New piece

I picked up a few more gouache colors and I wanted to try just using a couple in this piece. All these colors are W&N indigo and sepia (plus white and water, of course). Indigo comes out of the tube so dark that I didn't lighten it up as much as I could have so this is a little more contrast-y than most of my pieces lately.

The drawing is a little disproportionate to make the yarn-winding hand come forward a little more but I'm not sure it comes across right :) It's the same size - 11x14" on hot press watercolor paper. I should mix up my sizes a little bit more but I always try to cut as many pieces out of a big sheet as possible and they just divide up so tidy this way.

Discussion at Scoutie Girl

Tara over at Scoutie Girl has an interesting discussion today about whether art is a luxury. Go take a look at some of the responses - mine is below.

I absolutely think art is a luxury. Just like good food, traveling, going to the movies, and reading good books are luxuries. Humans just need stories, and colors, and new experiences, in my opinion. We can't help ourselves. I don't think there's a single culture on Earth that only eats food to survive and doesn't try to make it taste good, too. Or makes objects without in some way decorating them or making them interesting to look at in some way when possible. To me, luxury is what you make of it and it doesn't necessarily mean expensive.

My work on decor8!

Holly of the fabulous decor8 posted on my work today! I'm so happy to see my little ol' drawings on one of my favorite blogs :) Take a look right here. Thanks to Holly who, by the way, is ridiculously sweet - Belinda, you might have competition for the title of Nicest Person on Earth :D

Some digital collages today

I was in a digital mood, I guess. I scanned some things out of my lovely book I've been using lately and combined them with some scans out of an old magazine of my grandma's. She knitted me a toy rabbit when I was little and after she passed away I found the magazine she knitted it from, complete with handwritten notes to herself.

I like preserving this kind of thing so somebody else can see it. I have an old travel easel/paintbox of hers from...I don't know when. It's pretty old. My dad gave it to me and I kept it exactly as it was with all the old tubes of paint in it and it's on display in a cabinet. I would rather have things like that out where I can see them even though there's some sad memories there, too.

Gouache - this time on tinted paper!

Here's a couple little gouache paintings - 8x10" on tinted Stonehenge paper. I like this neutral on neutral thing. It's interesting to play with with the opacity of the paint when it has to compete with a color that's already there. I'm putting together some references for more figure-related drawings but I figured if I'm in a mood to paint I should just go for it. So there'll be more figure drawings sometime but today I made abstracts :)

Back to work

I finally made it back into the studio! I know, it's amazing.

I can't help but return to gardening, I guess. I think it's like creating a little world and until someone patents a home terraforming machine I'll have to stick with gardening. I wait and wait for spring so I can go outside and tell my plants to grow. "Grow, my pretties," I tell them. And then I let out a little villain-y chuckle...muahaha.