A Venice Waterway

This is a digital painting from an image taken while on a recent trip to Venice.  I painted this in Corel Painter 2015 and used several textures to finish the painting.

If you interested in this painting, you can purchase it on my FineArtAmerica page:  

Boating on the St. Croix River

Here it is half of August gone and I've not posted.  It seems that if I have no pictures to post, I don't bother to blog at all. Probably because I don't have anything to say, but, oh well.

Last weekend we went boating on the St. Croix River--our first time ever. Unlike the Mississippi, the St. Croix is very clean and doesn't seem to have suffered from the same drought conditions that the Mississippi has.  Not sure why, it's just so.  The boats on the St. Croix are yacht like and house boat size.  They park on the along the little islands where their inhabitants play all day.  Here are some photos.  I wanted to try out the oil filter on the new upgrade, Photoshop CS6.  In addition, I used Topaz Simplify and Topaz Adjust.

Paddle Boats getting ready to tour the river.

Big boats!

Wish I lived there!

Commissioned Painting of a Lake Home

I'm feeling fortunate.  My third commissioned piece in two weeks. Client wanted me to paint her parents lake home--the before--as it has now been renovated.  She asked for some color, but not too much (which is hard for me as I love to add the color.)  Anyway, here's the before and after.

Have a great day!

Painting of a Little Boy Golfer

I've finally completed the second part of a commissioned project--it's printed and mailed.  Received this order via my Etsy shop.  This is the photo selected to paint providing I could change the club head from a putter to an iron.

This is my painting of this little cutie golfer.

Here's a closeup.

Have a wonderful day!

Floral Watercolor's and PhotoArtFriday

I thought I would enter Photo Art Friday, a site dedicated to Photo Art. This week the focus is on abstract photo art created with a design from nature.  Since my recent posts have been about birds and flowers, I thought I might qualify.  Be sure to check them out by clicking on the button at the bottom.

I hope everyone has a lovely day.

Watercolor Paintings, Landscape Arboretum

I hope everyone had a wonderful Mother's day. The Hub's and I went to the U of MN Landscape Arboretum for Mother's Day.  The Azelea's and lilies were in full bloom and I was able to take quite a few pictures.  Here are just two which I hope to get printed.  Both were painted in Photoshop CS5 using the Art History Brush.

Watercolor Painting of a Blue Bird

It's so nice to hear the birds singing again.  It's almost time to start planting again as well.  I'm continuing my bird series and hope to have enough to print soon.

I hope everyone has a beautiful day!

A Bird and a Trailer

Continuing with the bird theme.

A little while ago, the hubs sent me a photo he'd taken while traveling.  Apparently there was this dilapidated trailer just sitting not far from the side of the road and he thought that this is just the kind of photo that I like to paint.  He was right!

Have and wonderful day!

Our Last Day in Sunny Florida

Boo Hoo.  We leave tomorrow to go back to Minnesota, well rested but sad to leave just the same.  I thought I would post the last two paintings I did for the Open Studio class I was taking.  I'm also posting a photo I took of Joe Mauer during warm up, Minnesota Twins Catcher, that I took when we went to a spring training game on Wednesday.  I haven't had a chance to paint any of them yet, but I did clean this one up.

A Beautiful Day In Sunny Florida

Here we are again for our annual venture to sunny Florida.  I've been remiss in posting, but I have been keeping up with the class at Digital art Academy--this being the last week.  I've put together a couple of paintings, one of which I posted to the class.  However, I will be working on another, more comprehensive painting hopefully incorporating everything we've learned so far in class.  Hats off to Karen Bonaker another wonderful Open Studio.

The second painting is for a Mini Challenge at Retouch Pro.

I hope everyone is having an awesome day.

Weeks 2 and 3 Class at Digital Art Academy

I just realized that I forgot to post the second week, so today I'm posting weeks 2 and 3 of class at Digital Art Academy.

Record high temps here, but in two days we'll be going for our annual trip to Madiera Beach, Florida.  Hope to take lots of pics to use for new paintings.

Hope everyone is having a great day.

Week One Assignment from Open Studio at Digital Art Academy

I've completed my second painting for our Week 1 assignment over at Digital Art Academy.  The Theme for Open Studio this time is Street Scenes.  I had two takes on this first assignment, both painted in two completely different ways. 

