Watercolors With Friends

Yesterday, my art quilt group met at my house for a fun day of playing with watercolors.  My kitchen became an art studio!  I drew a simplified version of the hollyhocks painting I did in a class with Karlyn Holman.  Fewer flowers and leaves.


This is my pre-workshop sample.

The girls were all very receptive to trying this new medium.  We watched a little of Karlyn Holman's DVD, and used her techniques to add collaged Thai papers and sanded watercolor stencils.


I have done a similar painting four times now, and each one looks different.  Here is the one I did yesterday at the meeting.

I was proud of the girls!  Here is Roberta's painting.

and here is Tama's unfinished painting.

Everyone had their own take on the brightness and values of the colors.  It was fun, and we may have a few new fans of watercolors in the group.


While we were eating lunch, the mailman rang the doorbell.  A package from Cheap Joe's Art Stuff arrived with some fun art supplies.  My husband and I are going on a fabulous trip to Hawaii in just ten days. This will be an early celebration of our fortieth anniversary.   I bought a watercolor travel journal with Arches paper.

 And the cutest little travel set of watercolors and the water brush pen.

I don't know how much time I will spend journaling or painting while we are there, but I will have a few supplies handy if I get inspired between MaiTai's.

I have been very inspired by the travel sketchbooks from artists like Suzanne McNeil and Alisa Burke.

Here is Suzanne showing the art journal she created during a trip to Mexico.  I got to see this in person when I met her at Jerry's Artarama's Art of the Carolinas last November.  What a beautiful memory book!