Toad in a Boat

I’m posting a bit early for Paint Party Friday because I have an early appointment tomorrow. I don’t have a finished painting to show but I have been painting this week. It’s still in the ugly stage so I will just show 3 little bits of it here to prove I’m working on it! It’s not behaving very well for me. I think I’m going to switch to oils. It’s acrylic and collage up to this point. It’s on canvas, 16×20 I think.

Pink and shabby, comfortable and familiar, after all these year.

The Summer of Color theme this week is pink. I wanted to do another altered book page and was lucky enough to find a reference to pink azaleas in the book I’ve been using. Other words on the page such as shabby and comfortable made me think of a much loved stuffed toy that has been dragged around and loved for years, providing comfort and companionship to some little one. We were to use wax in some way for extra credit so I used a white wax crayon for the word Shabby. It acts as a resist to the green watercolor. Next week’s challenge color is Yellow with a bonus of metallics. I hope I can find the word yellow in my book!

In my imagination the green birds came to sing.

This week’s Summer of Color theme is green with citron as a bonus. I did a found poetry style altered book page and added it to my art journal. I even managed to get some citron in on the birds. I used Inktense pencils and a watercolor crayon. Next week’s color is pink!

For this week’s Sunday Sketches I added a new robot to my Fictional Encycolpedia of Mechanical Contrivances (ROBOTS) for  Sketchbook Project 2012. This guy is expecting rain so he wore his galoshes because water and robots aren’t a good mix. The scanner washed it out in places. There’s a shadow under the bench that doesn’t even show in the scan. Oh, well. So, how’s everyone else doing with their Sketchbook project? I had put mine where I didn’t see it and accidentally forgot it for a while. Must do better! Must make robots!

The Summer of Color theme this week is Blue.  I was having trouble deciding on what to do so I decided to grab one of my books and find the word blue and see if the words on the page would inspire me.  It worked!  Now, I should have either gessoed or sealed the page before using water on it, and I knew that, but I was working on the sofa because I didn’t feel well and I was just too lazy to take it to the art room.  So the blue lady is a bit blotchy, but she has other things on her mind so I don’t think she is bothered by it. This is inktense pencil, water, and a couple of my hand carved stamps in my art journal.

HOT TIP: If you use a book that has been indexed by Google in snippet view, you can use Google Books to look up a word, such as blue, and it will tell you 3 or 4 pages that contain that word. It’s much easier than skimming the book, hoping to find the word by luck!

Fun News: I just found out that I won the title of Wizard of Whimsy again this week! I’m tickled pink. I love being a wizard!  This week, it was for my goofy little One Line Owl. We can always use more entries over there, if anyone would like to play along.

Nothing special this week, just today’s sketch journal page. We went to look at the Nissan Juke but the dealer is having trouble getting them because of the tsunami in Japan. I think it may be too small but it will be a while before we are ready to decide on what we want, anyway. An article I read on the Juke said it looked like a bionic frog, LOL. I think it’s cute, though. Please visit Sophia at Sunday Sketches to see what everyone else has to show this week.

I almost forgot about the Summer of Color challenge over at Twinkle Twinkle. It’s a 10-week blog party with a color theme each week. All art forms accepted. The first week is blue, and I’d better get busy since I don’t even have a plan yet!

This is Radar, a pitt bull pup. He belongs to Bunnykat1957 over at wetcanvas.com. She shared his photo there for painting. I loved the way his eyes were open so big and round and questioning. This must be what wide-eyed innocence looks like, LOL. He’s not finished yet but I needed something to show at Paint Party Friday this week and he volunteered. He’ll look better when I get back to him and finish him up.

It  is 9×12, watercolor,  but my scanner cropped it a bit. It also washed out the color in the white areas and left a lot of glare on the background. Since it’s night here and I can’t take a photo, it will have to do.

Mr. Toast wants to see some old timey storefronts this week. I immediately thought of Central Grocery in New Orleans. We rarely go into the city anymore, but when we did, we liked to stop at Central to get a muffaletta to go on the way home. I hear the food and service there aren’t as good as they used to be, but I’m getting hungry just thinking about that muffaletta.

I am not happy with this at all and after scanning it I realize why. There are no people. I’ve never seen this sidewalk empty. It just looks wrong. It looks stiff and lifeless but this is a very lively street (Decatur St). Oh well, I am posting it anyway to show I did play along. Watercolor pencil in my sketchbook.

ETA: Claire asked, What is a muffaletta?” Here’s a link to a photo. Have a look if you aren’t familiar with them. It’s like nothing else on the planet. BTW, these are 8″-10″ but most people do not eat a whole one!