Barns, barns, barns!

Here are more photos taken with my iPhone and edited on my ipad, for the most part.  It seems there are so many barns that are in a state do disrepair. Sadly, it is a sign of the times. In their place are usually square structures made of aluminum. Pretty soon all the old beautiful barns will be gone.

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.

Pretty Bird: New Watercolor Painting

I'm continuing with the Bird Theme.  This is a painting of a photo from another Public Domain Site, BestPhotos.us.  I used Pre and Post processing in Photoshop CS5 as well as blending 3 different DAP runs.

Another cloudy, rainy day.  Have a great 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.

Watercolor of a Sail Boat on the St. Croix

I awoke this morning with the stomach flu, but at this posting, I'm feeling much better.  I had some time to visit my forums today and I received some great advice about my post headings.   It seems that having titles like Busy, Busy, Busy are not good for the key word seeking bots on Google.  That, in fact, my titles need to be descriptive of what people out in the webworld might ask about.  I'm not completely clear on all this and will probably need to tweak it as I go, but the correct title of what I need to be doing is called SEO or Search Engine Optimization.  If anyone understands and would like to give me a pointer or two, I'm an eager student.  Anyway, here's my painting for today.

And another one.

This second one is an image from the PublicDomainPicture.net.  I hope everyone has a wonderful evening and weekend.

Watercolor Challenge

Watercolor Challenge at Painter Talk using Karen Bonaker's Image.

I hope everyone has a wonderful weekend!

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!

Practice, Practice, Practice

I've been spending a lot of time recently on trying to perfect my digital watercolors, using older images to play with.  I'm getting very antsy not being able to get out and take pictures of anything.  Not really enough snow to take any decent winter shots. Mind you, I'm not complaining after last year's record snow falls. But I'm restless and need some new images to work with.

Three totally different treatments here, but watercolors none the less.
I hope every is having a beautiful weekend.

More Watercolors

I wanted to post some of the watercolors I've been working on.  I think I'm starting to understand the concepts much better, while not losing my style of saturating with color. I'll will be test printing some to see how they work out.  Hope you enjoy!

I do love doors and windows and fences and trees!

And stairs and bushes!

And awnings!  Have a wonderful 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.

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.

The Day Before the Eve of the New Year

Today is a day of resting the ole' body after 4 days of work where I spent the entire time on my feet.  That's OK though, because I'm taking the time to focus on getting my Etsy Shops together.  Oddly enough, I've already had a sale as a result of seeing my work on Etsy.  So, let's hope I can keep the momentum going.

We anticipate a quiet New Year's weekend... haven't been partying in years, but hope to spend some time with the grand kids maybe have brunch out with the hubs on Sunday. I'm sure there's football in my future as well, whether I like it or not.

Here's a new painting posted recently in the shop.

I hope everyone has a very safe, but lovely New Year's weekend.  Happy New Year's.

Well, I'm hoping everyone survived the Holiday's and had a wonderful time with family and friends. It's been a little bit since I've posted, so I figured I should get on the ball here.  I've decided to open a second Etsy shop as well as create a separate blog where, if someone so desired, they could purchase a print of the work I've posted. You can see my Etsy Shop HERE as well as by clicking on the button above.  This is also where you will find the button for my blogger store.  You can find it HERE.  Thanks to Geri Centonze for her tutorial on how to open a blogger store.  

I've actually started printing on my new printer and I have to say that I'm super pleased.  I still have a lot to learn, but the ease with which this printer works just astounds me.  So, here is a painting that I've just recently posted on my blog and Etsy.

This was an image from our cemetery tour a few months ago.  Can you believe it's the end of December and we have no snow on the ground?  Last year at this time we had 3 feet of snow.  Don't know whether to be happy about this or not, but I have to say, it's a lot nicer getting to work and back every day.
I truly hope every one is having a grand holiday season and I bid you safe travels over the New Year's weekend.

Engagement Painting

I wanted to share a recent work of an engagement painting.  This was our Wedding gift to the couple.  And, I hear that they loved it.  It was a beautiful Wedding!

We are, yet again, in the deep freeze here in Minnesota.  This morning I just about froze when I took Callie for her morning walk, and it's going to take me awhile to get used to this again.  It didn't faze Callie, however.  Anyway, here we go again.

I hope everyone has a beautiful day!