Mother Nature wields a mighty paintbrush!

I've entered two photographs in this month's EBSQart's Flower of the Month Show. It's on begonias this month. You can see them here along with all the other entries.

If you're feeling generous, maybe you could go vote? If you're not a member of EBSQ, then you can join free as a Patron and vote. Here's where you'd go to join up as a Patron. Voting starts on September 1 and goes through until midnight on the 7th.

Here's my two entries and accompanying statements:

Floral macros fascinate me! I love to shoot them and I love to paint them. The lines and curves and colours are just so amazing when viewed from so close. It's like a whole other world.

Begonias are so beautifully lush with colour and texture that it's difficult not to be attracted to them. Even though this one is white, I usually have some peach coloured begonias somewhere in my garden! But if you look closely, you can see a myriad of colour in those whites. Magical!

Something else that draws me to begonias is the waxy look of their huge leaves.

I shot this begonia originally for reference use as I like to use my own photographs whenever possible for reference.

I also have on file the original tiff format that I shot this in so that I can enlarge it to poster size. I use a DSLR with excellent macro capabilities.

I call the above photograph "fiery heart".

I love the inner world of a flower. I love to shoot them and I love to paint them. I use a DSLR that allows me to get very deep into the heart of the begonia.

The magical thing about shots like this is that you tend to feel like a little fairy that can actually step into this incredibly beautiful spot.

This begonia didn't have many petals yet when I shot this and for that reason, I was able to get a deep-looking macro like this.

Since this is also in tiff format, I can enlarge this to poster sizes.

The reds and the yellows look so fiery and I love the way the colours blend together.

Mother Nature wields a mighty paintbrush indeed!!!

The Steps of a Giraffe

Since I've been so horribly lax in painting (with some other things needing doing and also with a hideously busy week at work), I thought I'd post a slide show of the creation of a painting.

I was pretty proud of the fact that I didn't use any mask at all with this background because I always have a tough time painting large backgrounds - i.e. keeping that area wet enough and not drying out. There were many, many washes applied for the neck and face areas with the spots.

Watercolour (of course!) on Arches 1/4 sheet with mostly Daniel Smith and Winsor Newton paints. A finished Giraffe is below the slide show. Titled "A Coy Giraffe".

Brillante Web Award

Many thanks to Rhonda for sending me the Brillante web award! I have to send this on to seven of my favourite art sites. I'd definitely send it to Ann but Rhonda sent it to her also. I'd send it to Rhonda but she sent it to me. :-)

(Ann, I hope you don't mind but I copied the 'rules' from your blog.)

Soooooooo, here goes:

The rules are that if the persons receiving the award decide to participate, they must:
1 - Put the logo on their blog
2 - Add a link to the person who gave them the award
3 - Nominate at least 7 other blogs
4 - Add links to those blogs on yours
5 - Leave a message on each of the blogs nominated.

My nominees are:

1. Ruth Harris - I love Ruth's watercolours and she's a fantastic photographer who freely shares her photography at Wet Canvas.

2 - Deb Townsend - Deb's a great person (I mean Deb Townsend, not me!) whom I met through Painting Friends and I just love her work with webbing spray! (Anyone know where you can buy this in Canada?)

3. Carol "Dabs" Holt - I met Dabs through Watercolor Workshop years ago and I enjoy following her blog whenever I get the chance. I may not comment Dabs, but I'm rooting for you!

4. Jose Antonio G. Villarrubia - Oh, you have to visit this blog! His work is incredible! Before you look though, scroll down to the bottom and click the music to play. The Glass music matches the wonderfully old-world paintings perfectly!

5. Raynald Murphy's Blog called Art Plein Air - A bilingual blog that teaches a lot about drawing! I love looking at his work because so much of it is Montreal scenes. (I live an hour from Montreal and love to visit this beautiful city.)

6. Dana Marie's blog - I love Dana's work and one of these days would love to buy a large painting of her's. I met Dana through EBSQart.

7. Joyce's Daily Paintings - A fellow Ontarian artist who does gorgeous aceo's!

I've put all the links for these wonderful seven sites and will put them into my links list over on the right hand side of my blog. Visit them all for some wonderful eye candy!!!

Thanks again, Rhonda!

Technorati

This post is just a temporary one to include the code for claiming my blog at Technorati. I'll delete it when the spiders 'catch' it.