New classes are posted for anyone who is interested in some very affordable awesome classes with Karen Bonaker.

Hope everyone has a beautiful day.

Today's Painting

We are coming out of a snow storm.  More snow in the last two weeks than all winter.  It's a very pretty snow.  The kind that coats and sticks to all the tree branches.  Looks like a winter wonderland out there. Luckily, I didn't have to drive anywhere and spent the day making prints for an upcoming boutique. 

I hear snow plows as I'm writing this. Have a nice day!

Watercolor Paintings

I've been invited to consign in another small shop, The Art Shoppe, which is located in the Global Market here in Minneapolis.  Just a few paintings to start, but I'm now in two shops and I'm also going to participate in the Northwoods Boutique coming up the end of March as well.  Keeping those fingers crossed that my networking pays off.

Beautiful days here in Minnesota.  Praying for an early spring.  Hope all is well with everyone.

Commissioned Portrait Painting

I wanted to share my recent portrait painting and how I went about creating it.  A previous client contacted me and asked if I could paint a portrait of her best friend, her fiance and their dog.  This was a very special assignment as her friends fiance has terminal cancer, so I wanted to make sure I did the very best I could.  She sent me several images, some tiny and very pixelated, but out of all the images she sent, these are the ones I selected to create the portrait.

I went about extracting the subjects and tried different positions and finally came up with one that I could work with.  After making several adjustments in photoshop, I opened the image in Corel Painter 11 and began to paint.  This is the result.

The client was very happy with the the way it turned out.  I hope everyone is having a wonderful afternoon.

Still Learning

Wanted to make sure that you knew of a couple classes coming up...some you may be interested in these.  Karen Bonaker at The Digital Art Academy is having an Open Studio Session coming up in March on Painting Street Scenes.  You can get information HERE.  Also, Scott Deardorff has a new teaching DVD out, his second in a series, "Portrait Painting Techniques in Photoshop".  This artist creates the most beautiful portraits and he does it exclusively in Photoshop.  You can read about both of his DVD's HERE.

Here's a few pieces I've been working on.  Still working on watercolor techniques using Photoshop, Topaz Adjust and Simplify.

This is what I love about digital art.  You can reuse your photographs over and over and over and over.......Have a great day!

New Prints

I've added a few more paintings to my Etsy Shop.  I'm also putting together another presentation to have my art prints added to a new shop opening up in St. Anthony Park.  I'm pretty excited about this.  Some will be framed and some will be mounted and stored in a canvas rack.

This was from a photograph I took while down in Louisiana last summer.  There were a lot of these sweet little pathways with trees overhanging. 

This painting is also from this past fall.

My feet are so cold today and I can't seem to get them to warm up.  My sister who lives in Jacksonville Beach, Florida, sent me a video of her walking on the beach.  I'm not happy with her at all!

I hope everyone is having a wonderful (and warm) day.

In The Deep Freeze

In my last post I was boasting about the 50 degree weather.  Now, however, we are now officially in the deep freeze. Hopefully the lakes will get good and frozen because the hubs is on his way up north to go ice fishing this weekend.

I'm just posting the one this time.  I will be traveling to Northfield, MN this weekend to take some of my prints to a shop there to test them out. I'm hoping there will be a desire for them.  Let's keep our fingers crossed.

I hope everyone has an awesome weekend.

It's Spring In Minnesota

Believe it or not, we are having temps in the 40's and 50's...it feels positively balmy.  We actually had a golf tournament in the area today.  Last year at this time we were smothered in the white stuff.

I've prepared a few more to print.

I wish these images were indicative of what it's like outside now.  It's always such a drought for picture taking this time of year--despite the warm temps.

Here's hoping that those who stop by today are having a blessed day.

Watercolors

I have to admit that watercolors have always scared me, especially trying to achieve them digitally. I happen to belong to a forum that is sharing information on how to achieve such, and so I've been experimenting a little.  I've come to the conclusion that not all images lend themselves to watercolor treatments, so I'll need to do a lot more research.

Off to watch the grandchildren at soccer this morning and then off to Cabela's so the hubs can spend his gift certificates.  He needs a new fish finder!

I hope everyone has an awesome weekend.