Tag Archives: watercolor

Dec 23 2016

Why Santa never gets caught

https://doodlewash.com/2016/12/22/how-do-reindeer-fly/

Doodlewash is a blog I follow – both for Charlie O’s great water-colors but even more for his wonderful stories and descriptions about each drawing.

Today’s Doodlewash post inspired my pome.

Pome by judy

No one catches Santa on the roof

or in the snow sees prints

of tiny reindeer hoof

for Santa’s no bigger than a fly

and reindeer all the size of ants

ferry him through the Christmas sky

I don’t think it silly at all

to imagine reindeer quite so small

and know 

how Santa slides down chimney flues

with nary much soot on his beard or shoes

So make your cookies the size of peas

and leave the milk in a thimble please

Limit the weight of gifts and such

to crush an ant

 it doesn’t take much

   *     *    *

To read Charlie O’s inspiring story click here:

How Do Reindeer Fly?

Apr 25 2016

Sneek a Peek into my Sketchy Life

Here’s my semi-weekly Did you Miss Me!!!!!??????? post.  Lately, it seems like every other week I’m blogged-out.  As my energy (and attention) waxes and wanes so too my posting.

The last art classes produced these projects.  The first was sketching onto a plastic plate and then using water soluble color to print.

Left side - acrylic plate Right side - print

Left side – acrylic plate
Right side – print

Print with watercolor

Print with watercolor

In the portrait class we had 3 hours to create a portrait of a real live man.  And although I’ve been known to take liberties with the models . . . like adding arms where there are none . . . I didn’t make up his hair-do.

Pastel Portrait

Pastel Portrait

Bob Blobfish sez: ". . . I p"

Bob Blobfish sez: “Her artistic range is either versatile or erratic.  To be kind I’ll call it erratically versatile . . .”

versatile

Mar 25 2016

DOODLEWASHing & Hairy Bird pome

Hairy Pome by judy

Have you not heard
of the elusive Kingfisher bird?
When it is hatched
it sports a moustache
Thank goodness there’s no beard
that would be weird

Watercolor by Charlie O', Kingfisher Bird

Watercolor by Charlie O’Shields, Moustached Kingfisher Bird

Read more about this birdie at doodlewash

Charlie O’Shields

Mar 10 2016

DOODLEWASHing & a shrimpy pome

The Peacock mantis shrimp
is no wimp.
Its rear sways
while the front prays
that its glow
doesn’t go.
4 inches is enough
to strut it’s stuff

Watercolor Peacock Mantis Shrimp by Charlie O'

Watercolor, Peacock Mantis Shrimp by Charlie O’Shields

“Some mantis shrimp species are rather romantic, meeting their dream shrimp and staying together for life, which is up to 20 years. These lovebirds share the same burrow, protect their eggs, and help each other in hunting. When particularly aroused during mating rituals, the mantis shrimp will start to fluoresce. This means, you guessed it, they have glow-in-the-dark sex, which more than qualifies them as an uncommon creature.”

Click here to find out why the shrimp is no wimp: doodlewash

Mar 5 2016

DOODLEWASHing – What’s all the Stink About?

“Along with its spiky reddish-brown hairdo, it’s quite a sight to behold. It’s also a bird that you are better off viewing from a safe distance due to its other key characteristic that has earned it’s rather insulting nickname. But it’s an accurate one, as the stinkbird actually does smell like poop.”

judy’s stink bird pome

The Stink bird, if you will
is a walking, pecking still
Its cow poop smell
is just a cover
for a liquor lover.

Wanna know why it stinks?  Ya gotta click here:  DOODLEWASH Sinkbird  

Apr 26 2014

Sneak Peek into my mind – Year of the Fairy Tale

I never know where I’ll find inspiration. 

The last Princess & the Pea assignment was to create 20 different compositions and then pick one to paint using a credit card.  I was stuck – none of my compositions appealed to me.  Well . . .  truthfully there were a few that I liked . . . I just didn’t think I could paint them with a credit card . . .

Looking through my stash of  paper I came across this unfinished watercolor from Jan 30, 1989.

The date of the class I took was on the back (I remember I dropped out because watercolor was too difficult)  The paper tape that held the wet paper on the board was still there.

