Rain's Art and Dinner Date & Also linking up with Art Journal Journey

 We have endured a very very cold week so far, down in the low teens most nights, today first time in awhile we made it to the low 30's F during the day. A little warm up coming our way for a couple days-with sunshine I am hoping.

  I thought I would link up with Rain's Art and Dinner Date this week-find link in my side column to participate.

  Today I decided to make a gluten free pineapple upside down cake in my Grandma's 10 inch cast iron pan.  Have not made one in quite awhile-turned out really delicious. When I flipped this cake over on to a handmade pottery large plate-it came right out of the pan perfectly.

This was so moist and delicious. For gluten free cakes I use a quality gluten free cake mix-makes it less stressful for me that it will bake up right. This one was a Bob's Red Mill Gluten Free Yellow cake mix. Instead of the water I used the pineapple juice, and I also added a teaspoon of pineapple extract to the batter, and used olive oil instead of butter.   For the bottom I used melted butter and a blend of brown sugar and coconut sugar. Then I added a can of drained crushed pineapple. I prefer this pineapple over the large rings-nicer to cut the slices this way, and we do not like those red cherries. smiles

For my art

  I have been working with my own botanical inks and watercolor inks and paints a few days a week-to get more art practice in.

  This painting, I used the red ink for the roof and flag thinking I would also link up with AJJ for the theme red-but I am not sure if this qualifies as a journal page or not? Update: Erika says I can link up my page so will do that-thank you. Find link in my side bar for Art Journal Journey

 The page on top is from a magazine and used for inspiration. I had a line out of place on the log house so turned it into a flag. The red is one of the Winsor Newton watercolor inks. I was trying to write KC Chiefs but I had a hard time writing over the ink for some reason-I did manage to get just KC on the flag.

The log cabin is all done in different inks-iron gall, black walnut, and Winsor Newton inks

The background is all watercolor paints except for the bush-tree branches are black walnut ink

Sorry as I was taking these photos I was losing day light the colors are a bit muted. Another fun little painting for me to practice  and learn using the inks and paints

Happy Thursday!

Art Practice-Last Day of January-Update Ooops Correction on the Woodpecker

   I am actually pleased with this attempt of the red bellied woodpecker-which we enjoy watching here.

   I used mostly inks-black walnut, iron gall, and Winsor Newton watercolor ink of red, white and peat brown. The colors on the tree trunk are mostly watercolor paints with highlights of black walnut ink.

Inspiration photo on the bottom from a bird magazine

OOOPS I just messed up this bird is the red headed woodpecker, not the red bellied I should have known that sorry  The wings are totally different

this is a photo of the red bellied, We have both of these birds visiting us along with the little downys

Monday Art Practice

 Good morning Monday, brrrr it is really really cold here along with a glaze of ice everywhere-Our front door is even iced in. So needless to say I had to reschedule my doctors appointment to next week.

  During these cold days, I have been reading books that are on my kindle, and also a couple large hard cover novels, as I don't have allot of get up and go with this latest arctic cold blast.

  This morning, I played with ink and watercolors. I try to do these art practices several times a week.  This one I covered the background with the left over watercolor paint on my pallet. Once dry I drew with dip pen and iron gall ink. Highlighted with watercolor paints when it was dry.

Happy Monday

Art Practice with Inks and Watercolor Paints

   We woke up to rain this morning-feels like a cold spring rain. Timing is bad though as we had help driving up to work with Larry on the dock and could finally get all of those Christmas goodies to them. Oh well such is life.

  For a couple days I have been playing with watercolor inks and paints.  The blackberry ink was interesting-ended up with three different colors-thought that was crazy at first, but the ink book arrived and it noted that there will be surprises with botanical inks. So I am just going with it and will have fun making and using these inks. 

   So far the black walnut ink is my favorite, I love the color and seems more stable too opposed to the berry ink. When using the black walnut for dye you don't need to use a mordant so that is probably why the ink is nicer too.

  The section to the right in this practice piece below, is mostly watercolor paint with black walnut ink-inspired by a page from the book I am working with.  

  To the left the flowers are with the blackberry ink. The blue flower on the right was the first one and I used a dip pen. The flower to the left I used a watercolor brush and got a little too much of the ink, as you can see how wet it is on the page

After the flower on the left dried I got this deep purple color

    The stems and leaves are black walnut ink with Winsor Newton green watercolor ink.

   The centers of the two flowers are black walnut ink

a closer look

  The next day I decided to make one more flower and see what color I would get this time haha   I used a glass dip pen for this one, also when I opened up the jar of blackberry ink it had a little film on top-I had forgotten to add the whole clove and wintergreen essential oil as a preservative.

    This is another color for the flower petals not sure if the wintergreen and clove added to the color change or the use of the glass pen made the difference.

  I am liking all three colors-it's just a surprise after they dry.

     Interesting that they were so different.

  I started reading a bit in the Ink book, It is a beautiful book , thick pages, but the type on the pages is very small so a little difficult for me to read. Not sure why they would do that. 

