Happy New Year to my Blogland Friends

Sending my best wishes for all of you to have

a wonderful 2014, full of love, peace, and time

for artful pursuits!

Last Paint Party Friday of 2013

This is a busy time for most of us as we wind up things from 2013 and prepare to take on the challenges of 2014. I hope the transition goes smoothly for all of you and that the events of the new year will be pleasant and rewarding. This is not a new painting since life has gotten  in the way of art. I am entering it this week for the Paint Party Friday challenge because I really want to get back into the swing of things. I am adding this to Paper Minutes challenge for this week: Baby, it's cold outside.

Merry Christmas to my Blogland Friends

Dear Friends far and near,

My heart is full of love for and appreciation of you.

So many of you have sent encouraging messages to me

during the long illness of my dh. Many of you have offered 

up prayers for me. Many have sent kind wishes and thoughts.

We each have our own personal style of art and the presentation

thereof, but kindness and caring reign supreme in this arena. 

Thank you for visiting my blog and for leaving comments.

I feel as if each of you is a friend I can count on.

I look forward to a new, exciting, artful year.

My wish for you is that the true meaning of Christmas

will live in your heart forever. Love never fails.

Entering this into Take A Word Challenge.

A Tea Party for Tracey

This was made especially for the tea party for Tracey Fletcher King,

sponsored by Paint Party Friday. It is a view from my dining room table.

The painting on the wall is an oil painting of an old pump.

Wishing for each and every blogger who reads this a happy and

wonderful Christmas. May your days throughout this joyous

season be fulfilling and blessed.

Paint Party Friday

Here is a quick sketch that has been made

into a Christmas card. I am entering this

in the Paint Party Friday this week.

Word Art Wednesday using Patty's Lily

This painting was done from a photograph I borrowed

from Patty a couple of years ago. She takes such

beautiful photographs and when I saw this one I

 just had to try my hand at it. I am using this as my

entry for Word Art Wednesday, trying to ease back

into art following the loss of my dh and all the trauma

and sadness associated with such a life-changing event. 

A new Look at an Old Painting

There's an opportune time to do things, a right time for everything on the earth:

A right time for birth and another for death,

A right time to plant and another to reap,

A right time to kill and another to heal,

A right time to destroy and another to construct,

A right time to cry and another to laugh,

A right time to lament and another to cheer,

A right time to make love and another to abstain,

A right time to embrace and another to part,

A right time to search and another to count your losses,

A right time to hold on and another to let go,

A right time to rip out and another to mend,

A right time to shut up and another to speak up,

A right time to love and another to hate,

A right time to wage war and another to make peace.

from Ecclesiastes 3

“When you part from your friend,

you grieve not;

For that which you love most in him

may be clearer in his absence,

as the mountain to the climber

is clearer from the plain.” 

― Kahlil Gibran, The Prophet

Church Bazaar

The long awaited fall bazaar at our church was held today. I have been making cards all year for this event. Sometimes I'd use whatever I had painted for a challenge to be the front of the card. Some I bought stick-ons from the Dollar Store. Some I did a watercolor front. Here are some that did not sell. I noticed that most of the Christmas ones went fast. I will try next year to do more Christmasy ones.

Bye-bye for a little while

Too much is happening around here for me to try to do any blogging.

I am going to take a time off for a month or so. Many of you have my

email so if you need to get me you can. Also, the email is on my blog.

I enjoyed the 29 faces challenge and getting to see all the wonderful,

diverse paintings and drawings. It was like visiting a museum.

Lots of mine will be made into greetings cards to sell at the 

church bazaar in November. Thanks for everyone who commented

on my posts. It is nice to get an email "thank you, Faye" to my comments,

but it is so much nicer to know you have actually visited my posts.

Paint Party Friday - September 27, 2013

This could be my #30 for the #29 Faces but I am

posting this for my Paint Party Friday entry. I loosely 

used a method I learned about on Anja's blog. I couldn't

get my white gel pen to work on top of Neocolor so

I used the black outlines. I would like for you to see

the 29 Faces I made for September HERE.

Alpha made a painting by using my Grandmother's photo

as her model. Check out what she did:

ALPHA'S BLOG

Faces #25 - #29

Finally, the last 5 faces for the 29 Faces Challenge, a few days early.

Face 25 looks like she knows a secret.

 Face 26, I believe, has a chip on her shoulder. She looks a bit haughty.

 I like the toddler for Face #27.

 I used a magazine ad as a launchpad for Face #28.

She actually looks like someone I went to school with for 12 years.

 And the final one #29 was also the result of looking at a magazine ad.

Faces #18 - 24

Here are my entries for 29 Faces and for Paint Party Friday

#18 My Grandma's photo altered with Photoshop Elements filters.

#19 This is the one I had leaves all around. I decided to color her with water soluble crayons.

#20 Just a sketch. His mustache didn't turn out too well.

#21 Another sketch

#22 And here is the sketch colored in Photoshop Elements.

#23 This was colored in watercolors.

#24 This was colored in watercolors.

