The last show of the 2016 Holiday Season . . .

The Lincoln Craftacular!

This is the first year I've been able to do this show and what a night!

People came ready to BUY!

I LOVE my little antique table!
And those boxes and advertising memorabilia always make me clutch my pearls.
Mink Chow - love.

If I had had time to take pics of the crowd, I would have but it was busy from the time the opened the doors at 4:00 to those early shoppers to 9:00 when we all began packing.

Over 80 artists and crafters with an incredible array of work.

I think (I think) I was the only watercolor artist there (woohoo!) so for sure I hope to be invited back next year.

Did I mention that the temps outside hovered around 5? These folks were BRAVE!






So much sold tonight including a few that I have really grown attached to.
I'm never sure if people understand the attachment to and the meanings behind these little paintings.
I hope so.
These have found some wonderful homes.

Surprise snow days . . .

The forecast - light rain, maybe a flurry. The end result - 6" of wet snow. But what a great day to warm up the shop and clear the bench for watercolor playtime.

With flakes falling as big as chicken feathers, staying in and watching the cedars change was enough inspiration to experiment with faded greens and foggy distance. Learning how to pale out the snow and fog is more than just adding water - it's greying out a color and learning value differences.

You know how some sketchbook artists can hold up their sketchbook to show you the lovely scene they just painted? Well, apparently that's an acquired skill. Or maybe my scene was too far away. And photographing with your phone in one hand and your painting in the other, all the while trying to bring the background scene into focus so it all makes sense? Harder than it looks. Trust me. You can barely make out the scene across the road. And the Burning Bush at the end of our drive? Pssshh.

I love this old Mulberry.

Summer gauze . . .

I saw the word 'gauze' used to describe the early morning haze in their photograph this morning and it gave me pause.

That's exactly what summer days are - layered in gauze.

From early morning through the humid summer heat - all shrouded in gauze.

Yesterday I took up the brush and sprayed my palette and made the decision to use a different color than the typical cobalt or indigo for summer sky.

The sultry heated haze was pale yellow making the distant trees golden.

Even the greens are muted when clouded with heat shimmer.

*

June . . .

A new month - a renewed beginning.

I am finally organizing my work so I can post new work on my BigCartel shop site.

This is the hardest thing for an artist, I believe.

To take time every day to photograph and market their work.

How will the world ever see these sweet little works if I don't make time?

New month - new attitude.

It's all out there.

Soldered glass watercolor pendants . . .

All ready for one of my favorite shows this Sunday.

Art & Soup benefit for the Visiting Nurse Association in Omaha.

I have packed 50+ watercolors and 20+ oil paintings and these.

I had so many little pieces  of watercolor paper left from cutting paper to the right sizes for bigger works that I hated throwing them away.

I started painting these little paintings - 1" square to 3/4"x2" - and suddenly I had a pile.

What to do?

My darling friend Rachel Two Dog Pond gave me a one on one lesson.

Lucky me!

So $200 later for equipment and gorgeous rolo chain, here we are.

Ready for their first showing tomorrow.

Good luck to me!

Mini.masterpieces . . .

Are these the sweeting little things?

I have a pile of clipped edges from earlier works where I needed something

to fit into a particular size.

You know. Tailings.

Pieces that I usually use for testing colors and strokes when I paint.

So as if my work could not get any smaller,

I decided to paint some tiny scenes.

Cool.

What to do with them?

I asked my darling friend Rachel 'Two Dog Pond' to teach me

how to tin with solder and darling friend that she is, she did.

Now I can add truly 'wearable art' to my collection!

I am preparing for Art & Soup in Omaha in February and these should be a

wonderful addition to my landscape watercolors and oils.

Affordable and totally wearable.

On another note, it's time to update my etsy shop with my paintings.

I have decided that I would not set up another shop there

but add these paintings to it.

Others have been successful in blending two different media or more into one 

and I'm ready to give it a shot.

Mostly, I just need to get it all out there.

I've tried a couple of shows and it's going well so this is the time to get it really out there.

Time.

Project Next . . .

Project Next : Miniature watercolor on teabags

Yeah, I know.

You're saying, 'lynn, you haven't completed your 30 paintings in 30 days, yet'.

True, I have not.

But this is prep work for the next challenge.

Drinking a lot (and I mean a LOT) of tea lately.

I'm saving the bags and drying them on the back of the sink.

So attractive in the kitchen.

Who cares.

It's an art sacrifice.

Once dry, I cut the top of the backside where the staple is,

shake out the used tea and glue stick the top back together.