  I was a bit disappointed that there were not more recipes. The turmeric ink for a pretty yellow was made as an alcohol ink which I don't want to do-so will search for a water base recipe instead. There was also a recipe for a gorgeous blue from copper but I don't want to use any toxic chemicals for these inks. The book did have a good basic recipe and discussed different materials to use. Was very thorough for beginners setting up to make ink or dye as well. I have done allot of dyeing with natural materials in the past along with allot of eco dye experience as well-so may have been expecting more for making ink.

     Making ink is much simpler for sure.

   This is a beautiful and well written book. I am learning allot of little things and I am  enjoying the author, but I am glad I didn't pay full price for this book. If you have access to a library I would suggest reading it that way first.

 Happy Mid-Week

UPDATE:  browsing online I found an awesome site-30 days of making botanical inks here  She has 30 recipes for different botanicals and she was inspired by the Ink book I was referring to above. She uses the inks to make abstract art  I should ask her if she has a way to set the color in her paintings.

  When I can't sleep-I read-so I started really reading the Make Ink book tonight-and it's really written very well-like the author is talking to you He gives you the basics to just go out and make ink with a basic recipe-and then you adapt for your needs.

Art Practice & Blackberry Ink & Glass Pen

   Yesterday, my art practice was a baby deer. I used watercolor paints and inks, and my black walnut ink. I wasn't crazy about the face-something is off on that so will try again soon. To not waste the paper I added a tree and grasses, and that mouse is there again haha Since these are practice pieces I am painting on both sides of the papers in this watercolor notebook.

This morning, while catching up on laundry, I grabbed the package of blackberries I bought at the store yesterday to make ink. I am really thinking in more primitive times people just made ink out of found organic materials to have something to write with. 

I went with the instructions in the book The Organic Artist. Crush a cup of berries, the riper and juicer the better, strain, add one teaspoon vinegar and 1 teaspoon salt per 1/2 cup. I just barely got a 1/2 cup with 12 ounces of berries.  The instructions said to let sit for a couple of days and then re strain-so I will do that.

  All the tools I used to make this were from my dye making stash. I did not have a medium size strainer so I used one with large holes and one fine strainer on top-both small strainers. I then transferred the pulp to a coffee filter.

 I wish I would of thought about ink making while living in the woods as we had a bounty of wild blackberries there.

Of course I had to try this out.  I added the vinegar and I had a fine pink himalayan salt so stirred that in, which dissolved very fast. This little dip pen is an illustrators pen, which works out nice for using with my watercolor paintings

I am pleased with the color

Speaking of pens, I did get reimbursed for the glass pen that just broke in half for no reason. I messaged the owner of the calligraphy site and shop about what happened, didn't ask for a refund-left it up to her.  This was during the holidays, she apologized, said she would send a replacement but I had bought her last one so she refunded the money. I appreciated that.

So I have been looking at a glass pen on amazon same price-around $20.00 that came with a nice wooden box. So I bought that one and it came on Monday. The box fits both pens, and it also came with a small ink bottle and a little glass pen rest.

Only thing that would have been nicer, is if the lid slid on the box in a groove instead of just sitting on top, but for $20.00 I am happy. I haven't tried out the new pen yet-it got high reviews on amazon. These are for craft and painting uses, the handblown glass pen from Germany I will use for my slow mail letters-it is so beautiful I will take a photo soon

 Last week I got a surprise in my mailbox from Scotland-Elle had sent out cards and then her mail service went on strike. The envelope was full of lovely stamps too-that is in my stamp stash already. I loved the stamps of the Queen especially Thank you Elle  Always fun to get "royal mail" in my mailbox

 I will enjoy this pretty card on my mantel til spring

Happy Mid Week

Monday Art Practice & Eagle Pair

   Good Afternoon Monday,

Looking out our front door and looking up the hill into the trees-yep the eagle pair are here. I took a short video (turn up sound)

Always so grateful to see this pair close to the house.

I did grab my book again and used a tree and fox for inspiration

I used mostly inks and a little watercolor paints (note: see my T post (a couple posts back) where I posted about making inks)

The little mouse appeared on the logs-watching the fox haha

  Also early this morning the wolf moon appeared out the front door We were in the low 20's F so I took this photo indoors through a glass window

Art Practice This Morning

   I am working on doing something creative every day. Usually early mornings are perfect after we enjoy the sunrise and bird watching with breakfast.

  At the moment I am back to working with the Chinese Brush Painting book, it's a good inspiration learning book for me.

My first attempt was really bad-so I painted on the back of the same page in my watercolor notebook.

  I worked with the bird first and then decided to add iris's from the same book-it's so so. The biggest thing I need to learn with watercolors-Must wait til dries before going back in next to a wet area. That messes up more  of work-not waiting, which shows up in that orange area of the flowers. That was suppose to be mostly yellow with orange highlights-will keep practicing.

The Winsor Newton watercolor inks-I really love working with these

  I am hoping to finish reading the book My Dear Hamilton today. An excellent read if you enjoy historical fiction-so well researched, I have learned so much more about that time period that I didn't know.