Splashing Through Life - Art by Patricia Henderson

The other day, when I was wandering around the yard, I noticed one brave dandelion that had gone to seed. It seemed unusual to see it at this time of year, surrounded by the golden autumn leaves. I was inspired to paint these three small watercolours. Each one is 5" X 7" and are available in my Etsy Shop . Buy all three and get a 10% discount!

I was very pleased to see that my "Follow the Leader" geese collage was sold at the opening reception of the Desmond Juried Art Exhibition and Sale last night! Thank you to Jennifer Wilson's mom for purchasing it! It's going to a good home.

Another fun thing I learned at the Mary Todd Beam workshop was playing with Clear Tar Gel acrylic medium. Taking a plastic spoon, I dip it into the Tar Gel and drizzle it onto some scraps of illustration board or mat board. This one turned out a bit messy because I was trying to do it left handed so I could take the picture! Drizzling Tar Gel You can adjust the thickness of the gel "string" by raising or lowering the spoon and/or adding more gel to the spoon. You have to experiment to get the feel of it. Once they have dried, I spray the board a bit to get it a little wet, then brush on some watery liquid acrylics, letting the paint mix and mingle.  I like to do a bunch of these and have them ready to put paint on after they have dried. They are great "warm-up" pieces...something to get you in the studio and getting your paints out. Here are a few of my recent experiments:

At the Mary Todd Beam workshop, she showed us an easy way to make stamps. All you need is a small section of foam insulation that you can score and break into small pieces. From a craft or dollar store get some of the thin craft foam that has the peel-off backing. You can cut shapes from that and stick on to the pieces of insulation and voila! A stamp! I used some of these to stamp patterns on some paper to make collage material. I stamped the pattern first and then applied watered down acrylic paint. Fun!

I thought I had finished this piece 2 or 3 years ago. I had entered it into a show, but it was rejected. It's been hanging on the wall in my studio ever since, mocking me. I had just finished another piece ( Corny ), and I had all my collage materials spread out in front of me, so I started adding to it. I'm  much more happy with it now! And thanks to my good friend Lauren , it has a great title! I've already entered it in the show show where it was rejected before. I'm figuring there will be a different juror, so we'll see what happens! Here it is now: And how it was before: The Aftermath!

I've had a couple of weeks off from work and have been using some of that time to work on a new Paper Collage Painting to submit to the Desmond Juried Art Show and Exhibition. I thought I'd paint something we see around here A LOT. Corn. A lot of corn! I kind of like how this turned out. It's a bit more "abstracty" than some of my collages and was a lot of fun to do. Corny 24" X 12" Paper Collage on Canvas

We've all been waiting for signs of spring lately, and they have been few and far between. This was my mood when I created this piece starting in mid March and ending in early April. The only signs I had seen were the annual migration of the tundra swans, thousand of which flew over our house daily, creating a magnificent sight. On a smaller scale, a few hearty snowdrops popped up in a sunny spot beside our house. Welcome signs that warmer weather is on its way soon! 20"X 16" Mixed Media on gallery-wrapped canvas