Art,  Creative

Postcard Art | 1

Untitled

Winter means that my studio is too chilly for me to work in usually, and so I have been making do with watercolors inside the house. I keep several sketchbooks and now some watercolor postcard paper on my desk and have been working away these last few weeks on small art pieces that I am mailing out to folks. I’m trying to do monthly themes, January’s was orchids, as you can see. February is currently abstract and I think March will be native plants or spring. All of these are taken but when I have others in the future I will share them here and if you want a little mail-art sent your way you can snag one! I’ll put a stamp on it (or maybe in an envelope, I’m tentatively thinking of sending them inside an envelope so they aren’t destroyed in the mail) and send them along.

I’m really attempting to stay away from trying to use my pen on my watercolors and try to let the watercolors work for themselves but I’m still struggling with that. Watercolors are hard, too, because I am better at acrylics and further back into the past, oils, and I prefer to glob paint on and work thickly. Which, sometimes I’ve been experimenting with that in watercolors as well. It works better with gouache to do that, though.

So, clockwise from the top left: Dwarf buttefly orchid, Prosthechea pygmaea; an unknown Phalaenopsis orchid; an unknown Cattleya orchid; and the always lovely ghost orchid, Dendrophylax lindenii. I’m thinking of doing a series of just ghost orchids, too!

So, that’s what art is looking like for me right now. I’m also trying to get into just sketching but find it frustrating because I want to make things perfect or a finished product instead of just looking and practicing lines. Which is the point—I know! I am still keeping up with a perpetual nature journal, though I sometimes have to do a couple of weeks in one sitting because time gets away from me. I’m really loving the practice of doing this, though. The ritual of sitting down, taking the time to document something that was interesting from the week. Ideally, I would like to draw from life but I am usually drawing from photos. Somehow I need to make the drawing from life aspect more of a practice, too.

Happy Monday, friends!

5 Comments

  • shoreacres

    So pretty! I like the idea of watercolor postcards. I have a friend who works in watercolor, but I’m not sure she’s ever done anything like this. She usually does cards, but postcards seem like even more fun. I’m going to pass your post on to her.

  • Donner

    Love the watercolors – great work. I always end up using pen on mine because it’s easier to make it look good for my abilities ha ha. (Are there rules for art?)
    Yeah, in an envelope for sure – the amount of mail that arrives at my house with smudges, wrinkles, and water damage is pretty high. Worth the extra $0.50. Have Forrest make the envelopes for you (origami style) out of recycled/repurposed paper! Or maybe you can spray the paper with a sealant?
    Hope you’re staying warm and enjoying winter. I was just up at the Grayson Highlands backpacking for the weekend. Low of 5 Sat night 😀

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