Blue

Inspired by the "Photographs of British Algae: Cyanotype Impressions" by Anna Atkins
Watercolor & white acrylic ink on Twinrocker paper. 10" x 14"

Stone Collection

If you click on the photo it will take you to my Flickr stream
where I've put tags on each of the stones so you can see where they're from.
The crochet covered stoned are mostly made by my friend
Margie Oomen from Resurrection Fern.
The little porcelain pebbles are from Manos by Karin Eriksson.
The big white porcelain stone was handmade by Paula Valentim from Otchipotchi.

Flower Pattern

Playing around with some flower doodles I drew with a micron pen.
These pens are my all time favorite to draw with & to write on my journal.
I always buy the 005. I love the precision of the ultra thin line.

Felt birds WIP

Working on some felt birdies I was working on two Xmases ago :p
I had totally forgotten about them.
I modified this cool pattern to make my birds.
And I bought the beautiful vintage wool from my friend Carlene.

Sketch

Watercolor and .005 micron pen

A Clean Slate

This is what my journal/planner looks like before I fill in each day.
I sit down every two weeks and collage/draw/paint on it
making sure I leave some space for writing each day.
I'll show you what it will look like after filling it all up.
Hope you have a great week!
Thanks Sofia for the beautiful bits from New Zealand
that are now part of my journal :)

Bouquet

Flowers for you.
Digital collage using my illustrations.
It will be available as a print soon with the Lizards,
the Echeveria and the Japanase Paradise Bird.
I'll let you know when they're in my shop.

Lizards

Brenda Dumont, one of my lovely blog visitors wrote to me this week suggesting I should paint some lizards. I thought it was a great idea, so I did & here they are :)
Thank you Brenda, I had lots of fun painting them!

And the winner is...

Congratulations!!!
Her favorite color is saffron.
Poorvi, please email me your address so I can send you the book & print.
Thank you all so much for participating,
I really wish I could send everyone a little gift!
Have a great weekend :)

Flash Giveaway!

I just got that beautiful bold vintage teal metal "Nine" at Three Potato Four shop.
It has a "Five" on the other side. I bought it because it's my favorite color and also because since I was a little girl my close friends and family call me "Nine"
(like "Nina", but with a short "e" at the end).
I even have a cousin that calls me "Nueve" (number 9 in Spanish)!

I received some copies of the Posh Easy Crosswords yesterday and I'm going to give one away with a signed print of the "Three Little Birds" they used for the cover.
Please leave a comment in this post with your name & what your favorite color is.
I'll pick a random name tonight (I'll be closing the comments at 10 p.m. Central Time) I'll announce the winner tomorrow morning! Thank you for participating :)

***Comments are now disabled. Come back tomorrow to know who won!

May Page

Those pretty pressed hydrangea flowers were a gift
from my dear reader Marni in Malaysia. Thank you so much Marni :)

Thank you so much for your comments & input on my previous posts.
What would I do without you guys?! Seriously.

Un-Pinked

Ah! The wonders of Photoshop...
I like this version much better. I can't change the original as easily unfortunately.

Here's a pretty color combo I saw on a recent visit to the quaint town of Tequisquiapan. It might be the reason you've been seeing more shades of red incorporated into my work lately :)

Japanese Paradise Flycatcher

Nothing subtle about this one :p
This is the sheet I dyed with jamaica petals. A little too pink for my personal taste. What do you think?
Watercolor & acrylic ink. 6" x 8"
Inspired by this photo by John Soong, my favorite bird photographer.
If you love birds like me you must check out his Flickr stream.

El Maguey

This is the handmade Twinrocker watercolor sheet I dyed with green tea.
Watercolor & acrylic ink. 6" x 8"
The colors are a little more subtle than the last one I did.
The dyeing process was really easy,
I just made a batch of really concentrated tea
and submerged the sheet while the tea was still hot and left it there
for approx. 30 minutes. I took it out, sandwiched it between two paper towels and left it there to dry for an hour or so. Same with the coffee.
It's going to be very hard for me to go back to plain old white paper now :)
Hope you're having a lovely weekend!

Echeveria

This time I dyed the Twinrocker sheet with coffee. It smells SO good now :)
Watercolor & acrylic ink on paper. 6" x 8"
I dyed a sheet with matcha (powdered green tea) and another with jamaica petals that await to be painted on. I'll show you those later this week.

Tea Party

I was inspired this morning to do a little experiment
and printed an old ledger page image onto a sheet of beautiful handmade Twinrocker paper & then used tea to dye it before painting this bird with the flowers.
I recently treated myself to a new watercolor set!
I got a Schmincke Horadam Aquarell set with 48 half pans
and I've been so inspired by my new color palette.
I had been using the same Cotman tubes for 15 years
and it was really great to make a change.
Tea, watercolor & acrylic ink on paper. 6" x 8"

Crossword Puzzles

Here's another cover I'm really excited about!
My birdies are gracing the cover and pages of Posh Easy Crosswords,
available for pre-order at Amazon and at select book stores :)

Book Cover

Look! One of my birdies landed on the cover of this book published by
Blackie Books from Barcelona, Spain.
You can read more about the book here (in English)