SOC 4 week 6, last week.

It's the last week of SOC 4.

This was my first time playing along, and it has been so much fun. Hopefully I'll play along next year as well. Thanks alot to Kristin for hosting this event, and to all the participants for their art and visits and not least all their lovely comments. It has been such joy to read all your lovely words, thank you all for taking the time, it's much appreciated.

This weeks colors made me so happy, these colors are my favorites. It felt just like a dessert after a five course dinner. Now, what to make of these beautiful colors?
As usual I sat down to play with the colors without any intention of making anything special.

Just doodles and then colors. I also used nib and ink on this one. I knew this wasn't going to be my work for the week so I continued with a quick sketch on the same sheet of paper.

When this were done I realized that my feeling of dessert colors was going to be what I should make. I added the blue for the plate and grey for shadow and spoon.

When I saw this photo I saw something still missing and had to do a little extra work with my pencil.

It's served!

The lemon yellow I used as vanilla sauce. When I saw this photo, my mouth were watering. Fresh berries is one of my favorites in summer. Now, I'm so looking forward to the plum season, I can hardly wait.
Let me finish off by saying thank you to everyone, it has been a pleasure to play with you all. 

SOC 4 week 5

This weeks colors gave me some real challenges.

When do I use bright red, bright blue and a bit light blue together? I felt it was impossible to make anything with these colors. They are beautiful, but not together, alone. If I could add some yellow and orange, I would have had lots and lots of ideas.

I simply had to chew it for a couple of days before a thought came to mind. I were thinking of my maternal grandma, she died when I was 6, 50 years ago. I still remember her, how very kind she was and all the things she did. One thing I always were excited of, was when she were making jam and lemonade from the berries she had in her garden.

I stood beside her (4-5 years old), ready to have a taste as soon as a batch were finished. Oh how I loved that. And then I ran out to play. I don't know if lemonade is the right word for what she made, but it was a consentrate of the berry juice. When we drank it, we added water to it.

Do you remember the rubber caps? She always used them, hot bottles filled with hot lemonade and then the rubber caps.

The jam were stored slightly different. Hot jar filled with hot jam, and then she added a thick layer of wax before the cute little fabric hats. I remember her kitchen counter filled with those cute jars. She made jam from many different berries, but my favorite always were strawberry.

She labeled all the jars and bottles, name of berries used and year. I can still remember how I longed to become a grown up and make all this good stuff and decorate it myself. Well, I've done it a few times. The kitchen is not my place, I do make the food we need to eat, but that's about all.

Thanks for visiting, I hope you've enjoyed my little story.

SOC 4 week 4

This weeks colors wasn't hard at all.

One could always paint some flowers, pink and green and a touch of dark green. But, I spent some time thinking of it and found a better idea.
I didn't use too much pink but it's there and I'm pretty pleased with my result. I felt I needed some warmth in my piece, hence the sunflower. It is actually apple green I've used, but it turned out to look like blue in the photos. Don't know what happened. The pink and green gave a beautiful bluish grey, which I've used on the head and feet.

The paper used is handmade, not me, and I dare say it's of a poor quality. Watercolors needs a stabile paper, but this is very absorbant in some spots and not at all in other spots. With that said, I love the look and feel of this paper, it's kind of rustic, which I love.

The paper is tinted, light brown or sepia is perhaps more correct to say. That made my colors a bit different than I had planned, but I think it works after all.

You know the feeling when in the flow and just creating. One is so occupied that everything else is out of mind. I had that good feeling when making this piece, and couldn't do anything but laugh when I saw what I had done. What excactly is it I have made here? Is it a bug or a fly? It's armed and with wings. Oh well, doesn't matter I'm happy with it anyway.

I've used Twinkling H2O's and watercolor pencils to make this. Some shading is done with an ordinary HB pencil and blending stump.

Thank you so much for all the lovely comments on my post last week, it warms my heart. I'm not sure I got to visit everyone else, but will try this week.
I hope you're enjoying your days.

SOC week 3

I've had some busy days.

My mom is home for summer, and that means a lot of driving for me. So, I chose to make something simple this week, an onion. This weeks colors are some I don't use much, they have never been among my favorites, but to my surprise they work well with the onion.

Did you know that since before pre-historic time the onion has been told to have healing properties of various disorders? Let me tell you some.

Indigestion - Treatment : 2 large onions cut into slices, boil in 1 liter water some hours. Drink one glas decoction twice a day.

Cold/cough : Cut an onion in two halves and put them at your bedside table. Make sure you breathe in the smell during the night.

Anemia, arthritis, overexertion : 100 grams chopped onion  in 1 liter white wine 48 hours, add a tbl spoon honey. One glas extract twice a day.

The most peculiar advice, old english. If you have toothache, do this : Take the peel from one onion and put it in a thimble (??), put the thimble onto one of the large toes of the patient. Don't you think this would be of great help? LOL.

I have this little booklet all about onions. There is alot more advices,, but I can't write them all. I love all kinds of old advices, proverbs and weather signs. There is much wisdom and some completely useless things as well. It's very funny to read though.

Thank you all for your lovely comments on last weeks post, I had a great time reading them all. Thanks also for visiting now, I hope you'll learn something important. LOL.

Lets face it.

SOC 4 week 2

I drew this face a year ago for another project I did, I like it and traced it to use it over again. It is quite a challenge to paint using just a couple of colors. Although I have lots of colors, I couldn't find one single color named coral, so I had to mix two colors to get a coral one.

This has turned out to be an excellent practice of colormixing for me. The palest areas have lots and lots of water mixed into the color to tone it down. The coral and teal makes a brilliant grey to shade with, so that was an easy task.
Her grey hair area is made using the mix of coral and teal and on top I've used white ink. I've wanted to try doodling on top of a face for a long time, and now, I've done it. It feels a bit odd, but makes the face look very special.
Colors used are Neocolors 2, Malachite green, Salmon pink and Raspberry red. In addition I used white ink and my black Micron pen.
A big thank you to Kristin for hosting this fun event, and also a big thank you to all of you who visited and left your supportive comments. It's so much fun to read them all, and much appreciated.

Summer of color 4

This is the first time I'm participating in this fun event.

I wasn't sure if I could make it so I'm a little late with my entry. I chose to use one of my own handmade stamps for this piece. It's also made on a handmade paper.

I found it hard to get a good image from the stamp, not sure what didn't work but I used a sharpie to get the lines even, after stamping. I've used Twinkling H2O's for my colors and am pleased with my result based on how quick it was done.

There's not much pure yellow in my piece, but it's certainly used to make the greens and also to mix up the brown color for the trees. My pink spots are some butterflies just to add some life to the piece.

I hope to put a little more effort in next week, and I'm looking forward to that.
Have a beautiful weekend everyone, and thanks for visiting.