Gentle Giants

We will escape from the Butterfly Garden and come back and walk among the poppies. Poppies are large, fragile and last for a couple of weeks around the lst of July. They usually bloom just in time for the 4th of July, anyway that is what happens next to my studio.

Gentle Giants (Watercolor 1/2 sheet)

Petal Tips! This painting in watercolor is done in a wet on wet technique and I added course salt to the background and flowers. The trick to to the looseness of the flowers blending into the background  is all done wet on wet. This means I apply clear water first, then I drop in paint, and I let it crawl around. This is when those happy accidents happen. Colors fuse together and things happen that you didn't expect and probably can't get again. They say when the paint is still alive make it do the work. That is what is so exciting with watercolors, the paper and paint create the image, they paint the painting, we are just by-standers.

In this posting I am showing an oil painting I did of poppies on a cupboard door. I love to paint in oils, they are rich and beautiful, but they are opague and they stand still where ever you apply them. The brush stroke is the tool to create motion to cause the poppies to move as if the wind is moving them.

Moving in Joy

People ask me all the time what I like best to work in, and I always say both. I love the looseness of the watercolors, but I also love the rich, lucious colors and brush strokes of the oils. I'm just hooked for life when it comes to painting.

I will soon be releasing a CD on youtube with a watercolor workshop showing you exactly how to create this beautiful painting of poppies.

Meanderings~~~~~ It is the treasure within the pot that shows God's glory.  This pot is part of a water pitcher and bowl set that belonged to my grandmother. It was made around 1900 when theses pots were used for washing.  Today, I use it for decoration and placing cut flowers in. It is a keepsake, flowers come and go in their season, but the pot continues to serve as a vessel to honor what God has created.

Isn't that what we are all about. We have been made  in God's image and we hold the true treasure in our vessel, the beauty of God.

Joyfull painting