I've been wanting to try a digital watercolour in Corel Painter 12 ever since I got it. I LOVE this digital painting program! It's limitless in what can be achieved using virtually any art media you might want. I still need practice with some of the watercolour paint brush variants, but the fun is in the experimenting!
This was an old fishing boat we saw in the village of Oban in Scotland. The whole village was a rich, rich source of imagery.

Thank goodness for the intra-tubes! I was patiently waiting for my cherry tomatoes to get red. And waiting...and waiting...and waiting... I went online, and apparently these babies are orange cherry tomatoes!
Okay, so I'm not an expert gardener like our friend Mary. This is my first tomato plant... but I actually successfully grew tomatoes - not a bumper crop, but the taste more than makes up for any lack in quantity. Delicious and beautiful!

More colour play with my Faber-Castell brush markers. Working in small cells (2” x 2”) is quick and doesn't let me get too fussy with details!

This week has been a busy mix of hard work (deck and window trim painting and lawn work at Mom's), and birthday festivities. I was spoiled absolutely rotten by my family this week in honour of my birthday, with several family get-togethers, cakes, dinner, fantastically wonderful presents, a spa day, and tonight, Cirque du Soleil's OVO!
All-in-all, there has been little art creation, but next week it's back to work! I'll leave you with a picture of my birthday Bellini and a peek at my fresh manicure - the colour is bright orange and called Solaris. Yay!
Happy weekend all!

I've been trying to catch snippets of time this week to work on a painted sketch of the apartment where we stayed in Edinburgh this summer. Although the painting is way too busy (I didn't do a great job of editing the content of this piece), I was thinking it didn't look half-bad...until I realized that the perspective is way off in a couple of places. There are areas that I quite like, however, so I've decided to post this, flaws and all. Onward!

A quick study of the sweet peas I cut for Mom's table. Just sitting there, breathing in their sweet scent while I painted them was wonderful...

I thought I'd show a piece from my sketchbook that relates to my last post about generating creativity. This simple line drawing was done on a day when my creative juices were running very low. In order to do something - anything - I drew random items from on and around my desk, arranging things in a very haphazard way. It isn't the prettiest of sketches, but it fit the bill to keep me artistically active that day!

Sometimes we can all slip into a black hole of creativity where no matter how hard we try, ideas simply will not come. I experienced that on and off last winter - one of the longest, coldest and dreariest winters in memory. In my battle to remain creative, I started an every day sketch book; that is, a sketchbook where I created something every day, no matter how complex or simple it ended up being. Some days that might be a doodle while I watched a movie, or just playing with my coloured markers in some random way. I believe that everything that goes into my sketchbooks has some value. More important is that I create something every day, no matter what.
To help generate creative thoughts, I've found two web sites in particular to be useful (and occasionally good for satisfying my taste for the absurd!):
www.randomphrase.com is very immediate - click the NEXT button to generate new phrases until you find one that strikes your fancy.
www.watchout4snakes.com provides you with (sometimes hilarious) phrases, but you can also create and customize phrases of up to four words by selecting verb, adverb, noun, adjective, interjection and preposition out of the drop-down lists. This site is great for use in brainstorming of all kinds, or for wasting way too much work time!
I hope this helps your creativity!

I did this quick, 40-minute painting of the edge of a pond in Glenmore Park. The sun was just beginning to set, and the mosquitoes were out in full force despite the plethora of dragonflies. I would have liked to do some small studies in addition to this painting, but I was losing daylight, so instead I snapped as many photos as I could for later use.

A view from Mom's patio. I'm enjoying this new style - much different from anything I've done before...