Stinking Benjamins

Yes.  You did read that title correctly. We have a bunch of these little plants blooming in our yard. Our neighbor Mike came over today to help Mark move some of the dragons back out into the yard. Mike spotted these flowers and told us they are called Stinking Benjamins.
Apparently they smell really bad. Like rotting meat bad. I did a little google research - cause we know it's right if we see it online - (hahahah!) but truly they are called Stinking Benjamins. They are a type of trillium that grows in wooded areas around us.  The flower sits about 4" above ground and blooms for 2-3 weeks. The foul smell attracts flies that act as pollinators.  Identifiers of the flower - three petals that curve backwards and three leaves that are diamond-shaped. And they are growing around the edge of the dragon den. Cool!

Speaking of dragons - it was time to move the dragon bench back into the hollow where my dragons live. These two dragons are the end posts for a dragon bench. They are carved out of pine tree stumps - with a chain saw made for that purpose. They are pretty awesome! Learning new stuff in Maine every day!

Loving These Florals!

I love these big bold floral designs!

They are such a surprising and pleasant experience!

 Like I've mentioned several times before,

I am taking some classes from Alisa Burke.

You can check out her entire website here.

Look for her classes and you can see what

I am up to these days.

 This page in my journal started with Schmincke watercolors.

I love their bright, intense pigments!

 Those little specks of lighter colors were made

by flicking droplets of water from a paintbrush

over the page. You could also flick water

from an old toothbrush.

(Or a new one that you use just for water flicking :) ).

I let the water sit about 30 seconds,

then tapped a paper towel down to pick up

the excess.

 Then I just looked for areas that looked like

flower shapes.

And if they didn't - I pretended they did!

I used a regular black sharpie for the drawing.

Sharpies are permanent when dry,

so you can paint over them.

Or add any wet media.

 Which I totally did here.

Again, I used my Schminckes and a size 0

round brush to add color.

Last came the white highlights. I tried adding those with white acrylic, but my hand wasn't steady enough. So I used a Sakura gelly roll pen to highlight and add color to a few flowers. And I'm ready to move on to the next lesson now.

Amping Up the Backgrounds

 Yesterday I posted about an Alisa Burke class I'm taking.

I showed you various water color wash backgrounds

I worked on in the class.

Today we take it to the next level with some drawing.

 

Again - since classes are one way Alisa makes her living, I can not give you the steps we followed to make this background. I can tell you this beautiful color comes from Tombow markers.

 Here is the beautiful background I showed you yesterday.

My absolute, hands-down favorite from the class.

 I used a black sharpie for my line work.

Sharpies are permanent once dry,

so you can add more ink or paint if you want to

without messing up your line work.

 The white highlights came from a Sakura gelly roll pen.

You may notice my highlights are a bit messy in spots.

I still am not back to 100% great vision after

my surgeries . . .

. . . so I went back over some lines with my sharpie. And this is my result. Got to say this is one of my all time favorites. Thank you, Alisa!
You can go to this link to check out her classes.

Spring is Here in Florida

Spring just popped in to Florida within the past few days. Everything is covered in pollen. I know because I can't go outside. I can't breathe, my eyes itch, I'm congested. Ugh. And my red car is yellow. But . . . spring is certainly a welcome sight.

These are some azaleas blooming in the yard. Actually I took this photo a week ago and we still have blooms. Tons of them.

Anyway, I am getting further behind with my art journal prompts, this particular prompt was You Are an Artist. The description was - show what you are really good at. So. I love me some bright, wonderful, bold, beautiful,  in-your-face-awesome color! Here's another 5" x 7" scrap of leftover color. Dylusions Ink Sprays. Gotta get 'em all! Every color, and multiple bottles of some colors. (Bubblegum pink, lemon zest, fresh lime.) I used lots of water and played with the color till I came up with this.

Then I added my favorite - flowers. Hahaha! If you click on the color photo and enlarge it, then you can click back and forth between the two and you will be able to see how the flowers came to life. For the first time ever, the photos pretty much line up perfectly. If the flip thing works :).
Prompt #9 - √. Now on to 10, 11, and 12.

