Three New Paintings!

Hi there!  I've been a busy little bee lately!  Recently I took part in a challenge to paint 30 paintings in 30 days.  This one above was the very first one that I painted for the challenge.  Not bad #1, not bad!  It's on a 8" x 10"x 1/2" canvas. I love Koi and waterlilies so I figured why not paint both!

This is the second one, "I AM here".  This one was much easier than the first one.  It seemed to flow out fairly easily and tell me exactly what it wanted.  I love when that happens!  It's also on 8" x 10" x 1/2" canvas.

close up of "I AM here"

"Island Of Dreams" was the third painting that I did.  Don't you want to take a boat out on that water and just float?  This one was done on 11" x 14" canvas board. 

 I like how the first three paintings all have water and seem to go together.  I think it was a great way to start off the challenge!  

Just for fun here's a photo of "Island Of Dreams" while it was still in progress.  This can almost be a finished painting itself!

So there's the first 3 out of 30!  I only have 27 more to show you!  ;-)  

They're all done now so if you can't wait you can see them all on my Facebook Art Page or Instagram 

Thanks for visiting!  See you soon!

Orange Post : Koi Carp

Ok,  I guess I didn't make the lil' sneak peek hard enough for you smarties... most of you knew it was a Koi fish (and to the nut who said "or an under-ripe tomato that looks like a Koi", I just went to your blog and now I understand, LOL!)  So here's one big cyber pat for all of you who guessed right  ** PAT  PAT**  Thanks for playing along.  It was fun!!  I think I'll do that again, but maybe make it more of a challenge next time!

This was inspired by a few photos I took of  Koi Carp in the pond at Fashion Island in Newport Beach.  I started off with a 9x12 inch canvas.  I printed out three separate photographs of mine onto regular computer paper and glued them down onto the canvas.  Then I used Heavy Gel Medium to create lots of "yummy yummy texture", to quote Jenny and Shelley (thanks ladies!).

Once that dried I added layer after layer after layer of paints and glazes.  Then a few more layers.  To finish it off I popped out  a few details on the fish with permanent pen.

These are the photos that I used in this mixed media painting.  The first ones are of the Fashion Island Koi.  The last photo is of our very cool chandelier in our bedroom.  I took the photo looking straight up at the light.  I like that you can't really tell what it is!

So here is my Orange Post for The Summer of Color.  I was SO excited to read that there will be a Summer of Color 2 next year, Yay!!  Hopefully next summer I won't be a week behind in all the posts,  LOL, but this was so much fun!  I now have some cool artwork that wouldn't have existed if it weren't for this challenge and the wonderful  Kristin!!