Category: nature

Three Fireflies nocturn painting

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As a companion to yesterday’s Three Dragonflies, I present the nocturn version (a nocturn is a fancy word for a painting depicting night) Three Fireflies. I like this one better than the day version, just because the colors came out that much more … insert another fancy art jargon word here. My mind is on today’s painting, but I am waiting for the black gesso to dry. (As an aside, I may need to write up a product review on this stuff at some point: Golden black gesso.)

Three Fireflies, an acrylic nocturn painting
Three Fireflies, 9 by 12 inch acrylic on primed paper, original available $80 USD

The painting scanned so beautifully! Honestly, unless you look at with under strong light, it looks a bit darker in person. I am still quite pleased with this scanner I bought with pandemic stimulus money last year.

The original of this is available, on 9 by 12 inch gessoed paper, through PayPal via Daily PaintWorks. Prints both smaller and larger are at my Pixels store, while apparel and accessories are at my RedBubble shop.

So far, the other art challenge participants seem more enthusiastic about this painting than they are about the first one, but that’s okay because I agree with them. At some point, I will want to revisit the whole fireflies nocturn idea, but today kicks off a 30 day, “red” themed art challenge while also wrapping up the three day one, so today’s painting will need to satisfy two art themes (which thankfully do not conflict!). So if I am able to stick with it this time, expect a whole month of paintings involving red … which will definitely include some poinsettias.

Three Dragonflies acrylic sketch

Published on by kmgunnart2 Comments

We started a new art challenge yesterday. It is a short duration one, only three days, with the theme of “three.” Separate from this, but hosted by the same moderator, is an “Edit This” challenge where we are given a photo to edit, draw, or paint in whatever way we please, as long as the hosting moderator can tell you’ve started with the given photo. Inspiration struck first with the ET photo (that sounds funny to me!), then quickly blossomed into an idea where I can do both, plus get the first day of the November 30 day challenge which has the theme of “red.” First, the sacrificial photo:

photo of a purple mushroom for the Edit This art challenge
Edit This #54 photo

It’s cute, and painting mushrooms seems to be a thing right now, so first I thought butterflies around the mushroom, but then I thought dragonflies, or maybe even fireflies … or better yet, dragonflies around the mushroom by day (on white paper to start) and then fireflies around it by night, which would give me the perfect excuse to try out my black gesso on white oil and acrylic paper to see if that stuff is as strong as it looks (spoiler alert: it certainly is!). And so that brings us to day one of the 3-day “three” challenge and the first of my entries into the Edit This challenge: Three Dragonflies.

acrylic sketch Three Dragonflies
Three Dragonflies, 9 by 12 inch acrylic on paper, available, $80 USD for original

It turned out cute, a bit on the whimsical side, mostly simple in layering and color, and overall I like it. I listed the original on Daily Paintworks last night, as well as uploading the high resolution scan to my Pixels site for prints. This morning I uploaded said hi-res scan to my shop at RedBubble for the apparel and accessories, positioning the image just right for the clock. At some point, I will get myself one of those clocks … once I decide which artwork to have on it. I doubt I have enough wallspace for all the ones that look nice on that clock face, not to mention the amount of batteries I’d need to keep them all on the right time.

I started the firefly version, as alluded to above, by first testing the black gesso. It’s almost dry enough to start painting now!

Flamingo in Rippled Water watercolor painting

Published on by kmgunnart7 Comments

I did complete the seven day art challenge, even if I didn’t post everything here.  In all, I have six flamingo paintings and one beach sunrise painting, all in watercolor. This is the flamingo painting I like best of the six, although others have said they prefer another from the series … but that is probably why we are all individual people!

watercolor painting Flamingo in Rippled Water
Flamingo in Rippled Water. 9×12 inch watercolor on paper, original available

A pink flamingo feeds in rippled blue-green water along the shore, with its feathers and the water ripples catching the early morning sun light.  This is a twelve by nine inch watercolor painting on watercolor paper.

