Painting progress

The last few months for me have been a blur. A lot of my projects have been put on the back burner. But I'm excited to be getting back to what I love. I won't go into detail right now about all that has happened in the last few months, that' s a long story. It has nothing to do with anything I blog about. I'm sure I'll share more of those personal details at some point. But right now I'm just glad that Spring seems to peering through the clouds and warmth is returning to the ground.

Today though I want to share some of the process I went through went my last painting.

My friend Lindsay, who I love and adore, is moving this week, SAD! She is a hairstylist and traded me a new hair-do for a painting. I've done this trade thing a few times now and I really like how it works out :) She told me she wanted a hummingbird, corals, peaches, and turquoise. Which is perfect because those are most of MY favorite things.  Here is the end product:

I started out putting in blocks of bright happy colors, leaving white space for the bird.

Then I added in blocks of color to the body.

Then I started to have some fun with it. I through in some drips, some scribbles, and some blocks of lighter colors.

My husband said the red drips looked like the bird was bleeding...not really my intention. I hate when he's right. I therefore tried to cover a little bit of that up.

In the end, this became one of my most favorite paintings I've ever done. It combines all of what I like to do with art. This will sound really cheezy, but I kind of found myself as I did this. I've struggled back and forth between styles and techniques. I love to try lots of new things and that kicks me sometimes because then I can't decide what to stick with. But this...this is my happy place. I'll be adding prints of this to the shop soon since the original has a home. One of my goals this year is to add in originals to my etsy shop this year. That's the plan! Stay tuned!

A sketchbook look

I'm going to share more of my sketchbook with you folks. It houses a lot of random things and thoughts. It's always on my desk and I use it a lot, especially to test colors while I'm painting. So here's a look in. I have a bajillion sketchbooks. This one I've had since November of 2012 I think. It's full. I need another. I have about 20 filled journals and sketchbook on my bookshelf. I can't help it. 

This was with my computer's webcam, so eh, the text is backwards. Oh well this time.

From the first day I got my gouache paint. I didn't want to go to bed. I felt jipped that for all these years I didn't know about it.

 More from my first date with gouache. Had to do some birds of course.

This page? I don't even know where it came from.

Ya that's a bearded baby.

The day I got a bottle of neon yellow paint. Love neon!

This page in particular...I remember drawing all of things while I was feeling overwhelmed with all of my household duties. I was drawing all this stuff that consumed my life at the point and now it seems funny.   Among it all included the tv show The Office (all time fan here), laundry, sweeping, feeding our boy, blowing bubbles, and cleaning binkies. It's a beautiful life, ha.

This last page I've used as a palette many times when I didn't feel like getting a real one wet. Ya I'm lazy a lot with my paint use.

One day my husband and I had a little drawing session together. We decided we would draw a nerdy bird.  I want to frame his.

Toddler room rearrange

Harrison's bedroom had remained mostly the same since he was born, but I added or removed things along the way. Now that he'll be two soon, I've been wanting to make it more than a place to sleep. After Christmas I was feeling the itch to clean out and rearrange. I'm still working on the toy situation, but the main part of his room is good for now. As with most of my projects, I'm so excited to get started that I don't do a before picture.  Just imagine that his room was not terrible, but not that great either. But now I'm happy in there and he is too.  His room really didn't cost anything to put together. Score!

That rocking chair was one of my first projects for his room which I talk about here.

The duvet cover curtains came from my old twin bed cover I used when I was in college. I'm glad it found new life.  His room has the sun on it ALL day, he desperately needed curtains.

A friend of a friend so graciously gave us that crib. So grateful for that.

The lamp actually was on my old nightstand which we don't use in our room anymore. 

His room seriously cost next to nothing.

all for this beautiful little face. Ah I melt.

I love to sit here with him and read book after book. 

 He has a little tie hanger with mostly homemade ties.

I did this little whale painting below while I was still pregnant. I'm gonna re-do that soon. Notice the command hooks holding up the curtain rod? Our landlord doesn't allow curtains, well the holes at least. Command hooks work great!

And of course right now there is this wall of stuff. An old nightstand from our bedroom that has his puzzles inside houses books on top too. We love to read together in the rocking chair. We picked up this awesome black and decker tool bench with tools from family in Texas. Thank you brandy! He loves that thing.  I can hear him all day hammering and "building." Eventually we'll have some sort of toy set up better in there.

I painted this while pregnant too. I hope it serves as an important reminder to him of who he is.

 Another reminder of where he comes from are the old photos. There were 6 but when our carpet was replaced, the workers knocked off the frames and they broke. Grrr. But these 3 still stand.  The left one has my dad and uncle brad at yellowstone a LONG time ago, holding a fish. I love this picture. The middle is of my grandpa and grandma with my dad and uncle when they were little.

 The far right has david's grandfather who passed away before I could meet him. The three that fell and broke had david's dad, his stepdad, and a picture of my hubs with his brother. Important men in little Harrison's life.

His room is honestly my favorite place to be. I love to sit by the window. He has a great view of the mountains. One more look for good measure.

Happy new year! No need to wait for spring cleaning guys, get started now people! You'll feel so much better. New year's resolutions don't have to fail, just make stuff happen guys. Whether you're trying to fit in those skinny jeans or need a bedroom clean out too, don't get discouraged. It can be done! Good luck!

Painting with markers

Don't have watercolors? Scared of them? No biggie! You can use crayola washable markers (really any water based marker).  This was a happy accident that happened during my student's collaboration project.  I love the effect as the marker bleeds.  Simply draw what you want.  Then you can use a wet paintbrush to bleed the marker.

 You can also use paint.  As you use paint over the marker, your paint and marker colors will blend together. So fun! Plus there's practically no clean up.