story" as she called it. My mom's mom. I lost her too early, too. But I regress...  it's Paint Party Friday and I've got a work in progress to show today. A really long work in progress.

It's one of those projects you start and then set aside and think I'll get back to that. Well, it's time to get back to it. It's been years and it's been whispering to me in my dreams to come back to it. So I shall. Here's what I've got so far.

Skeleton and Roses - or Roses for the Dead as I like to call it.

You may recognize it as the famous Grateful Dead art of Alton Kelly. He actually got it from obscure etchings from the nineteenth century. He and his life long collaborator, Stanley Mouse.

I am drawn to the creepy or dark so often, I'm not sure where I get it but it is just the way I am. I am thinking maybe pastels to finish. I thought of colored pencil, but pastels are so bright and that's what I'm after. It needs a little tweaking before I start adding color. I'm sure I'll be sharing more of Roses for the Dead in future PPF's.

I'm watching one of my favorite movies as I write this, Practical Magic. So fun :)  It's getting me in a great little mood. Happy PPF everybody!

Friday the 13th!

Thought I'd share a spooky little sketch I did a lonnnnng time ago. About 20 years ago! I've always had the best luck on Friday the 13th, all my life. Today was no different... I got to enjoy some peace and quiet and I also found out we are approved for a car loan, yay!

Happy Friday the 13th!