Here I Am to Worship

Sunday morning and I am listening to Trinity Baptist Church here at home via the  internet. Right now they are singing: I Worship You, Almighty God, there is none like you. It's a nice 66º outside and the sun is shining. What a beautiful start to my day. 
May God richly bless you and your family today. May you feel His arms around you, hugging you close, loving you, being there for you. Close your eyes, rest in His care. Know that you are loved. Right now, right where you are. God is there, too. And He cares about you.

Waiting For Spring

Living in the south you don't get a whole lot of winter. Or seasons. You just get different levels of humidity. Pretty much. The past week has been ideal weatherwise. Cooler temps at night. Nice, comfortable temps during the day. Now, if the flowers and trees would just start blossoming again we'd be in springtime business. And, we still have Halloween, Thanksgiving, Christmas, and New Years to get through before then. So, in the meantime I am drawing flowers, working on another large project. If you haven't done a large project of your own, this is the time to pull out an 11" x 14" sheet of paper and give it a go. Tangle away and when you're  finished, let me know and we'll post a link to your blog right here so we can share your work :). Go on. You know you want to!

New Products to Try

I bought some new products a while back and I've been trying to find some time to play with them. Here is my completed project. Well, mostly completed. I just realized I wanted to do some white gel pen highlights. I will go back and add those. Here's a look at what I used.

These are some really awesome watercolor paper blocks! I used the 4" x 8" block of fifteen cold press pages. The really cool thing about these blocks are that all the pages are glued together along the two long sides - thus making a block. What this translates into for the artist is a smooth, flat product upon completion. I used a lot of water and a lot of layers. Normally when I do this kind of project on a loose piece of paper - I finish with warping, a product that will not lay flat. With this glued block you work on your project and because of the way it is glued together - your project dries in place and you have a flat project when you are done. Ta-da!!! I like this a lot!

I have been wanting to try these out for quite some time! I've been following Tracy Weinzapfel's blog, she likes bright colors just as much as I do. I saw one post where Tracy had a set of Grumbacher Watercolor Pans laying on the table with her project. I really love the way her projects look, so I went online to amazon.com and bought both the transparent pans and the opaque pans. So easy to use, the colors are vibrant and they layer well, and the pans are big so they should last a long time.

For my first project - - - I am very happy with the results!

The Artist's Playroom #13

Earlier in the week I happened across a blog called Just Add Water Silly! Jenn offers a weekly challenge in the form of The Artist's Playroom. This week's challenge was to get back to the basics, grab a pencil or pen, and get to sketching.

I have to tell you that I really didn't want to try this. I can't draw. At all. I can zentangle some, but I can not draw. My daughter told me that maybe Jenn invited me to try the challenge because she wanted to challenge me! Maybe she wanted me to push my limits, and therein learn something. So I tried.

I began by studying other drawings on - what else? - pinterest :). From what I deduced there, I sketched out three basic flowers in my little moleskine watercolor journal. I figured I wouldn't go too big and bold the first time out.

After I had my flowers sketched out in pencil, I went over the lines with a 01 black micron pen.

I filled in my basic sketch lines a little and tried to emphasize certain lines. (I have no idea at all what I'm doing. Totally winging this thing!)

Then I watercolored. First I used some old metallic water color paints I found in a drawer. They don't even have a brand name on them. They sparkle - which I am all about the sparkle, so they are perfect!

Next, I used my Derwent Inktense Pencils (which I use on everything) and watercolored the flowers and leaves. Then I looked over my drawing, touched up lines that had gotten somewhat obliterated in the process, and pumped up the sparkle here and there.

Voila! And there you have it - my very first drawing/sketch/watercolored real thing ever! Yay!!!!!!
Thanks, Jenn, for inviting me to participate. You can count on me to be a weekly visitor :).

Feel free to visit The Artist's Playroom to see submissions from artists that actually know what they are doing :). It isn't too late to participate yourself!