Technorati Profile

A Cat Called Moose

We have a cat. He's not a nice cat. He's a nasty-tempered, cranky, mangey old cat who has this notion in his head that he's the master of this house. Master with a capital "M" it seems. In 'his' head that is. Not in mine. Moosey and I have a love / hate relationship. He loves to torment me and I hate him for it. We've had issues in past lives, as Teresa says.

There are certain things in this house that I will just not let him get away with. Most of the time, I'm easy to get along with. Really! But I just cannot stand a cat sitting on my kitchen table or counters. Nope. He gets swiped off with my arm no matter how many times he does it. If I have to stand there and sweep him off ten times in a row, I will. Because Moosey is not going to win the battle of wills. And because Moosey is not the Master. Oops, I meant to say master - with no capital letter. See what I mean? He's starting to brainwash me.

Another thing I cannot tolerate is his propensity to chew wires. Any wires. New headphone wires. Computer wires. Microphone wires. Aquarium wires. You name it - if Moose gets annoyed with you, he'll immediately strut to something used by the annoyer and 'crunch'. Or 'chew'. Or 'chomp'.

If there is one thing I hate, it's having him plunk his rear end down about four inches from my face, on my pillow, at 3 am if his food bowl is empty. Oh, am I in major trouble if his food bowl is empty during the night!!!

Anyways, I could go on about Moosey's nasty streak but I'm sure you get the idea. Or perhaps, like my Mom, you're thinking "Deb, cats don't think like that! And Moose is such a sweet cat. How can you possibly think things like this of the darling?" To which I always reply, "experience". Experience of buying phone cords like they're going out of style. Experience of replacing wires and items whose wires cannot be replaced. Experience of cleaning cat vomit from the sheets of my bed. (That's when he's really pissed off at me!) And the list goes on. And on. And on.

Lately though, Moose has been worming his way into my good books. Or maybe it's the other way 'round. I don't know, but I'm almost enjoying our new-found camaraderie. Which is a very scary thought indeed. He's always within a few feet of me whenever I'm in the house.

And aren't I the lucky one - he likes to sleep curled up beside me! He used to bite my toe if my foot got too close to him but lately, he just purrs and rubs against it. Hmmmmmmm. What's up?

When he has me trained to constantly be on guard, this friendliness, while semi-enjoyable, is kind of freaky really.

Here's a few shots of him - in lieu of a painting. (Since I had a rather large 2nd Annual Pool Party & BBQ this past weekend which required an enormous amount of preparation and work. And housecleaning. All of which totally wiped out any painting time this past weekend but was worth that sacrifice because it went beautifully!)

The first is Moose sleeping in his bed. I mean, MY bed. Note the paws! (But trust me - don't get taken in by the cute look of him!)










Before you get the wrong idea and start writing to me to tell me that I've got a poor judge of character, here's a shot of his "you'd better listen to what I'm saying, woman" look. I often get this look.










When his head is beside my foot and I see what is in this next shot, I quickly move my foot. Or he draws blood. From my toe.











Most of the time though, especially if I'm painting, this is what I see when I turn my head:












If you happen to read any comments from my Painting Pals about 'poor maligned Moose', don't believe them, k? He has them wrapped around his little finger. Or paw.

Jose Antonio G. Villarrubia

I'm always discovering art blogs and I've found one that I thought I'd mention here. If you click here, you'll get to a blog called La mirada del Auriga. If you click 'play' on his music (by Philip Glass) (note: you have to scroll way down to the bottom to see the music option then scroll back up to see the paintings), you hear the most beautiful haunting music. It matches so totally & perfectly with most of his drawings and paintings that have this wonderful antique and old-world look. (I just love, love, love that old-world look!)

Wow, listening and looking took me back several thousand years! Beautiful!

We'll have to ask Teresa to translate a few of his writings though. ;-)

(I found his blog by clicking on his avatar after he made a comment here on my blog about the teabag painting. It always intrigues me as to how people find my blog! For some reason, I get a lot of hits on the post "Finished Teabag Painting". Hmmmmmm ...... Curiouser and curiouser.)

Honour of the Samurai

Thought I'd post a few paintings I did a while back.

This one is called Honour of the Samurai. It's won several awards - a Member's Choice at EBSQ and also a First Place Watercolour division in a Focus Art Juried Show. It was also voted onto the 2007 calendar for Focus Art.

The ghost of a Samurai Warrior stands under the 'gate', yet his shadow remains strong. The shadow represents the legacy of the great Samurai Warriors.

In real life, the colours are much more vibrant than what you can see here.