Here's a first look at my first fabric collection Cottage Joy. The florals have dahlias, roses, hydrangeas and daisies. Bees, jars, and cross stitch fabrics round out the collection. Below is a look at a little girls dress using 3 of the fabrics. The journey to get to this point has gone on for months. With a ton of work. And fun. If you want to follow along on the journey join the mailing list.
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It's taken months of working and not sharing. Until today. The COTTAGE JOY FABRIC COLLECTION is officially for pre-sale. You can see the whole collection of 8 designs in 25 fabrics. My very first fabric collection!! Is that awesome or what?!?! There are more projects coming but tell me what projects you like best so far.
This is how I did my painting on the plane: water from a water bottle, @janedavenport paints, and a little watercolor paper. Where do you create? #shareitwithshannon
Here's the $20 dollar table that my daughter found at a friend's yard sale. There are before pics in the How To Video below. Since it wasn't an expensive table I thought I'd try out wrapping paper for the top of it since it's so inexpensive compared to wallpaper. I've never done this before but it worked out way better than I thought. The biggest problem was trying to video tape when JoJo was in the tub. He made an appearance during the video. Lucky for you he's still short enough you didn't get any naked fanny. He was distraught over something right at the critical moment of doing one side of the table. So the video is a "how to" and "how not to" do it. The table is still nice despite the fail part. I know most people don't paint or draw so this floral is a way to get that look without having to learn the skill. This is gift wrap pattern part of my first art, fabric, and papers collect. I even had some friends on Facebook name 2 of the patterns. If this table was important to me I might have ordered wall paper and tried it that way. I think. I haven't done wall paper on a table before either. Maybe I'll try that with the next project. Here's the video. If you like it, let me know. Nothing beats real life. But. But I think the photo below is worth a 1000 words to answer why paint realistically. Life is fleeting. I know this from my heart. To capture life, that's an endeavor. Not just so I can see it, remember it and get it but so that other's can get it too. There's room for unrealistic visions but it starts with the real thing. The undistorted beauty of real life.
Some will say, "Just take a photo." That's valid. Except there's something about someone's touch especially when they interpret the soul of other with their own. Nature's soul (or Human) to Human soul. And nothing shows it more than original art. Photos are lovely, as are prints of original art. But. But to see the strokes, shadows, saturation of color, the life - there's the soul to soul of real life. Who doesn't love flowers? Particularly roses. My faves are Cabbage Roses. Full flowers with lots of petals. For those of you who love flowers and painting here is a class for you. And it's for beginners so it goes nice and slow with lots of details to help you along. These are simplified cabbage roses using smiley and frowny face brush strokes, spirals, and ink work. It's a small little project (4" square) so it's pretty doable in a shorter time frame than a large project. And you learn the skills to make other projects. I put this class on Skillshare. Skillshare is an online community of classes posted by people like me. I've personally taken a dozen classes and am signed up for dozens more (when I get the time!) Since I had such a good user, customer, experience I decided to post classes and be a teacher. The great thing is that it's only $10 a month, month to month (or for a Premium membership you pay the $10 per month upfront for 1 year = $120) for any class they have. That's not $10 per class but $10 for ALL the classes. I totally recommend it if you like to learn. FYI • As a teacher I get paid when people take this class, do the project, and/or sign up for membership. Just so you know. Besides the video tutorials, I have a class handout PDF with all the info too. I don't want you to get frustrated when trying this so I've tried to make it as easy as possible. Hopefully by the end of the project you'll say, "Look what I made!" At the end of the class, I ask that you do a project. (You learn more by doing.) It's to make invitations for an upcoming event you have. Here are the project guidelines. I'm totally excited about it. If you're interested in seeing the introduction video (for free) go here to Cabbage Roses 15 Step Watercolor Class.
Disclaimer: I buy children's books for their illustrations, not the story. I don't just buy a book for it's content, I judge it by it's cover. Usually publishers but its best illustration of the series on the cover. If the cover doesn't do anything for you, you'll likely not like many of the other ones. Name: Jerry Pinkney Medium: Watercolor Number of Children's Books: 89 (listed on his website) Website: Link I would buy any number of books by this Illustrator. Oh, I already have. He is fantastic! You can't go wrong with a beautiful book of his.
Today's 50th Birthday Celebration portrait is a bit of an experiment. And I tried it with someone's photo that I knew would appreciate the effort even if it didn't turn out. Julie is just that way, where she would be happy I tried something different. I'm glad I did. It's very different than oils and it's a medium that I can do quickly using color. Oils aren't that way, at least not for me, yet. Plus, this puts off a lot of unrestrained energy, which Julie has. Hope it comes across well.
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