Monday, November 26, 2012

Fall Paintings

A Couple of posts ago I mentioned I was taking a class from Christy Tomplinson on Halloween and Fall painting (you can read about it here)http://www.foodwineandcreativemusings.blogspot.com/2012/11/halloween-paintings.html

The first week was all about Halloween, the second is all about Fall. There were over 7 projects to do. I did three of the seven and luckily for me I have access to the class for a year. Plenty of time to go back after the holidays and work on some of the projects I couldn't get to.

Here is the first one I worked on




This was the first time I worked on a canvas this big it is 18x24. At first I was a bit intimated by the size.... could I fill the space... would it look as cute as the smaller pieces I've done. I love that I went simpler on the background it made the pumpkins really pop. The technique for the striped pumpkin was so simple but I love the way it turned out. You just glue strips of paper and then cut out your shape. The pumpkins really came alive when I added the shading and bits of detail.

The next projects I worked on was this cute owl. Christy had said to go out to the stores and get inspiration. I saw a metal owl and I used that as my inspiration for this piece.


 
 
The second Owl was from the project Christy worked on. I did mine simpler than the one from the project. But I love the three dimensional eyes.
 


I signed up for her Winter Whimsy class can't wait to get started on that one.

Thanks for stopping by!
XOXO
Esther

Friday, November 16, 2012

Watercolors and Sketching


I had signed up for a class on Sketching a few months back. I just got started on it. Talk about over booking myself. LOL I completed week one of the three week course. This week was about Sketching and ideas. I just loved the idea she gave of. First you pick a word and then you think of a bunch of things that word means to you or you pick an object. Then you section off your page to give you thumbnails. Then you fill each little square with sketching. The first assignment was for radishes

I came up with 11 ideas. She said she did over 24 mini sketches. I would have loved to see her sketch book. The second assignment was to sketch owls

 
I wanted each of the owls to have a very different personality showing through. Our third assignment was sketching peas in a pod. And to add watercolor to our sketches. The one in the middle is one I made to reflect my little peas in pod. I really love the way it came out. One because I did the technique she taught of wet on wet and the other because it really does look like Clary and Gus hang out there. I still can't believe I did it. 



Our fourth assignment was to sketch cupcakes and also to add the watercolor.



I also incorporated her splatter technique. Just to cute. Her teaching style makes it easy to learn. and really cuts through my fears of messing up with watercolor.  I'll show you more when I complete week 2.

Thanks for stopping by...
XOXO
Esther

Friday, November 9, 2012

Halloween Paintings

 
I took a Halloween and Fall painting class from Christy Tomlinson. I've mentioned her before she is so funny and I really enjoy all her classes. I did the following 3 canvases

The Girl Bee was so much fun to create. I really think she came out so darling...


Bat Boy was a bit of a challenge for me. I never painted a boy before. I wanted him to appear much younger then he came out. 



Pumpkin man looked so simple when I watch Christy do her's. But getting the circle sizes the way I wanted was harder than I thought it would be. I'm so happy with the end result. Love them all!



There were at least 5 other projects for Halloween section alone. And she gave tons of ideas on how to create a bunch more.  One of the things she said was to go to stores and take pictures of what you like. Then sketch them out. I did exactly what she said. I will be sketching a few more ideas before the season is out. I will show you my creations for the Fall section soon!

Friday, November 2, 2012

Happy Halloween

Halloween here on most of the east coast was cancelled due to the Hurricane Sandy. I'm sure all of you have seen news so I don't need to go into it. A week or so before the storm I had taken a couple of picture of some cool decorations I thought were pretty amazing. Enjoy the show


Isn't this great! It sure looks like you are going to enter a haunted mansion. So simple but so effective


This house is so cool! So many life size figures. The owner was there while I was taking the pictures securing everything for the storm. I sure hope they made it through.










Isn't this just creepy.... I just love it.. Yep I was grinning from ear to ear.



I got so many ideas from this house. Maybe next year I'll try my hand on create more of a scene. My house you ask... my tenants kids decorated. I meant to take pictures, they did a really nice job. But on Saturday I do so caught up in securing everything outside before the storm hit it slipped my mind. I had already taken most of everything down by the time I remembered.  There were many more houses I wanted to take pictures of as well. Next year. Hope your Halloween was fun!!!

Thanks for stopping by
XOXO
Esther