Leaves

8x10" on Yupo.

I love having an excuse to go outside and shuffle through all the fallen leaves looking for interesting alder leaf patterns. Now that I can choose from more leaves than only the ones I could see from the ground, I'm finding quite a few really gorgeous ones. Normally I think of insects eating holes in leaves as a bad thing but according to what I was reading online when I was trying to identify this tree last spring, the alder trees are a food source for various bugs and it doesn't harm the tree.

Mimi

Nothing new to show you as far as finished artwork - I picked up a little set of gouache colors a few days ago and I'm still working out how I want to use them. I have a lot of bits of paper and various surfaces/combinations of materials but they're not really interesting to look at. So I thought I'd put up a cute picture of one of our cats instead...more actual art soon, I promise :)

Watercoloring

I had an idea that if I used a blunter, softer pencil for a drawing on Yupo, I would get a different effect with a stronger line. This was the resulting experiment. I think it was a lot less frustrating than trying to keep a smooth thin line on the Yupo. And I love seeing what the color looks like after it dries - it's really unpredictable how the paint will pool and settle.

The trail

I went for a ride today in between rain showers. This is the pipeline trail near our house and despite the chill, everything still looks pretty green. I'm going to keep riding as long as I can this fall and see how she does - at our old house it would be too icy or muddy or both to ride very far into fall. My mare is not waiting around to find out what the weather will be like and has already grown much of her winter coat. Look at those fuzzy little ears :)

These are pics I took with my new phone. I don't love the quality of the pics it takes but it's definitely handy to have a little camera in my pocket whenever the whim strikes me.

Ballard art walk

So the art walk went really well except for a few times when there was no one to talk to and I was bored :) But I met a lot of really nice people and gave out some business cards and overall I will call it a success. I worked enough retail jobs to feel pretty good about my ability to greet people and make small talk. I'm glad I'm not working retail anymore (so glad) but I definitely feel like it gave me some good people skills.

One more next month - hope to see even more people. I mean, free wine and snacks...why isn't everyone out at the art walk?

Framing like mad

This is the batch from yesterday.  I think I'll be able to go hang everything tomorrow, but I'm a little sad to be missing the gorgeous weather outside this week.  

Mint design blog

Ellie at Mint has a post up today featuring my watercolors...check it out right here.  Thanks, Ellie!  I love seeing my work in such lovely surroundings.

Exhibiting in Seattle

I'm booked in to hang art at a furniture store in Ballard - yay!  The scary part?  The art walk that I need to be ready for is Saturday.  In school we talked about getting ready for exhibitions in terms of months, not days.  I'm going to be framing like crazy this week :)

So if anyone wants to come down and check out what looks like a fun art walk, I'll be at Skarbos and the other venues should be listed here (although at the moment it's showing an older map).  Saturday (10 Oct.) from 6-9 pm.