I was trying to paint a lemon.

Giant Pea and Green Princess

1989

Inspiration!  A giant pea! (aka lemon).  There was my composition for the Princess and her PEA! (click if you forgot how my credit card painting turned out)

Moral of my tale:  Never throw anything away and

some fruit should be a vegetable.

 

 

Mar 10 2014

The Year of the Fairy Tale – Yip Yippee Yupo

DSCN5662

Experimenting with Yupo paper is part of this month’s assignment. Yupo is slick, non absorbent – kinda like photo-paper – and “not cheap”.

The water-color paint does strange and interesting things on the paper and most of it isn’t in your (read MY) control.

I started with the intention of doing flowers (from the 100 flowers we are to draw – I’ve not done 100 but am pooped out on flowers for the moment).

I “flung” water-color at the paper in a devil-may-care manner pretending it didn’t matter if I ruined a sheet of expensive paper . . .

The more I looked the weirder it got.  I saw all kinds of faces & critters in the strange shapes. So I emphasized the faces I saw with pencil and here is Yupo #1, my kind of fairy-garden . . . and I am, I swear, completely sober.

Feb 8 2014

The Year of the Fairy Tale – 3 Frogs, flying in the face of reason

And lo! From up in the sky
a flying frog, No LIE!
Breaking the mold
with wings of gold

Froggie swoops down
sporting a crown
A crown of red
Perched on her head

DSCN5542

Here’s my first attempts at Flying Froggie in color.  Try-outs are still open.  Can’t decide which one should be cast as the heroine.  Do you have a favorite?

 

VARIATION ON A THEME

And lo! From up in the sky
a flying frog, No LIE!

Froggie swoops down

sporting a crown

on her royal head

flying in on wings of red

DSCN5541

DSCN5544

May 31 2011

Move Over Butterfly Fish

Random blobs of water color

If you’ve been following my blog you know that fish posts have been good to me in blogland – Butterfly Fish, Glum Fish – I decided to honor them with a picture (and it amuses me).   Easy, Fun and anyone can do it.  

  • Took a child’s watercolor set  (I didn’t take it from a child – it’s my own child’s watercolor set I bought for $1)
  • Wet the paper with water in a random pattern.  (I used a brush but a make-up sponge or q-tip will work)
  • Put some red, orange and yellow watercolor on top of the wet paper and just let it flow.
  • Put some more red, orange and yellow watercolor on top again and let it flow.
  • After it dried I kept turning the paper around and around looking for my fish.

    Rotating the rotate

My FISH!

And there they were!
Took a fine line sharpie and outlined the little suckers (no complaints so I continued)
Gave them eyes so they could see what’s happening.
  • Took out my markers, colored pencils and started putting color on top of color
  • Then I doodled.  They didn’t seem to mind sooooo

The big guy doesn't look too happy with my doodle.

  • I doodled some more.
Lucky for them I’m doodled out today so they have time to acclimate to their current finery.  Can’t decide what to call each of them?  I think they are related to the Butterfly Fish, cousins several times removed.

MORE doodling

She's obviously easily amused . . .

Mar 16 2011

Glumfish and Me

Every heard of a Glumfish?  Neither had I.

The word “Glumfish”  is from Salman Rusdhie’s Haroun and the Sea of Stories where the story begins with a super sad city that had forgotten its name and had “a mournful sea full of glumfish, which were so miserable to eat that they made people belch with melancholy”.

I love the name – GLUMFISH  – I find it to be quite poetic given my current state of  “fibro-glum”.

Wondering what a Glumfish might look like I did some  Glumfish BLOB-Pictures.


1. Took cheapie water-colors and wet a blob on the paper and droped LOTS of watercolor on the water blob and let it spread and dry.

watercolor blobs

2.  Turned the paper blobs round and round till

I “saw” a Gumfish shape and

outlined it with marker.  Added some glum eyes and mouths.

3.  Cut them out and put them on a piece of tissue paper.

4. Decided my Glumfish needed an aquarium.  Found some tissue paper, added some sea-weed.  Decided not to paste my glumfish down.  They need to swim freely and not be STUCK.

It’s ok to be glum, just not stuck.