Coastal Bike Ride

Coastal Bike Ride, originally uploaded by kquilts.

Almost every year on my birthday we take a mini vacation-getaway. This year we went to Monterey and took our bikes with us. Our first day was spent at Elkhorn Slough in Moss Landing hiking the estuary.

The last day we took our bikes down to the bike path and rode. Now this path is long- 29 miles to be exact. It starts at Castroville and goes all the way to Pebble beach. We did not ride all of it that day. We started just north of Cannery row and rode south. The path here follows the shoreline so we had a beautiful view the whole way!

Winter Scene

winter scene, originally uploaded by kquilts.

This small scene is one I painted in my watercolor class. At this point each student picks the subject and works independently. The teacher moves around the moves around the room and gives advice as needed. I have one more week and then we take a break till after the new year begins.

Pointsettia

Pointsettia, originally uploaded by kquilts.

I love poinsettias and never seem to be able to keep them alive through the holidays. Last year I wised up and bought an artificial one. Maybe a cop-out but it couldn't die before the end of the holiday season. This year I painted one.

MERRY CHRISTMAS EVERYONE! May you all have a joyous holiday.

Rainy Saturday- Perfect Time to Stay in and Paint

IRIS 2, originally uploaded by kquilts.

Autumn is definitely here and it has turned cold and rainy. A perfect day to stay in and paint, so that is what I did. I painted a little exercise in negative painting, which I'm not sharing here. Not great results with that. While it was drying I painted this little iris. Iris' are my favorite flower and I have wanted to learn to paint them well. This was my first attempt at it with watercolor.
Done on Arches cold press paper- 140 lb. 5 1/2" x 7 1/2"

I finished the afternoon off by making a big pot of chili for dinner. Wish I had the ingredients here to make cornbread to go with it!

Girl In Pink Hat

girl wearing pink hat, originally uploaded by kquilts.

The month of September is the one year mark from when I started taking acrylic painting class. During that year I have painted two still lifes, a landscape, a floral-close up and my daughter in laws cat. I have been trying to vary my projects so I get instruction on a lot of different types of painting, so I decided I needed to learn how to paint people- faces so that I could say I had tried portraits. This one was painted during the late spring course of the class. I am a slow painter, and most of this was done during class time which is two hours a week. She is not anyone I know. I got the reference photo off of the image library at WetCanvas. After painting this I realized the little girl looks amazingly like one of my cousins.

I am currently painting an ocean sunset scene and should be finished with it soon.

My other news is that I have signed up for a local class on watercolor painting. I have waited for a year for this class and when it was available last winter I could not sign up for it. A good thing I didn't because of other things happening in my life I would have missed quite a bit of it. You will be seeing some of the watercolor class work soon.

I haven't got a photo taken of my latest picture yet. I just wanted to post this important message:

September is Thyroid Cancer Awareness Month
Learn about neck checks. Get free materials.
ThyCa: Thyroid Cancer Survivors’ Association, Inc.
www.thyca.org



This is so important as I found out earlier this year. For more information click here:
http://www.thyca.org/awarenesstips.html


I'll try to get my newest picture up sometime this weekend

Class Lily

class lily, originally uploaded by kquilts.

This is the fourth or fifth painting I have done in my acrylic painting class, but I just photographed it today. It had been out of the house for 3 weeks, because I sent it to our local county fair. I have entered things in the past into the fair, but never a painting. It had always been quilting or knitting projects. I am a beginning painter, so was not expecting much. The competition is tough. There are some amazing artists in my area, so I was pleasantly surprised when we went to the fair and I saw that this had got an "Honorable Mention" I would like to try again next year, but rumor has it that there might not be a fair so we'll have to wait and see on that one.

Feria and entering projects in the County Fair

Feria , originally uploaded by kquilts.

I have been taking acrylic painting classes since last September. I go once a week unless something derails my plans. I have missed a few times when I just couldn't go, but generally I'm there every week.

We have done still life twice now, and I have done landscape and one floral. This little kitty is the most recently finished project. She is a beautiful kitty that resides with my son and daughter. She has a lot of fur which was a challenge to paint because she has so many colors intermingled together.

I am now working on faces and portraits and will post that when finished. I am using an image from the WetCanvas image reference library of a little girl wearing a magenta colored straw hat.

I have entered quilts and knitting in the county fair in years past, but this year I entered paintings. Entered are my hydrangea painting, the landscape I painted using a reference photo from Kate Johnson, and a lily I painted. We shall see how they do. The judges are judging today, but I won't know till June 16 how I did. There is a lot of competition there and I am new at this so I don't really have expectations of winning, but it is fun to enter and get critiqued.

Getting sidetracked....

class landscape, originally uploaded by kquilts.

In January I signed up for my third 6 week session of painting classes. I really had big plans for the 2010 year- things I want to accomplish in my artistic endeavors but you know how it is....Things happen and plans get set aside. My single accomplishment so far this year has been one painting. It is done in acrylics from and inspiration photo from Cathy Johnson's monthly photo resource group on Flickr- Thanks Kate for the gracious sharing of these resource photos. I have not done anything else- no artist journal pages or drawing. I hope to be back soon with more to share but till then I will be working on health issues.

More soon.....
Karen