VALENTINE'S DAY FLOWERS

 Here's my portrait of the flowers my sweetie gave me for Valentine's Day this year.

It's been a while since I've painted.  I need more practice.  

VALENTINE'S DAY FLOWERS

Flowers from my sweetie for Valentine's Day.

 

VALENTINE FLOWERS

 Here's this year's painting, in oils,  of my Valentine's Day flowers from my sweetie.

VALENTINE'S FLOWERS

STARTING THE FLOWERS

Here is the beginning of my Valentine Flowers painting.

2019 VALENTINE FLOWERS

VALENTINE

I had order a charm pack of Valentine fabrics a little while ago.  They arrived yesterday and today I sewed them together to make this really bad tablerunner.  I thought I was going to do something with a little more style, but I just wanted to get it done and not spend time on it, so it's just squares.

Actually, I had to quilt it on my new Bernina 770 because I had loaded the back of Trinkets Six onto Eduard and it's still there, waiting for batting.  The machine did great, so did the walking foot.

I don't know why it ruffled.  It might help if I ironed it.  But I don't like it. 

It's too.....too garish.

Here it is all pinned and ready to quilt.  Haven't done that in a while.

VALENTINES FLOWERS 2018

Here is the finished portrait of the Valentine's flowers my sweetheart gave me:

On another note, Bentley was not happy about this being the Year of the Dog.

WHERE ARE MY PAINTS?

I found my acrylic paints, which I haven't used in at least a year, dusted off my brushes and knives, put in a new paper palette and got to work on arranging my Valentine's Day flowers into something interesting to paint.

I was horrified to find a couple of tubes were dried up and unusable, but luckily I had more than one tube of my favorites.

This leads me to believe I need to paint more often.

A pencil drawing to start.

I got most of it blocked out today, but I didn't want to post a picture of an incomplete painting.

More to come...

LOTS DONE TODAY

After a very invigorating walk with the dogs at Lincoln Park I went up to the studio and re-arranged the bouquet the DH bought me for Valentine's Day.  I pared it down to just a few flowers so it would fit on my small canvas.

I finally opened the oil paints I had bought last year and spent a great two hours painting.

I don't think it's done yet.

Then I hung up my Grandmother's Flower Garden Blocks on the wall.  I want to see how big it will be and whether I should add hexagons or triangles in between the blocks.  Looks like it will be hexagons.  Now I just have to decide what color hexagons, black or white?  

Also, it looks like I might not have enough blocks.  I still have 3 or 4 ready to make, but it appears I might be short a few.  The problem is the center hex uses all the same fabric, which I don't have any more of.

After lunch I worked on my Splendid Sampler blocks.  I ironed the appliqued gulls and the quilt shop block and made the other two today.  This is such fun!

The Family Stars block took a long time, lots of small parts.

The quilt shop block is modeled after my own quilt shop, Pieces.  It's like the sign we had in the window, but in this one the star above the 'i' doesn't show up well.  I may need to amend it.

Since he's out of town, I'm making pizza for myself for dinner.  Yum.

There should be enough leftovers to take to work tomorrow for my dinner there.

VALENTINE'S FLOWERS 2015

Here's this years Valentine's Day bouquet.  

Can't say I'm in much of a good mood, but I figured I'd soldier on and get it done...

I don't really like it, it looks amateurish.

But I'm done.

Hopefully, next year's will be better.

VALENTINE'S DAY BOUQUET

It's been our tradition that on Valentine's Day my husband buys me a bouquet of flowers and I've been painting their portrait.  Here's this year's.  This is 11" by 14" acrylic on canvas.

VALENTINE'S FLOWERS 2013

My husband's and my anniversary is just a few days after Valentine's Day.  I tend to just jam them together in my head.  [Actually, V-day seems more fun to me.]  So, I've been doing a painting of the flowers he gives me for V-day every year, so I'll have them always (aaahhh).  

This year I told him I didn't want red roses any more.  So, I got tulips instead.

After I got through sulking, I painted them.   They were really starting to droop.  They were nothing but stems by the time I finished.

I love you, honey.

VALENTINE FINISHED?

This painting has been on my easel since February.  I've been messing with it off and on since.  If you look at the progress pictures you'll see I was not happy with it for a while.

So, I've been puttering.  I added some colored paper, then added some actual petals from the roses.

I had to abandon it for a time while I worked one week, then we went out of town for a week, then it was back to work for a week.  By that time the roses were long dead and Darrell had taken the black board I was using in the composition for it's intended purpose.  Needless to say, I was working without reference.

This week I got out my pastels and used those - then I sealed the pastels in with matte medium - which changed the colors.  But, it added some interesting texture and I found the medium will 'melt' the pastels and you can use them as paint.

So, here it is, finished (or not).  This is this year's Valentine's Day Flower painting, as is.

Ten roses - ten years.

VALENTINE'S DAY FLOWERS

There's been a lot of discussion about Negative Space lately. So that's where I started with this year's Valentine's Day flowers from my husband.

I set aside two of the dozen, because....this is our 10th Anniversary together, and so I wanted to paint just ten roses.

I started with a pre-painted canvas.  I usually just scrub the paint that's left in my palette onto a canvas.  This canvas has been around awhile.  And then just to complicate things, I decided to use a palette knife (which I'm not very proficient with) instead of brushes.

First I painted the background around the composition with white:

Then the black:

I really liked it.


I went for a walk, went out to lunch with my husband, came back and lost my mind.  To heck with that palette knife - that was too difficult.  So I pulled out some small brushes and 'painted'. 


I hate it. 


I should have stopped while I was ahead!

I left it for the day.  Maybe I can fix it tomorrow.

VALENTINE'S DAY FLOWERS

Here's my first draft of the Valentine's Day flowers my dear husband Darrell got me.

It's an annual thing.

I'm not happy with a few things.  It needs tweaking.

NEXT DAY:

Here it is, after I tweaked it:

Yes, I did change the background color.

VALENTINE'S DAY

I went up to the studio today with every intention of working on my Year of the Ox etching, but I just had to sit down and paint this beautiful bouquet of flowers from Darrell.

I must admit I brow-beat him into sending it to me at work this year. I've always hinted I'd rather have flowers sent to work, then get them at home. If I'm working, I'm there for almost the whole day. This year was no exception. I'd enjoy them more at work where I was going to be spending my whole weekend.

When I mentioned it to him this year, he says, "I don't know the address"....Wham, he got it sent to him in a great big-fonted email. No excuse now.
Anyway, I painted this with a big brush, really fast and loose.

I like it, and now I'll have the flowers forever!

This is 12" by 9", acrylic on canvas.

Thank you Darrell.
He's so sweet.