With a dried paper empty teabag, I will paint miniature watercolors.

Objects, landscapes, patterns and designs.

I was hoping to put these all into a little notebook.
A Moleskine.

Maybe framable as little works of art?

I have a friend who is a framer in a small shop and it will take his eye to help out here but I'm thinking they could turn out kinda cool.

We'll see.

Until then : Merry Christmas, kids! 

Day 23 : An Oil a Day 30 Day Challenge . . .

Day 23 : Platte River

Just south of Columbus, Nebraska, August 2015.

Shallow enough to wade across in most places.

And wide.

This painting took less than 30 minutes to complete.

Quick and impressionistic.

Dark blue ground with is what you see in the scumbled background

and in the vegetation here and there.

I just let it show through for a little depth.

Details : Oil on canvas

6"x6"

Day 5 : An Oil a Day 30 Day Challenge . . .

Day 5

What did I learn today?

That it's okay to wipe off a painting and start over, once, twice, and three times.

What I was working on was a fading gravel road with a gold and green field.

Another distant horizon.

But it was all wrong. Color wrong. Grass wrong. Gravel wrong.

I wiped it off and went back to what I knew to work and maybe that's the key.

In my metalworking, when I try to hard to get detailed and intricate, I miss the mark.

But when I let my design go broad and expansive, I hit it almost every time.

So here you have another little painting of the expansive Nebraska grassland.

A big farm with two silos that is dwarfed by the vastness of sky.

Detail : Oil on canvas

6"x6"

Day 3 : An Oil a Day 30 Day Challenge . . .

Day 3 and I learned today that doing something a little different is hard.

This little painting originally had a diagonal road running through it but 

(and I say 'but' because I wiped it clean off the face of the earth)

gravel roads can look chalky and artificial.

I don't quite have the technique down, yet

(and I say 'yet' because it will come, it will come.)

For today, another landscape from a photo I took of the field across the road from us.

It is wide and open and the skies have been gorgeous this Spring.

On this day, high cirrus clouds and hard sunshine.

Details : 6"x6"

Oil on canvas

Day 1 : An Oil a Day 30-Day Challenge . . .

This may be harder than I thought.

I have committed myself to 30 oil paintings in 30 days 
and hope for several things to come out of this challenge.
1. I hope to become a better painter.
2. I hope I end up with some decent paintings for selling later. 

Not all paintings come easy and after no fewer than four wipe-offs, this one stuck.  

Not an all time favorite but a start.

Details : 10"x10"
Oil on canvas

Between Ranches Postcard . . .

Between Ranches Postcard

More from what will be a series of Nebraska scenes in oil. I have taken so many photos from a moving car on treks across the prairie. Every scene seems to be the same but all are different in their own ways. And so many more to come.

This is a little 5x7 quick study that still gives a sense of the grassland expanse and the warmth of the day.

Sandhills . . .

Where does this yellow tint come from anyway? Frustrating. 

Anyway, this is another quick painting that took all of an hour so maybe 'quick' isn't the best way to describe it. Measures about 3"x3" and is from a photo I took on our road trip to the Nebraska Sandhills last Spring. Gorgeous warm day with rolling hills and fields just starting to bloom. The clouds were intensely white against the deep blue of the sky. I do like the way the cloud shapes worked in this painting. By flooding the paper and gently guiding the blue pigment to the edges of the wet, the defined edges of the shapes were left as the paper absorbed the water and dried. Some watercolorists - instructors especially - will insist on softening the hard edges and write pages about how to avoid the edge by sucking up paint and water but I like them. I guess it's what makes all of us different and our styles unique.

Day 3 . . .

Day 3 : watercolor study snowy field

Doing these quick little studies is a big confidence builder and seeing them on a computer screen lets me see where I have room to improve.

Unless and until my style of watercolor changes, these will probably lean toward the wash with fat detail. Broad strokes of suggested shapes.

The tiny brush I am using for these 2x4 paintings in my little watercolor Moleskine won't allow for much detail that isn't broad. Yes, I have lots of other brushes, tubes of paint and papers but I'm sticking with this little kit for now with its 12 hard cakes of paint. It challenges me to mix cake paint and water to achieve the color and tone I need.
The end.

Snowy cornfield study . . .

A quick watercolor study out the back window. This snowy field took all of 20 minutes. I can see using this as a reference study for other, bigger paintings. Not much detail but just enough of a suggestion to know there is a slight rise in the field and cedars in the hedgerow. This little guy could easily morph into Spring - if that ever comes.