April Snow

Today was another yucky, slushy, gloomy, wet, snowy, can't-seem-to-get-anything-done sort of day. Yes, it is April 20, but it looks more like January just now.
However, the sky was amazing tonight. :)
I took the opportunity to try out a new paintbrush and did this little 6"x6" oil painting.A beautful sky can make even mud and slush look good. And I always love the line of white snow against a dark sky.
This painting's got a lot of brush-strokes, which I think works especially well for the forground. It's messy out there!

Painting time cut short...

The problem with great, dramatic, cloud-filled skies is that they're usually connected with severe weather.
This is where my painting was interrupted earlier:
Just as the sky was getting really exciting too!
But thunderstorms and tornado warnings are nothing to mess around with, so this will be a studio painting rather than truly plein air.
Here it is after a little more work. I'll let it dry and come back to it.
There were a lot of hay bales that were left out in the fields over winter, and I always love the curves and lines of the fields on a hillside.
But mostly, I wanted those clouds!

Full Moon over the Field

While the field is still lit by the fading twilight, the moon begins to shine through the wispy clouds.
The landscape is still the brown of early spring, and the trees haven't yet leafed out.

Full Moon over the Field, 6"x9" watercolour, copyright 2011 Hannah C. Heyer
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A not-so-successfull painting session

Today I finally got out into the woods to paint. It's been way too long.

It was so pretty in every direction, I couldn't decide what to paint!
The brown, wind-blown fields against the sky with its scattered clouds? The birches, or poplars, or oaks? The view looking up the ravine full of large moss-covered stones? The view downhill where some snow still lingers? And so on.
Finally "an acquaintance of mine that I met in the woods" (which is how she wants to be identified, and no, I didn't just happen to meet her in the woods) encouraged me to do a painting of her.
This was a great challenge: a plein air portrait!

...she gave many heartfelt apologies afterwards. :-|

Here's a peak at it, with the colors looking a little different as this was taken indoors after dark.
heehee, sorry Acquaintance, but it sure was fun! She says it looks enough like her to be weird, but not enough like her to be proud of. ;) Oh well.

Have I mentioned I love this time of year?
I do.
I'm loving the sunshine, and the moody skies too.
Here's a little watercolour I finished yesterday:

Reflections, copyright 2011 Hannah C. Heyer
2.5 x 3.5 inches,watercolour on paper
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Slackers.

We were meant to be mulching the garden,
but it was hot.
Mom was away.
We had a bag of chocolate-covered doughnuts.


We trampled out a spot in the middle of a patch of tall yellow flowers, and poured ourselves some milk.
We knew how to party.

Self Portrait

Ink and watercolour on Arches hot press watercolour paper

Yep, I really am that organized.

Woof.

Got my second proof for Binksie and Bep in the mail today!
The first proof I received didn't have any words in it-- apparently a glitch with the program I was using to make my PDF-- and instead had strange dots. The color was also a problem, with my clunky and ignorant attempts at converting my RGB images into CMYK for printing, and one of my illustrations.... well, it just wasn't working out.
So! Back to the drawing board.

I used a different program (Scribus is my new best friend!) and this proof looked so much better!
...until about half-way through the story. That's when things got interesting and bilingual. Somehow someone else's book was inserted-- backwards no less-- right in the middle of my own. The adventures of Binksie and Bep were interrupted by a story of a dog, told in English and Italian. I now know what attenti al cane means! :-P

It was funny, and as I need to make a few minor changes anyway, no great loss. :-)