Victorian Ladies

22x17 watercolor collage, an old house in neighboring Colorado City, Texas, I painted as a house portrait and its owner decided not to pay me after doing all the work, which does happen.  So I decided to add Victorian figures, cats, ghosts, and flower collage items at random.
Image is COPYRIGHT 2013 Kay Smith.

More Pears on Pepper Plate collage

11x15 watercolor over collage book pages and slick toilet seat covers on acid free matboard; used matte medium to adhere papers to pencil drawing.  Paint was applied last.  These were fresh pears I put on a large ceramic southwestern pepper motif chip bowl.

Elephants - a watercolor collage

7.5 x 5.5 watercolor with hand colored rice paper collage on Italia 140 lb cold press paper; American Journey paints.  I really wanted to show the texture of the ellies rough hide.  Photo ref Wet Canvas reference image library.

Retro Rooster Collage - recycled art

10 x 14.75 mixed media (watercolor, acrylics, newspaper, napkins, catalog pages, ink) I composed over a failed geranium watercolor. The rooster head and neck were from a former failed barnyard painting with him and 2 hens that did not quite work.  The hens I cut out also and adhered to an old shack scene called "Chicken Ranch", that should still be on this blog.  His purple legs just kill me; feathers in front are from newspaper photos of old wood.  It is a conglomeration of elements with a whole lot of country style and was fun to make.

Quilted Christmas Tree - a card a day

10x8 watercolor pieces cut out from old failed works then adhered to white heavy cardstock. I used a black fine tip Sharpie pen to draw "stitches" zigzag marks to mimic sewing for this holiday quilt tree.

Hollyhock Dreams and a Few of My Own

15x15 watercolor collage on Arches 140 cold press paper and sold last week. Speaking of dreams, I want to get 100 followers by Christmas. Already the number is 88 and climbing. Tell your friends to check out this blog and sign up if they want to learn more about art.

Today I've been busy taking digital photos of several paintings to send on a CD to Chris Unwin as they're publishing number 5 in the series The Artistic Touch. A worldwide bestseller, I hope to be juried in it again along with many top names in the business. Wish me luck!

It Has Been a Year!

We are celebrating that it has been one year since Nita built my beautiful blog! Thanks to all my followers who keep growing in numbers. Thanks to her for all her hard work.

Here's a little info about the above work:

20x16 Arches CP 140 lb, Daniel Smith paints. I took this terrible watercolor done a few years ago of a woman holding a basket of flowers, and added flower shapes cut out of gift wrap, photos, and cocktail napkins glued on as collage. Her petticoat stencil was done with a paper lacy placemat. It is still bad but better than before. I shouldn't have put a red flower so close to her leg and might still cover it with another color so it reads better. Have more fun ideas brewing in this warped brain for me to do and you to enjoy looking at.

Second Demo of Pears - Watercolor Collage

More Pears on Pepper Plate, demo done Wednesday, about an hour, for the workshop on pears. This one is 15x22 matboard with collaged tissue (toilet seat covers) and paperback The Winds of War pages, and newsprint type. Also has white gesso in a few areas. The board was prepared ahead of time and when dry I drew the peppers then the pears. Transparent watercolor was next and black India ink line around some of the peppers for distinction. One of the students bought it so it is SOLD.

Chicken Ranch - watercolor collage

15x22 Arches, chickens are wc collage cut from one failed painting on top of really bad old wooden shacks painting to make a new view. It is meant to be a humorous piece from two 'dogs'. Moral of the story: Never throw away a bad painting. You can always recycle it! This painting will be part of a traveling exhibit to the Hill Country galleries in a few months.