Day 55 of 100

These are pen drawings. I painted the island picture with water. I went on a canoe trip to the Boundary Waters of Northern Minnesota July 12-16. It was so clean and quiet and beautiful. We had to carry everything on the portages from one lake to the next so I only brought 4x6 hot press watercolor paper, brush pens, and my brush that holds water in the handle. My little art kit was about the size of a paperback book. I would love to go back there and stay longer.

Day 54 of 100

This is the second painting from Wednesday morning. It was almost time to go. I wanted to see what would happen if I painted almost the same thing again very fast.

This was the first painting of that day. I was with the Plein Air group from Northstar Watermedia Society. We were in Indian Mounds Park across the river from downtown St. Paul. I decided to focus on the milkweed plant and the high bridge. When I was a toddler I lived over on that bluff. I do not remember that time of my life. When I was first married, my husband worked in one of the buildings near the river. I do remember that. I left out most of the buildings. Some of the other artists were complaining about how complicated the scene was. That frame of mind is foreign to me. You are the artist, you decide what to leave in, what to leave out. Maybe they were just making conversation, or were just not inspired by the location and that is ok.

Day 53 of 100

This one is done.

I entered it in the State Fair Fine Arts Competition. 

Ugh. My internal dialog is not being nice to me. I am feeling like it is laughable. Best to just move on.

Day 52 of 100

Yesterday I went outside to paint. I used the brush pens and my brush with water in the handle. This will be my supplies when I go to the Boundary Waters next week. 

Day 51 of 100

Painting should be fun and this was. I looked at the photo when drawing the pencil lines, but not when painting. Guess I changed some of the lines while painting. The plain yellow negative shape I left that way because I liked it. This is a photo I took at a State Park. It is our state flower. It grows in bogs. I wonder why it was chosen to be a state flower? Beauty arising from the muck?

Day 50 of 100

I just did these while sitting on the front step at my dad's house. The light right now at 8:44pm is perfect for painting, too bad I am working from photographs. Every so often I look around in wonder.

Day 49 of 100

I took this photo on a walk yesterday. There are similarities in the composition between this and the fallen log bridge picture I was working on. I did a quick sketch so far.

Day 48 of 100

It was a great week. As soon as the critique was done, I drove 250 miles to visit my dad. I am quite tired.