Author Archives: ruthlane

Spring Inspiration

Posted on by under Inspiration

It’s a beautiful day here, the sun is shining and it’s finally warming up a bit.

Choke Cherry Leaves Budding Out

I saw these choke cherry leaves started to bud out through the kitchen window and decided to take my camera to look for spring inspiration.

Columbine Beginning to Grow

Here’s the beginnings of one of my columbine plants.

Periwinkle Blooming

And the periwinkle are starting to bloom.

Symphony Enjoying the Sun

Symphony hasn’t decided if she should come help me or just wait on the patio.

Daffodils

Almost a quarter of the daffodils are blooming. I just love the spring time yellow.

Tree Buds

I’m not sure what kind of tree this is but it has white blooms. Love those beautiful, fat buds.

Little Lupine Leaves

Here are some tiny lupine leaves popping out. These get to be about four feet tall by July.

New Growth on Tamarack Pine

And the last bit of spring inspiration is the tamarack or larch trees. They are a deciduous pine tree that loses its needles in the fall and regrows in the spring. I really like that bright, yellow-green of the new growth. What is your inspiration in the spring?

Swap with a Forum Member + Daffodils!

Posted on by under swap

I did a swap with another Felting and Fiber Studio Forum member, Elizabeth. She was cleaning out art supplies that she was no longer using and showed us some of the stuff. Of course, I couldn’t pass up ink and refillable pens. Thanks Elizabeth for a great swap.

Swap with Elizabeth

So I got these in the mail, plus some extras including the sequins waste, palettes and water-color papers. I haven’t had much chance to try the inks but they are iridescent.

MINOLTA DIGITAL CAMERA

I did do a quick monoprint by dropping some gold ink on glass, then I pressed the already painted brown paper down on the ink. The gold is pretty shiny.

Water Color Papers

These are the water-color papers. They have the paint on them, you take a wet brush and swipe paint off and apply it to the page.

Water Color Sample

Here’s a quick sample of all the colors. They don’t look the same on the paper as they do once you get them wet, that’s for sure.

Blooming Outside

And it’s officially spring here. The first daffodil bloomed today. I have over 500 bulbs planted and when they are all in bloom, they are impressive.

First Daffodils

I weeded around them last week and broke a few off. I didn’t think they would bloom but they did so I have some in the house as well. So Happy Spring and thanks for stopping by!

A Few More Pages from My Sketchbook

Posted on by under sketch book

I have been working on some more Zentangle patterns in my sketchbook. Again, if you want to try these, check out the videos on Youtube.

ZentangleI really like the woven patterns and they really aren’t hard to draw.

Close Up of Zentangle

 

The ribbons on the edges are fairly simple too. The middle pattern is called Betweed and is the same pattern as in the star shape that I showed you last week.

Sketchbook Sunset

This page started as a way to use up some extra paint I had. It started looking like a sunset so it worked out pretty good for a last minute page.

Orange Brown Sketchbook Page

This is a page I did a while ago but I don’t think I have shown it yet. It has a base layer of paint, then it was screen printed with the dark brown. Then I added sepia toned pen work and added in some watercolor paint to liven up the colors.

Close Up Orange Brown Page

The silk screen I used was originally supposed to be ginkgo leaves but now it looks more like peeling paint. What have you been working on lately?

 

Playing in my Sketchbook

Posted on by under sketch book

I had a little time this week to play in my sketchbook and try out my new high flow acrylic paints. I also watched a few Youtube videos about making zentangle patterns here.

Sketchbook Orange and Blue

I tried the high flow acrylics in my new pen and got the blue/violet lines. And then I added red and yellow. These are so much more vivid than adding water to the regular acrylics.

Sketchbook Purple Frost

This one is actually the back of a page I painted but I really like it. It reminds me of frost on a window. The patterns are made from the paper being wet to start and lying on plastic.

Sketchbook Green Tangle

Here’s the first zentangle pattern. It looks complex but was fairly simple to draw except for all those circles.

Sketchbook Yellow Tangle

And here’s another one. You start with two parallel rows of circles and then connect them from there. You should check out the Youtube link above if you want to learn how these complex patterns are drawn. They really aren’t that hard to draw once you know the tricks.

Sketchbook Blue Green Space Bubbles

And this last one is my attempt to be a bit more abstract. So when I do that I always seem to end up back to drawing circles. But I like it. What have you been up to this week? I hope you have a good weekend and thanks for stopping by.