Forest Fire in a Treasury

Thank to Kae for creating a beautiful treasury on Etsy using art from the VAST street team. She included my Forest Fire painting.

Click here to see the treasury.

http://www.etsy.com/treasury_list.php?room_id=11683&show_panel=true

Click here to see Kae's art blog.

http://kae1crafts.blogspot.com/

Things I Learned from Barney - Mixing Colors

My grandchildren love to watch Barney the Dinosaur. Barney and the children sing lots of songs and in the process learn a lot of really cool things. My 2 1/2 year old granddaughter - because of Barney - knows that when you mix blue and yellow you get green.

Sing this to the tune of If You're Happy and You Know It, Clap Your Hands

If you mix blue and yellow you get green.

If you mix blue and yellow you get green.

When you mix the two you'll see

A new color magically.

If you mix blue and yellow you get green.

Then there are verses about red and yellow, and blue and red.

This - mixing colors -is something that I found to be a lot of fun. And it has saved me a lot of money.

I just recently bought some acrylic paint. I had only painted with oil and watercolor before this. I bought some good quality paints and therefore couldn't buy a lot of colors and still fill my car up with gas. So I bought these Liquitex paints:

Cadmium Red Deep Hue, Cobalt Blue Hue, Cadmium Yellow Medium Hue, Hooker's Green Hue Permanent, and Titanium White. I really like this paint. It's nice and thick and creamy and mixes beautifully.

I'll write more later about exactly how to mix tons of colors and shades, (right now I need to get to work) but I wanted you to see these ACEOs. All of the colors you see on these four little paintings were made with the five colors you see above.

So let me encourage you - if you're just starting out - to buy a few colors of paint (primary colors and white) and learn to mix your own colors. You'll understand more about color and save money in the process!

SOLD - Amber Waves of Grain

I'm always excited and a little surprised - I guess I shouldn't be surprised - when one of my pieces of art sells. I hadn't checked my home e-mail yesterday, (it was Wednesday. I was busy) but when I opened it up this morning I had a notice from Etsy www.etsy.com that "Amber Waves of Grain" sold. How fun is that?

Here are the posts where you can see the other ACEOs ACEOs explained here in my "America the Beautiful" series.

http://bearhollowcreations.blogspot.com/2008/09/america-beautiful.html

http://bearhollowcreations.blogspot.com/2008/09/america-aceos-continued.html

Forest Fire!

The second piece of art in my Sycamore Art series is titled "Forest Fire!" (If you missed the first painting, click here Sycamore Art ) That link will also show the sycamore trees.


I started with an old piece of plywood that I had used in making some stained-glass pieces. I chose this piece of wood partly for the great texture - which shows beautifully through the layers of paint - but also because I wanted my Sycamore Art series to be environmentally friendly by not only using the bark, but by recycling an old piece of wood and making something beautiful out of it.
I gessoed the board - I have no idea if that's how you spell that - and then painted it brown before painting layers of reds and oranges with a touch of yellow here and there.

I then picked out some pieces of sycamore bark that looked either like flames or like they had been burned into interesting shapes and mounted them on the painting. I didn't do anything to the bark except mount it and protect it with a coat of varnish. These are the shapes I found them in.

It was very difficult to photograph this work because it has such a shiny finish. No matter what angle or amount of light I used I would get a really bad glare either at the top or across the middle. A side angle seemed to show the color well without getting a glare.

I took a couple of pictures outside hoping the bright light - yet in the shade - would allow me to photograph it without the glare. I also took a picture of it under the tree that the bark came from.
You can see this new painting in my Etsy shop
http://www.etsy.com/view_listing.php?listing_id=15545663

This painting will definitely be a topic of conversation no matter where you hang it.

In an Etsy VAST Treasury

(Notice that the title of this post is clickable!)

Wow! Look at this! My Shining Sea ACEO has been included in a tresury on Etsy. That means someone liked it and it fit in with a theme she had in mind and so now when people go to the treasuries to see what items are being featured, they'll see my painting.

There are some other GORGEOUS paintings in this treasury. I think Mystic Silks "Fickle Winds" may be my favorite. http://www.etsy.com/view_listing.php?listing_id=6866440

Check out the treasury! http://www.etsy.com/treasury_list_west.php?room_id=26710

America ACEOs Continued

Here are two more ACEOs from my new series

America the Beautiful.

If you missed the first two you can see them here

http://bearhollowcreations.blogspot.com/2008/09/america-beautiful.html

An explanation of ACEOs can be found here

ACEOs

Amber Waves of Grain

http://www.etsy.com/view_listing.php?listing_id=15426880

Shining Sea

http://www.etsy.com/view_listing.php?listing_id=15427189

You can find them in my Etsy shop

http://www.bearhollowcreations.etsy.com/

Feel free to collect the whole set. :-)

We won't think you're being selfish.

America the Beautiful

I've started a series of ACEOs ACEOs explained here called America the Beautiful.

I'll end up with an ACEO for each phrase of the first verse (at least), but I wanted to go ahead and post the first two that I have finished.

O beautiful for spacious skies...

http://www.etsy.com/view_listing.php?listing_id=15392365

For purple mountain majesties...

http://www.etsy.com/view_listing.php?listing_id=15392626

These original miniature paintings are the standard 2 1/2 x 3 1/2 ACEO size. They were painted with acrylic paint on Canva-Paper then mounted to a playing card.

You can click on the link just below each picture to see it in my shop,

or you can go directly to my Etsy shop by clicking here: www.bearhollowcreations.etsy.com