THE GARDEN BY DAY AND THE GARDEN BY NIGHT

My friend Annie is Guest Designer this month at the Creative Artiste Challenge Blog where the theme is "Anything Mixed Media Goes".

My Art Group meets once a month and we have four hours in the studio to play with paints, paper, fabrics and whatever else we like.

I had the most marvellous time last month making "messy pages" in the journal, ready for future projects.

I used watercolour paints, Tombow artist pens, a black drawing pen and an irridescent pen.  I made the left hand page with the pink watercolours only and created the rest of the page back at home.  There is also a little bit of collage - the star, and the second flower on the left which replaced the one I had painted.

THE GARDEN BY DAY

I photo-edited the painting above to give 

THE GARDEN BY NIGHT

And I made two cards (I never have enough Greeting or Birthday cards).  They are presented here by Alicia, who is looking rather nervous as she has never presented cards on the blog before.  Alicia is not her real name.  It is her Internet name as she is very security conscious.

I hope you enjoyed these mixed media artworks and I'll be back again with more later this month.

SIMPLE THINGS

"Keep it Simple" is the theme at "Try it on Tuesday".

I thought this was a terrific theme and nearly filled a (small) sketchbook with quick and/or simple art.

This was the one I liked best; simple it might be but quick it wasn't as I kept changing the design and redrawing it.  But I rather liked it in the end.

I had drawn it with squiggly lines but put it into Photoshop for a different colour scheme and a little extra squiggle.

Which one do you prefer?  I'd like to know.

* * * * * * *

In the quest to keep it simple I also made something for Neet's intriguing challenge theme "Type" at "Art Journal Journey" which I've taken to mean the use of font and letters.

In my last blogpost I painted three pictures with three matching titles and mixed up the titles so that each picture had the "wrong" title.

Thanks to everyone who left speculative comments.  I found it so interesting to read other takes on the experiment.

This time I'm having a bit of fun with colours and a rather simple coloured font of my own.

Here it is in an even more confusing dark version.

For some reason I was very taken with this design.  

What do you think?

MISLEADING TITLES

When we see a picture with words we normally assume the words are connected to the picture and usually explanatory to the picture.

But what if the words have nothing to do with the picture?

Would you be confused?  

Disconcerted? 

Would you try to find a connection? 

I made three paintings each with a title and, using words and pictures, had a little play with the word "Type",  which is the theme Neet has chosen for "Art Journal Journey" this month.

This pretty font is called "Segoe Print Regular".

I'm also entering these pictures into the "Try it on Tuesday" challenge where the theme is "Keep it Simple".

I've been wanting to make more simple art so this was a perfect opportunity.

VISIT THE FAMOUS GREEN FLOWERS

FAMOUS BLUE FLOWERS

When we were in Switzerland some years ago we visited the Schynige Platte Alpine Garden.  We looked closely at all the plants and flowers.

When we were back at our hotel, someone said "Did you see the famous blue flowers?".
We didn't know there were famous blue flowers but I'm sure we saw them.

FAMOUS GREEN FLOWERS
We have some green flowers in our garden and visitors usually say something like "Are they supposed to be like that" or "How unusual".

A few weeks ago I made this poster to remind our garden visitors to visit our famous green flowers.  I don't usually add words to my art so this fortuitously fits nicely with Neet's interesting challenge theme "Type" at "Art Journal Journey".

And here are our famous green flowers, green primulas, which just keep on flowering.

I love to see different fonts so I'm looking forward to maybe seeing some new ones on "Art Journal Journey" this month.

TWO SHEEP HAVING A LITTLE CHAT IN THE RAIN

The Summer countryside is looking pretty good and although it has been hot we have had a little light rain this week. 

The current challenge at "Art Journal Journey" has the theme "Summer Countryside", chosen by Alison.

Two sheep are having a little chat in the rain under the shade of the trees.

Do you like their green wellies?

Most of my Summer has been spent in the garden.

Here is Cecil with some of the many broccoli heads which are all now safely in the freezer (except for the ones which have already been eaten).

Last year a beautiful single deep rose coloured poppy appeared and I collected the seeds to sow this year.   Many of them came up.   The bees passionately love them, there must be something really special inside these poppies.

I bought this Argyranthemum this year and I just love the way the flowers in the one plant are either soft pink or yellow and change shade and colour as they mature.

I hope you enjoyed seeing my Summer sheep art and some of the garden.

MILLICENT AND BUTTER

Hello everyone.

I went out into the garden in early March and came back in a few days ago (almost true).  The garden is now more good than chaos.

I had to make some art for the theme "Butterflies", chosen by Mia at "Art Journal Journey" and made two pieces.

Have you ever seen a night-flying butterfly?  No, me neither, although there are plenty moths in the night.

THE BUTTERFLY OF THE NIGHT

The two flowers on the right are looking pretty  worried, don't you think?

The second is a portrait of Millicent who designs and knits her own jumpers.   

Happily for this challenge she also has a pet butterfly whose name is Butter.  He comes with her everywhere.

MILLICENT AND BUTTER

Millicent would be terribly please if you admired her special knitted jumper.

And do look out for night-flying butterflies.