More Faces

 Here are four more faces. My sister called last night and we talked about an hour. The black and white sketches here are my phone doodles. I later colored them via Photoshop Elements. I am counting these as my faces 14, 15, 16, 17 for 29 Faces.

PPF and Faces 12 and 13

This is a firehouse in Vacaville CA, where the Somewhere to Sketch folks

visited around town earlier and sketched exciting spots, and some mundane places.

Next the scenes were from London England and included Buckingham Palace,

St. Paul's Cathedral, lots of red buses, some gorgeous scenery and interesting people.

This is Astor Hyde Park in London.

The plane is almost ready to leave for Paris. If you love Paris landmarks, go visit 

Somewhere to Sketch. Better yet, find a spot on Google maps in Paris and 

sketch it for yourself. The more the merrier.

Two more faces for 29 Faces Challenge

Face 12

This one was sketched in waterproof pen and then colored with watercolors.

Face 13

                              This one was just painted in watercolors, no pencils and no pens.

All these are being entered in the Paint Party Friday Challenge.

29 Faces #9, #10, #11

Three different kinds of faces. Face 9 is colored pencils sketch.  Face 10 is a pen sketch I colored with watercolors. Face 11 is Li'l Redhead, a character I created after my granddaughter when she was a child. I have been doing Li'l Redhead in various actions for many years. (Granddaughter is 24.)

All of these entries were done today. I think posting in bunches is easier on poster and viewer.

these are for 29 Faces challenge.

Face #9

Face #11

Face #10

So-Artful Challenge

This ox-eye daisy was a watercolor I did a while back.

I think it is pretty minimalist and is a single flower, the

two requirements for the So Artful Challenge.

29 Faces #8

OK. I'm cheating a little. Well, not really, but this is not

up to my usual standards. Give me some slack. This is

the weekend.  I hope to do another face tomorrow but

this may be it till Monday.  This is simply a piece of watercolor

paper with stripes of color. I drew the face and surrounded her

with leaves I had stamped on cardstock and cutout. My 

queen of the forest is my #8 for 29 Faces Challenge.

29 Faces #7 and Paint Party Friday

This is being entered in two challenges:

29 Faces

Paint Party Friday

I found I had a small scrap of acrylic paper so I decided

to do a quick sketch with drawing pens. My oil pastels

were sitting there, unused because I sure don't know what

to do with them, but I tried. I used a little olive oil to spread

the colors around. I said it was a quick sketch - about 15 minutes.

Tomorrow is a busy day in and out of the house so it may be 

Saturday before I get to visit everyone.

Note: Please take off the captcha thing. I waste a lot of time

trying to figure them out when I could be off visiting someone's

beautiful artwork. Also, if you use Google+,  please provide a way 

for those of us who do not want to be in Google+ to leave you a comment.

29 Faces #6

Here is my watercolor of an native American girl, 

who will be my entry for 29 Faces,  #6.

I couldn't get her hair to get any darker.

Word Art Wednesday

Here is my entry for Word Art Wednesday.

The background is one of my oil paintings.

If you are looking for my 29 Faces, scroll down.

29 Faces #4 and #5

I'm trying my hand at one of my first male faces.

I used a photo but it doesn't look enough like it to

show. I've got a long way to go,  see. This is my

#4 face for 29 Faces Challenge.

And here is a grandma to go with the grandpa above.

She is done in watercolor pencils and water soluble

crayons (Neocolor II) whereas he was done using

my Winsor & Newton watercolors. This is my

#5 face for 29 Faces Challenge.

29 Faces #3

Here is my really rough sketch of a flyfisher girl in a trout stream.

This is my face for 29 Faces. I tried to visit 100% of the entrants.

Sorry, I can't get into the comment section if you use Google+.

And even after cataract surgery and subsequent 20-20 vision, I

have trouble reading those Captcha things.

29 Faces #2

This was done in watercolors on cheap watercolor paper.

This is my 29 Faces #2 entry.

29 Faces #1

I'm going to try to do Martha's 29 Faces Challenge.

This was a challenge because I just sketched onto  acrylic

paint paper and then painted in water soluble oil paints. Using

these paints for portraits is new to me. I only have 6 colors so

I had to do a lot of mixing.

Sketches/Doodles and Handmade Flowers

First is a sketch done in the Lynn Cohen style (by accident).

I was just messing around with my watercolors and thought:

Gee, this looks like someone from Tacos Jalisco.

Next, this is what's left of the fabulous dozen roses I got from 

my friend Masayo several weeks ago. (greenery only, no flowers)

Here's a simple sketch/doodle while watching TV.

More sketches of mine can be seen on the new blog set up by

Lynn and Ann. It is called Somewhere to Sketch. Join us there.

Then I began to make flowers using some hand painted papers

along with a few decorative papers. All are painted over with

some mica-ladened mixture I made to give additional shine

 but not much additional color. The flowers were punched, and

the petals were bent up and then rolled back over a skewer.

And here is a card I made using hand painted papers for the

background, flower, and leaves. These will be my entry for

Paint Party Friday.