Splashing Through Life - Art by Patricia Henderson

There is a short time in my autumn garden when the sedum is so striking. The leaves fade to a lovely pale yellow and the flowers turn from lavender to a deep rose. I tried to capture this with a watercolour. I haven't done one in a while and so this was a good exercise.

A couple weeks ago, I attended a workshop at Arrowmont School of Arts and Crafts in Gatllinburg Tennessee. Our instructor was Mary Todd Beam . What an inspiration this lady is! In her 80's, she still gets excited over every brush stroke and surprise mingling of paint. Mary is a contemporary watermedia artist, and loves to share what she has learned over the years. We observed and practiced her techniques over the span of a week in the beautiful setting of Arrowmont. Mary even invited the class to her cabin in the woods where we got to see her gallery and many of her wonderful paintings. \ This is Mary doing a demonstration with her hubby Don looking on. These are a few paintings that I did that week. The ones that I like anyway! These two are "Strata", layers of different acrylic mediums and tissue paper. The two above are an experiment with clear tar gel medium. This one involves scraping paint across paper.  And this one is a Trash Pai...

While I was working on my Geese collage, I had an idea for another mixed media painting.  For this piece I experimented with using various types of paper adhered to the canvas and did a wash of watercolours to get a muted background. Then using paper, twigs, leaves, feathers and an acorn cap, I made the nest. The eggs are hand painted paper. This was the first stage. After looking at it for a few weeks, I decided it needed a bit of  "oomph". (this photo is not the best, it was taken in bright sunshine and I couldn't get rid of the shine.) Today I added more hand painted tissue and rice paper, and it has a bit more of the oomph that I was looking for. I might be finished. Or not. But probably! 

I think this is done! I just need to give it a couple coats of varnish and it's good to go! I'm really happy with how this turned out.

I'm getting close to completing my Geese Collage! When I first started this, I had assumed that these were domestic geese, but after a bit of research on the markings on their wings and beaks, I've discovered that they are snow geese. Even better! These three fellows are on their winter vacation and have found a lovely waterfront to hang out at. I just have to finish the grasses and cattails and I'm done!

I finally got started on my collage of the three geese. So far I've done the background. Next I will work on the geese themselves and then I will be adding some grasses and cattails. This is going to be a fun one!

This morning was wet and dull outside, perfect for staying inside and sketching! I decided to do a small study in preparation for a larger collage piece. I got inspiration from a great photo on the website Paint My Photo  for some white geese. So while watching the Rhythmic Gymnastics on the Olympics, I sketched these fellows heading in for a dip in the pond. 7" X 9" on Illustration board © Patricia Henderson 2012