beauty of the night~

You just never know when you about to encounter a source of inspiration~

My dear mother has been recovering from a knee replacement surgery, and she wanted to go for a brief walk down her street to get a little exercise.  This was at night, so all we had were the street lights to guide our path.  We are walking along, when I looked to my right, and saw a night bloom on one of the neighbors cactus plants.  All my life living here in Az. I have never seen one of these blooms, although I have known there are night blooming plants.  Most cactus blooms last about 24 hours, and this is the case with this plant.  It is rare that you will actually get to see these gorgeous blooms.  I took out my phone camera to take a picture of it, and I couldn't believe the beauty of this blossom!  This was definitely going to be my next source of inspiration to paint. 

Cereus Peruvian Apple Cactus

This is what rocks my world! I must capture the moment to remember.

Thanks for stopping by~

 Stillman & Birn Beta Series 7 x 10"

Winsor Newton Watercolor

the winner is!

Grand Canyon
7 x7 Stillman & Birn Beta Series

Congratulations to Tammi Rapp and John Maddocks the winners of this years reader appreciation and bloggerversary!  

I'd like to thank everyone who joined in the fun to celebrate, and a great big thank you to Stillman & Birn, and Scottsdale Pen for donating the awesome prizes to this contest.  Your comments of encouragement have been so appreciated!

As my husband and I are planning our move to Northern Az, this year, I am excited to find inspiration from a different terrain and climate change - snow, pine trees, lakes Oh My!

Thank you for following my blog, and I hope you will stay tuned for more of my journey onward~

A New Perspective on an Old View

We drove up to the high country today to check out our new property, and driving through the rugged mountain passes reminded me of this piece in my sketchbook that I painted a couple of weeks ago.

Old World

This painting was inspired by a previous work I did here.  I decided to zoom in on the image and paint it in a different perspective.  I think it has a mysterious feel to it - what do you think?

 

Reminder: I have a reader appreciation giveaway in progress - You can get all the details >>>Here<<<

Thanks for stopping by, and have a fabulous weekend!

BLOG GIVEAWAY!

Welcome! I'm so glad you stopped by because I am having my yearly giveaway in appreciation to all my wonderful readers that continually stop by to share in my art journey!

Saguaro Blossoms
  7 x7 Stillman & Birn Beta Series

It has been three years since I started blogging my artwork with you, and I can't tell you how much I appreciate your popping in and taking a look at my creations.  Your comments encourage me to keep doing what I enjoy doing; and that is, create and record that which inspires me.  I hope what I share with you also inspires you to keep creating, as do many of the wonderful blogs and forums that I wander through do for me.

Two lucky winners will be randomly drawn at the end of this contest. 

WHAT WILL YOU WIN?

Well, two of my favorite companies have been so kind and generous to donate prizes and here they are~

STILLMAN & BIRN
  donated one each of their 7 x 7 Beta (white) and Delta (Ivory)  Sketchbooks.

SCOTTSDALE PEN
has provided two colorful Pelikan Pelikano jrs fountain pens.

What a perfect marriage! Pen and Sketchbook! These are the perfect size to take out in the field for all you urban sketchers!

Each winner will also receive a little burst of color just from me;-)

THREE CHANCES TO WIN! 

TO ENTER:  Send your name to : jeanneforsyth@ymail.com

You will automatically be entered into the drawing.   You will receive a reply email confirming your entry.

NOTIFICATION: Winners will be picked via Random.org on May 21, 2012 and will be informed by email.

 Limited to residents of United States and Canada above 18 years of age.

EARN AN EXTRA ENTRY by doing any of the following. Please leave a separate comment at the bottom of this post for each of the additional entries. Maximum of three entries per person.

1. Join this blog - be a "Follower"

2.  Sign up to follow "Like" My Studio Facebook

3.  Sign up to follow "Like" Stillman & Birn Facebook

4.  Sign up to follow "Like" Scottsdale Pen Facebook

These are great prizes, so be sure to share this with all your artsy friends!

Have Fun and Good Luck!

Workshop Fun~

Today I worked through an online workshop by Jan Fabian Wallake from the Artist Network TV series.

I love it when I learn new tricks and techniques, and today there were some of my own discoveries that I'd like to share with you.

I decided to work out of my Stillman & Birn Beta Series sketchbook for this practice.  I wanted to see how well the paper handled the techniques in this workshop. Plus I wanted to keep my practice work in a nice book form for future reference.  The back side is where I wrote down all my notes.   In setting up, I thought of an idea that would make a good protector to put under my page while splashing wet washes of color.

  I had purchased a package of very thin cutting boards from Walmart to use in my dehydrator for making fruit leather.  These are easy to cut to size needed,  and just perfect for sliding under the sketchbook page. 

  I taped corners to keep the page manageable while applying my initial washes. 

Plastic wrap was used for the interesting background, along with salt. The mat kept my work station much cleaner.  The 180 lb paper is holding up nicely and my colors are bouncing off the page;-)

This paper even handled the scraping with my X-acto knife.  I'm quite pleased that I was able to achieve all these techniques and keep my workshop practice all in one place.

If you have never worked from a Stillman & Birn Sketch book, but would like to, you will not want to miss my reader appreciation GIVEAWAY!!! 

Come back Friday for all the deets! 

Stillman & Birn Beta Series 7 x 10"

ShinHan, Winsor Newton Watercolor