Nothing better than Flowers

After a long weekend of yard work, spring cleaning and a birthday bash, I thought I'd reward myself with some fresh flowers. The orange lilies will take a day or two to open up which will look so pretty with the pale green orchids and berry looking things. The giant queen protea in the other picture was a gift from my neighbor for watching over her chickens last week. I forgot how nice it is having fresh flowers in the house. Just need to keep an eye on the kitties----they're notorious for knocking vases over which is why I haven't been using my good pottery.


Speaking of pottery........... my blog friend Emily has requested a picture of my kitchy kitchen pottery collection (try saying that five times fast). I had to give them all their annual dusting/soapy bath and boy was it dirty up there.
I'm keeping busy in the studio making more Jewelry, prints and things for the shop right now. I'll show you as soon as I have some good pictures. Take care and thanks for stopping by. Karin

The Three Amigos are Traveling the Globe

I Just received an email from the "Chirpy Chicks (aka "Three Amigos") personal travel agent and chaperone. If you haven't been following along, here's a little recap. Beth bought my needle felted friends last winter from my Etsy shop and has allowed them to experience the world with her and her sister who are avid travelers.

Dear Karin,
The 3 Amigos are really making their way around the world--but for now here's a few shots of their adventures in Baltimore this past weekend. These are shots of them enjoying Honfest in Hamden--what a time they had!
More shots will eventually get to you of their time at the Boston Marathon, springtime in Paris, adventures in DC (though they didn't get to any of the official sites) and more!
We love our time with them,
Beth

Urchin Love

Here are a couple urchin watercolor samples I did for this weekends class. Next week I'll show you some pictures of what my students did. They're looking good so far.


Also, here are two more of my students finished water drop paintings on strawberry leaves.

corners of my house

I spent most of today rearranging my space at Barrels and Branches and hanging the Elephant mural downstairs at the Pannikin. Here's a shot of Miss Francesca posing in front of them.
It was also time to freshen up the living room for summer with some plants, pots and polished rocks also from the nursery. I really love this beautiful blue pot for my dining room. The plant is called a "money tree" so I put it in the prosperity corner and told it to get to work. Now I just need to remember to water them.

Sending a big thank you to The Painting Libra for the post she did about me today and all the sweet things she said. Thank you so much!

I've got three weeks!

It just occurred to me this morning that I'll be hanging my art at the Pannikin in three weeks. I spent pretty much the whole day working in the studio. This is the last large size painting I needed to finish. I call her "China Doll" and I'm loving her hair. Kind of reminds me of Dr. Seuss. Normally I paint the black last, but this time I felt like painting it first and let the picture evolve on it's own. I really didn't have much of a plan at all. Just figured I'd stop when it felt done. Hope you like her?

Watercolor Fun

The last two days were spent trying to re-organize my art studio and give it a DEEP cleaning. After my last show things got pretty messy around here. It was nice to finally put everything back where it's supposed to go so I could get back to work.
I went to my favorite art store "Rhino Art" in town and bought some Neocolor ll watercolor pencils and pastels. I'm always scouting out new ideas and techniques to share in my classes and these are so amazingly simple to use. Back in the day, watercolor was considered one of the hardest mediums to use because mistakes were impossible to hide. When you use these watercolor pencils, it's take about a third of the time it would have taken a normal watercolor painting. I painted the background with watercolor paint, sketched on my images with the pastels, and watered it down with a paint brush. I included a picture of it with just one jar done so you could get an idea what it looks like before you wet it. So easy and fun. There is just something about the beautiful organic look that watercolor offers that I can appreciate even though acrylic is my favorite medium to work with. This piece was inspired by all the neat indoor plants they've got at Barrels and Branches. I just bought a few large potted plants to liven up my house for summer. ..............where is summer anyway?

Projects, New and Old

Here are some more pictures of things I've been trying to finish up, making room for some new ideas mulling around in my head. It's impossible for me to focus on a new project when five or so unfinished ones are staring at me.
First, I sewed the two pillows for my sister which I think are super cool for her studio/guest house. A nice tropical touch just in time for summer.
Then, I stitched a branch and two new owls on my quilt. I'm thinking one more branch and some flying tweety birds should be enough to end this stage of the project. Next I'll need to start thinking about trim and backing.
My new fun project was working on some sushi bowls with my neighbor across the street. Joan is 84 years old and has her own pottery studio where she throws some beautiful dish ware. She threw these bowls for me, then I made all the cuts for my chops sticks to rest in. They're large enough to be the main entree bowl with room for a few side dishes. Like a plate, but bowl shaped which is more functional for chop sticks. I'm having a tough time deciding what glaze to use. There are so many groovy ones to choose from. This week I hope to throw a few saki cups. I'm pretty rusty so it'll be interesting.