The (unframed) original painting is available, sealed with art wax and in a plastic sleeve to protect it, for $125 USD.  Prints are available at my Pixels store, and accessories and apparel at my RedBubble store.

Award-winning watercolor painting

Update: I entered this painting into two art contests. The first was the inaugural art competition in the North Florida/South Georgia Veterans’ Healthcare System Creative Arts Festival (say that one fast) and it took first place in the watercolor division, though it did not place at the national level. We veterans tend to be quite the talented bunch. The second time was in March 2022, when I entered in my local county fair. The judge bumped it up to the professional category, and awarded me a red ribbon (which had a prize of $2.00!). Considering the Best in Show went to someone in the youth category, and that will look great on a college application, I have no regrets.

I should probably note I am working on repainting this on a 16×20 inch stretched canvas. I have the layout done, and a thin layer of acrylic as the base because charcoal and graphite tend to rub off canvas. Watch for a further post on this piece, which will be a one-of-a-kind since my scanner can only fit 11×17 inches, so there will be no prints of it.

Let me read this to you

I am trying something fun: recording myself reading the blog post (with a little extra) as a podcast. Listen here.

Blue Dragonfly colored pencil drawing

Published on by kmgunnart2 Comments

A colored pencil drawing on toned paper, Blue Dragonfly shows a very common visitor to our property.  The dragonflies don’t tend to hold still long enough for me to take a couple dozen potential reference photographs in hopes of having one turn out decent, so I found the reference photo over on a site called Morguefile, which has thousands of copyright-free photos for artists and graphic designers to use.

This year we have seen a new color variation of dragonfly – in addition to the blues, the greens, and the copper/rust ones, I remarked the other morning that we have now seen a black dragonfly with yellow segments on the tail. They also have some stunning earth-tone red eyes, about the same shade as the burnt sienna in my oil paints.  Once I get a good enough grasp on the dragonfly body and wing shapes, I’ll try to draw one of those as well, but for this piece I decided to start with the most-familiar blue dragonfly.

colored pencil drawing of blue dragonfly resting on a strand of babr wire on tan toned paper with abstract green shapes as background
Blue Dragonfly, 9 by 12 inch colored pencil drawing on toned paper, original available

The original is available through Daily PaintWorks.  Prints are available at my Pixels store and prints and accessories are at my RedBubble store. My dad says this particular drawing is his favorite artwork I’ve done to date. Considering he has seen my drawings from age five on, that puts it above the couple thousand or so I’ve done the past four decades – so high praise from him.

Monarch Butterfly on Coneflower watercolor painting

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The inspiration for this piece came when I asked my son if there is anything he would like to see me paint, and he immediately informed me he loves monarch butterflies and would love to see what kind of paintings I can do of them.  Of course, he credits the cartoon The Venture Brothers for sparking his interest (there is a comical villain called the Monarch in it, complete with henchmen dressed as butterflies), though the more he learned about the real butterflies, the more he likes them.

I was happy to oblige, as I think monarchs are beautiful butterflies, and wanted to see if I could capture that lovely orange of the sunlight coming through the wings. First thing to do was draw in charcoal, to “get the shapes and shadows” prior to painting in color. I wasn’t particularly interested in making much other than a green blob as the background, mainly because I wanted all the focus to be on the butterfly and the flower. A secondary reason is a bit more pragmatic: it isn’t always easy to do details in watercolor, especially the first decade or so when you begin watercolor painting.

Purchase information for the monarch butterfly watercolor painting

The original is still available, an 8 by 10 inch watercolor, sealed with Dorland’s wax (that is actually an art medium made for use with oil paint, but heartily adopted by watercolorists for preserving and protecting watercolor paintings).  A slightly larger range of prints are available at my Pixels store, and a range of accessories are at my RedBubble store for those who are interested.

watercolor painting Monarch Butterfly on Coneflower

One of my early watercolor paintings, but still one I enjoy using as an avatar at various platforms, including Spotify, Pinterest, and sometimes Facebook. It’s bright and colorful, with enough simplified lines to be easily recognized even when shrunk in size.