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:  

The Red Barn in the Woods

This is a barn that I originally took with my iPhone 5 with the camera app Fotor HDR. After transferring to my laptop, I opened it in Photoshop CS6 to resize to 11x14 at 200 dpi. I also do levels and saturation changes at this time.  Then I transferred to Corel Painter X3. I did several painted iterations, an initial paint, a muck-up paint, and an emerge paint. In addition to saving in the native Painter riff files, I also save them as jpegs so that I can work with them in Photoshop. I will typically bring all three iterations into Photoshop each with their own layer and play with blending modes, adjustment layers, color changes etc. in this particular image, I used Melissa  Gallo's canvas texture and masked out any unwanted areas and then added a Photoshop canvas texturizer in the filter gallery.

Man and his Fish

I've been away from the blog world for a awhile.  My hard drive crashed and had to be replaced.  Getting my computer back up and running was and still is a gruesome task.  Shortly before the mishap, however, I finished a painting for my husband of his fishing buddy, which will be given to him at the next fishing trip.

Have a nice day.

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!

Bayfield, Wisconsin Fishing Boat

Time to get back to watercolors.  This is a fishing boat we saw in Bayfield, Wisconsin. A sweet little coastal town right on Lake Superior.  You can take the ferry over to Madeleine Island, which is where all the rich people go--similar to the Hamptons.  Anyway, here's the result.

Have a wonderful, peaceful evening.

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!

Wedding Painting

I've been busy.  I just finished a commissioned Wedding Painting.  Here's the result.  The customer actually preferred the full length image, but I actually like the cropped painting better.  So, I've decided to send her both.

They both printed out nicely.  However, I did have some issues with the printer at first which had me in a panic.  But, I was able to correct the problem.  I hope everyone has a wonderful 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.

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!

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!

More Watercolors and a Question

I received an email about migrating my blogs to a Legacy Blogger Account.  Don't know about anyone else, but it won't let me sign in.  I've tried everything.  Any suggestions?

Still trying to perfect the watercolor look.

I hope everyone has a wonderful day!

Two Cute Kids

My co-workers children.

Before and after.

I hope everyone has an awesome 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 Painting of A Beautiful Lake Home

Busy day today. Watched the grand kids play soccer and had lunch at Noodles.  I'm reorganizing all my small delica beads so I can catch up on some bead weaving projects. And making more prints for an upcoming boutique.  Had a chance to do a little painting, too.

The only bothersome thing is that I woke up this morning with a very painful crick in my neck. Ouch!  Hope everyone has a great weekend.

Watercolor Painting of a House On The Lake

Three inches of snow over night.  It took out our Direct TV for 4 hours!  Of course, the problem is not that I didn't have TV, it's that last year we had over 60 inches of snow and didn't have a problem.  This year we've hardly any this year and we lose reception.  No help from customer service, sorry out of luck, just have to wait til is melts a little.  Can't climb up there myself!  It makes me think...what if there is severe weather and we need to stay on top of it....hmmmmm, no TV and by the way, too bad!  May have to call Comcast again.  Anyway, wishing I was on the lake right now gazing at this lovely home.

Hope everyone is having a wonderful day....and that you have TV.