Gossamer Wings - exploration 1

A little exploration featuring my hand-carved dragonfly stamp. Painted with watercolor and ink. 10x8 inches.

Gossamer Wings Exploration 1
10x8 inches watercolor and ink

Coloring Easter Eggs - No Boiling required

Easter Morning I colored some Easter Eggs to turn into cards - experimenting with the dragonfly stamp I carved, watercolor and ink.

loose paintings of Easter Egg backgrounds

I then stamped the eggs with a dragonfly and finished decorating them with pen. The blue one on the right has metallic gold and silver ink and then speckled with white paint spatter that doesn't show up well in the scan.
I enjoy being able to make things for my friends and family, giving them a little piece of me.
Happy Easter!

Discover Fauquier's Values - May 2014 issue

Just finished another issue of Discover Fauquier's Values - check it out! 

http://discoverypubs.com

Discover Fauquier's Values May 2014

Adventures in Easter Lamb Cake

Nannie used to make an Easter cake with a lamb mold every year. It was one of the fun things about going to Nannies on Easter. I had talked about it with friends before and about trying to make one, and this past Christmas I got a lamb mold as a gift and decided on this Saturday to give it a try. 

Lamb cake mold - Christmas gift

I've never seen Nannie make her cake, it was always done & on the table before we arrived. I did some internet research and thought this should go smoothly. A friend of my recently remarked that I'm such an optimist because I expect things to go smoothly. 

BUT there was nothing, nothing smooth about this cake! I decided to go with the recipe that came with the mold from Kitchen Supply.

I greased & floured the pan

Filled the front ½ with batter, added toothpicks to the head & neck and tied it together

Halfway thru I decided to check on it and the batter was just oozing out all over the place! I transferred it to another cookie sheet and continued baking

and it continued to ooze out :-/

I let it cool and managed to get it out of the pan without major damage, but since the batter oozed out, it didn't rise up and fill the back half of the mold like it was supposed to. I have one emaciated lamb here.

I decided to frost it the next day, and overnight the ear and some of the head decided to separate. I pinned the ear back in place with several more toothpicks

A friend invited me to Easter Brunch so I went to that before I finished the cake. I didn't have enough time to make icing, so I bought some from the grocery store. When I got home my house was very warm and the icing kept acting like it was going to slide off as I was trying to put it on.

I don't think it looks too bad, I mustered up all the artistic ability I had to try to mold the icing into something that looked like fleece. Nannie put coconut on hers to simulate fleece, but I didn't do that here due to lack of coconut interest.

Then another realization hit me… how the hell was I going to get this to my friends house, over 45 min drive, for dinner without ruining it? 

This is what I came up with.

Here is a photo of Nannies Easter Lamb cake. 

Not horrific for my 1st try. The cake was a little dry so I'll have to try a different recipe, and try to tie the halves together tighter to keep the batter in next time.

If anyone reading this has made lamb cake, I'd like to hear your advice, success stories, or not so success stories.  Happy Easter!

little birdie painting

A little birdie painting for a birthday card

Pit Bull Pet Portrait

This is Sahara - a happy, smiley dog I had the pleasure of painting for a friend to give as a birthday gift. It was a lot of fun working on a portrait with so much character.

'Sahara' soft pastel on paper 8x10in

New Year Gift

Happy New Year! I hope this year brings you love, happiness & health.

To start off the New Year, here is a desktop calendar to download & use.   :)

I drew this illustration in Adobe Illustrator, with a Wacom tablet.

Christmas Tree Ornaments

I made ornaments to include with Christmas gifts this year. 

The dragonfly ornaments were created with a stamp I carved from stamping rubber, then stamped card stock and embellished with paints, pens and metallic ink for the borders. I carved the stars/snowflakes from a pencil tip eraser.  I added eyelets, jump rings and swirl hooks. The backs I hand wrote Christmas greetings.  They measure 2.5 inches square.

After drawing a sketch of a partridge, I carved the image into stamping rubber and stamped bristol board with permanent stamping ink, and painted them with watercolor. Cut the paintings into pear shapes and added the ribbon. I glued patterned scrapping paper to the back and added a Christmas greeting. They measure 7 in high.

Christmas Pet Portraits

These are the balance of the pet portraits I worked on before Christmas. I received some very nice comments about them and that makes me smile. The best thing is when my paintings give people joy :)

Two Bulldogs in progress

Two Bulldogs in progress

No rest for the weary :)
Sprayed the first portrait with fixative and while waiting for it to dry, I started on another one.

(originally posted 12/14/13 6:45 PM)

More progress on bulldogs

More progress on bulldogs

(Originally posted 12/15/13 10:49 AM)

Dragonfly ornaments

I've finally finished the last of the Christmas pet portraits. I'll post them all after Christmas. Resting this afternoon, then will tackle my own Christmas.

A couple weeks ago I did a little experimenting with rubber stamp carving making little ornaments. I carved a dragonfly in stamping rubber with lino carving tools and used it as a basis for my ornaments, stamping cardstock or heavy watercolor paper, then paint the cards individually.  The little stars/snowflakes I carved into an eraser on the end of a pencil with an exacto knife. I had to get permenant stamping ink because the regular ink kept smudging when I tried to paint them. I used metallic ink to border them. Then I added eyelets, ribbon and fancy swirl hooks. Each are 2 1/2 inches square. These are personal gifts, so I script Christmas messages on the back.  I may make a version of these next year to sell at shows. 

Let me know what you think.

2 more beautiful cats

I stopped posting the paintings I'm working on the past few days, since one of my clients was concerned about the recipient might see it and ruin the surprise.

Delivered this painting today - she said I could share it since the recipient won't see it.  :)

3 dogs finished

Finished the 3 dogs this morning. Soft pastel 10x8

Hard at work on another portrait - 3 doggies :)