Watercolor

Magpie & Painted Hills painting: First Friday Art

/ SoyBend / 8 Comments

Today I’m sharing a painting I did of a Black-billed Magpie flying over the Painted Hills. They are both characters in my magical realism work-in-progress novel with the working title of Darkness of Hills, Lightness of Wings. I wrote this book for kids in the 8 to 12-year-old age range. Yes, it’s fiction, but it includes factual information related to history and nature.

In the book, the main character, Jīnsè, moves from China to Oregon to work with her grandfather, a local doctor. After a traumatic event, she develops the ability to understand animals and also receives messages written on the hills. The magpie character shown in my painting is named Liàng. Jīnsè also has a snarky seagull friend she names Rěnshòu.

magpie & painted hills

I painted this piece on watercolor paper with watercolor paints and ink from inksticks. I used my set of Chinese brushes. Once again, I was impressed with the Chinese inkstick ink. The ink has a nice consistency. I edited the picture with Corel PaintShop Pro.

Most of the time, I do pencil sketches of characters when I’m working on books. I decided to put a little more effort into creating a color piece. Becky Wallick, my blogging friend at Wild Sensibility, suggested I include some of my artwork when I send out manuscripts for review. Thanks for the great idea, Becky!  😊

I used this picture I took at the John Day Fossil Beds National Monument in eastern Oregon to create my magpie and Painted Hills painting. The colors of the soil on this visit really stood out after a rainstorm.

After the rain painted hills

I took this picture of a magpie in Bozeman, Montana. Though they live in my neighborhood in Bend, I’ve never had one visit my yard. Maybe one day…

Black-billed Magpie

Kam Wah Chung

I decided to write a book for kids after visiting Kam Wah Chung State Heritage Site in John Day, Oregon. When a long-abandoned building was opened in 1967, a treasure trove of artifacts was discovered inside. This building served as a medical clinic and apothecary, meeting place, boarding house, place of worship, and store for Chinese immigrants and local residents from the late 1880s to 1940.

The store inside Kam Wah Chung, John Day, OR 26October2018
The store inside Kam Wah Chung

Do you have artwork you would like to share? Be sure to include the First Friday Art tag.

First Friday Art (FFA)

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Cholla painting & photos: FFA & FOTD

/ SoyBend / 3 Comments

It’s time once again to share a piece of my artwork for the First Friday Art prompt. I created this watercolor painting yesterday afternoon. This is a cholla cactus in bloom. For my inspiration this month, I looked in my own backyard.

Cholla painting

We have a few kinds of cactus growing in our landscaping. You have to be careful when working around them or you’ll get poked by the barbed spines. I held my phone out at arm’s length and snapped a picture, but I couldn’t see the photo I took. It turned out surprisingly well, I thought. I like the how the spines radiate outward from the magenta blossom.

Cholla blossom

Several chollas grow in my backyard. I started a couple in the front yard by placing a cactus stem on the ground. There was no drip irrigation going to those parts of the landscaping, but the plants grew anyway.

Here’s one of the propagated cholla plants blooming. It’s doing great, and currently measures about three feet across.

Cactus blooming

Do you have artwork you would like to share? Be sure to include the First Friday Art tag.

First Friday Art (FFA)

Flower of the Day Challenge (FOTD)

Primrose painting, photo, & Poem: First Friday Art

/ SoyBend / 13 Comments

Today I’m sharing a primrose painting, photo, and poem I created. When I was on a field trip in early June, we saw a “field” of this plant in bloom near Crack in the Ground. Tufted evening-primrose, Oenothera caespitosa, usually only bloom at night but on that day, dark clouds filled the skies.

Here’s a watercolor I painted of the flowers.

Tufted evening primrose

And here’s the work in progress in my little studio space.

Studio space

This is the close up photograph I took of these beautiful flowers near Crack in Ground. I’m growing evening-primrose in my landscaping and, so far, the always hungry resident mule deer have not discovered them. 🤞

Tufted evening primrose

Here is a Sijo poem about these remarkable flowers.

Awakened when the moon rises over the silent desert
Flowers in sandy soil open, shining like pale lanterns
Enchanting the world with intoxicating scent, until dawn breaks

Do you have artwork you would like to share? Be sure to include the First Friday Art tag.

First Friday Art

Blue Jay – craft & art: First Friday Art

/ SoyBend / 8 Comments

Today I’m sharing images of a Blue Jay in a craft project and an art one.

For these Blue Jay earrings, I scanned one of my pen and ink drawings and filled it in with blue color in a Corel program.

Jay earrings

I reduced the images and printed them on cardstock. First I tried printing them on decal paper, but the color didn’t transfer well.

I cut out the teeny tiny images with these crane-shaped scissors and glued them onto blank wooden earrings.

Crane-shaped scissors

The next picture shows a painting I did of an adult Blue Jay on a nest. I used watercolor paints to create this painting.

Blue jay in watercolor by Siobhan Sullivan 2015

I previously shared this image in Jay – A bird always in my life. Different species of these intelligent and adaptable birds keep appearing in my life.

The earrings are a “craft” project and the original painting is “art.” What’s the difference?

The main difference between art and craft is that the art cannot be reproduced whereas the craft can be. Art is the creative expression of one’s emotions and feelings while craft is the ultimate creative, tangible output from a particular talent.

Pediaa.com

In other words, I could make multiple copies of the earrings created from a print, but I could never paint the exact same painting since my internal thoughts and feelings will be different.

Every artist dips his brush in his own soul, and paints his own nature into his pictures.

Henry Ward Beecher

Do you have artwork you would like to share? Be sure to include the First Friday Art tag.

First Friday Art