Leaf prints

We have an old concrete block silo in our back yard with no roof on it. Inside of the silo there are a bunch of ferns growing. It is like looking into a different world when you put your head through the small opening. I have wanted to make prints of these fern leaves for a long time. Our house is on the market so I have kept all of my art supplies tucked away for months. We don’t have any showings scheduled right now so I dug out my printmaking supplies and made some mono prints. (I believe that is the right term) 

The process: I have a large piece of glass that I mixed the ink on and spread it out with a brayer. Next I put a leaf on the ink covered glass to ink the other side with the brayer. Then I would take the leaf and lay it on a large sheet of paper and put another piece of paper on top like a leaf sandwich. After that I took a clean brayer and rolled it over the top piece of paper. With this method each leaf made 2 prints. 

I also found some fairly large maple leaves. I wanted these to be more colorful so I added some acrylic paint to the mix but then it really didn’t spread as good because the brayer did not want to roll very well. I am very happy with the result. I have them all laying on the floor to dry and it makes me happy to look at the little collection. 

 

 notebooks that can be purchased  on Amazon. 

The first one I designed was called Nature Notes

You see, I was on the roof cleaning the gutters and I had just found out about selling notebooks on Amazon. The gutters were full of maple seeds, they were flying everywhere, so I came up with the name Maple Seed Press. When I came back inside I designed this notebook. On the inside of the notebook there are graph paper pages on the left and lined pages on the right. If you flip the pages like a flip book a small maple seed goes down the side of the page. This was only the beginning.

Painting En Plein Air

Here are my recent 9"x12" paintings En Plein Air. I feel like I am making good progress. I love the challenge of setting up somewhere different each time and not knowing what nature will throw at you. I had the wind spill my water at Oakwoods all over my supplies and there were little flowers falling off of a tree onto my paint pallet at the Simpson Garden. I like it when people are curious about what I am doing and ask me questions. I have had my picture taken quite a few times and I have been interviewed all while trying to complete a painting in a small time frame. I have met a lot of great people since I started painting En Plein Air and I hope to meet many more.

Legacy Farmers Cooperative 8/2018 

watercolor and gouache

The View From We Serve Coffee 8/2018

watercolor and gouache

Oakwoods 5/1/19

gouache

Riverbend 5/8/19

gouache

Litzenberg 5/15/19

gouache

Blanchard River Nature Preserve 

gouache

Aeraland Recreation Area 6/5/19

Gouache

Simpson Garden Park Lily Pond 6/7/19

"Art In The Park"

Gouache

Old Building

This one is from awhile ago. I had a little time so I went downtown and parked then decided to draw the top of this building. The tops of these old buildings are very decorative and interesting. This is painted in gouache with no sketching or anything beforehand. Below it a close up. 

Rusty Buckets

Today I decided to draw this piece of equipment sitting out in the parking lot near the new Panda Express in Findlay. I have been eyeing it for a few weeks but never had the time to give it a try. I used one of my new Tombow pens for the drawing then colored it in with watercolor paint. I used my 6X12 Pentalic Sketchbook. The Tombow pens are fun to draw with, they flow very nicely and to not skip or drag. I had an hour and a half so I tried to take my time and get the drawing as detailed and correct as I could. There are things that are not right but when you just go for it in pen they cannot be fixed. I am pretty happy with the way it turned out. 

Here is a close up of the bucket which had another bucket inside of it. I tried to capture the rust and dirt with my watercolors. It is 6X12 inches on watercolor paper.

Scribbles

The other day I took my sketchbook outside with my Pentel Pocket Brush and found a couple of things to draw. This is the north side of our barn. I like the old doors with their peeling paint and green moss. I am very happy with the way the windows came out. The Pentel Pocket Brush is fun to scribble with, it is almost like using a real paintbrush that you do not have to keep dipping in paint. It is also refillable which is nice.

Here is a little scribble of my dog Copper. His hair is really fun to draw with this brush pen. He even sat still until I was done.

Progress

A few weeks ago I gave myself a short project. What happens if I paint the same scene everyday for a week. I decided I would squint my eyes and just paint the colors that I see in wet watercolor. This is the scene from the desk where I paint. There is a field of very tall corn with golden tassels, beyond that there is a soybean field and then a couple of barns and way in the distance there are trees. I have noticed that the colors change from hour to hour and day to day depending on the time and the weather. I masked off two squares in my watercolor sketchbook  and painted the first one. The next day I tried again. I made sure to note the time of day and the weather on the bottom of each painting.

On the third day I feel like I was making progress and there were some nice puffy clouds in the sky to paint. You can really see how the colors change day to day by now. I tried to paint them as true as possible. My masking tape was taking a layer of paper with it when I peeled it off so on the fifth day I used blue painter's tape from Dollar Tree and that worked much better.

I am very happy with the painting I did on the fifth day. I feel like I really made a lot of progress in a short amount of time. Imagine what could happen if I had kept on going. After the fifth day my sciatic nerve really started bothering me and I couldn't walk up and down the stairs as easily so the project stopped. I am going to physical therapy now and slowly getting better. I did a couple of "plein air" paintings from car last week so I am still painting just not walking as far to do it. 

Here is a photo of the actual scene. I used my artistic license to cut out the trees to make things a little easier on myself. I tried to paint the scene a couple of times when we first moved here with the trees and I never liked the way it looked.