Brandon Parkway Watercolor and Carbon Black Ink 8.25 x 3.5 inches Another title for this post could easily be "What Makes a Painting Successful?" What makes a painting successful is sometimes (usually?) beyond the obvious. Most of us consider a "pretty picture" to be a successful page, but what about all those "all most, not quite" practice pages we do? Do they count?...

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Poppy! Watercolor and Ink 3.5 x 8.25 inches Handbook Watercolor Sketchbook I wanted to make sure, beyond a shadow of a doubt, that you knew this was a poppy. Did a good job, didn't I?! Duh. I'm not sure what possessed me to put the word "poppy" behind the bloom, but.....well, there you go! I like the strong graphic quality of the word,...

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Watercolor and Noodler's Ink 3.5 x 8.25 Inches Handbook Watercolor Sketchbook Need I say more? ...

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Watercolor and Noodler's Lexington Gray Ink 3.5 x 8.5 inches in Handbook Watercolor Sketchbook I like to sleep, so when my mind decides, against my will, that it doesn't want to....well, let's just say I find the whole situation unnecessary and nothing short of annoying! Woke up at a little past 3 AM on Monday morning. WIDE AWAKE. It was like someone flipped...

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Watercolor and Ink 3.5 x 8.5 inches Handbook Watercolor Sketchbook As I mentioned in an early post, I find that the days are whizzing by so quickly that I (and my husband) are having trouble keeping track of the what event happened on which day, and I feel a "need" to capture more info about those days in my sketches. Does this mean...

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Il Posto Café Watercolor and Ink Arches Paper 3.5 x 8.5 inches I am finally making my way back around to the New Orleans sketches....this little café was just down the street from the house we rented during our NOLA stay, and it's where we ate our first meal upon arrival. Getting to our rented home was a bit of an adventure and...

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Watercolor Strathmore Aquarius II 80lb* Before Ink 4" x 5" Yesterday, I had a wonderful day with a friend in a garden. The University of South Florida's Botanical Gardens to be exact. The day was already warm when we arrived and it was on its way to getting down right hot by the time we left. We arrived after 10 and by the...

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I am delighted to share an interview with all of you that I did with Joanne DeMaio over at Whole Latte Life! In the interview series, "Coffee With," Joanne chats with folks who live their life's passions. It was a great deal of fun to do the interview and to give thought to why I do what I do. Simply said, I love...

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Garden Gloves Watercolor and Ink 3.5 x 8.5 inches Handbook Watercolor Sketchbook Yep. Time to rake the yard, trim the hedge, yank up vines, remove weeds and generally, subdue our jungle. It needed it before we had a huge storm front move through last Thursday, but it really needed it afterwards. We have two huge maple trees in our front yard and they...

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Watercolor sprayed through a stencil Words and hard lines created with gel pens Click to enlarge I saw an image (second image down on the post) on a blog the other day that captivated my imagination. I asked the owner of the blog how she created the image. The owner was none other than Sammie Kari of the Journal Girl blog. She answered right...

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Farm Fresh 3.5 x 8.5 inches Watercolor and Ink Handbook Watercolor Sketchbook I painted the latest image in my sketchbook direct with paint, no pencil. I consider it a failure. You may wonder why and I'll explain in a moment, but first, let's look at failure for a moment. When I started the Artful Journaling eClasses, I was amazed at how often the...

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