Superbowl Madness!!

We had an exciting Sunday. The whole country went completely wild for the Superbowl!! Even though I know jack about football I decided to root for the Carolina Panthers because they have a theatrical quarterback called Cam Newton. I don't really understand the rules of American football.

These are the basics: Using the down system, the offense has four downs (essentially four plays) to go 10 yards. If the offensive team advances the ball at least 10 yards in four tries or fewer, the team receives another set of four downs.

If the offense has failed to advance 10 yards after three tries, the team usually punts the ball on the fourth down (a punt is a kick to the opponent without the use of a tee). The other team then begins with its own set of four downs, traveling in the opposite direction.

But I don't really know what any of that means. If you listen to the commentary they talk a lot about tight ends. Are they referring to the posteriors of the players? It's all double dutch to me.

The game stops and starts every few minutes so that it seems like it was invented to show as many adverts as possible and that's OK because adverts are specially made for the Superbowl and they are really good so no complaints there.

Since I could not easily follow the game I stuck to doing what I am best at: stuffing my face at a superbowl party with chips, hotdogs, guacamole, pizza and other artery thickening delights.

Have you ever watched American football and do you like it? And what is a tight end?

In the end the Carolina Panthers didn't get anywhere (the Bronco's whipped their asses) but I felt like painting a big cat so I did this Jaguar (available at Redbubble)

It's great to find admirers of your work on the web. I was thrilled to read a great review of my shop over at Life with Peanut. So do go check it out!!

Linking up to Brilliant Blog Posts.

Elephant Pals

Photo by Gary Jones of Paint Your Photo

I just joined an amazing group called Paint Your Photo. As well as having tons of great art advice, interactive forums etc etc it is also a fabulous resource because it solves that age old dilemna of where to get terrific photos to create art from without infringing copyright. These photos are free to work from and this week I did this painting of some boisterous elephant pals.

They have a whole range of subjects: humans, flora, fauna and animals and they are all of a very high quality. You can also submit your own photos so other artists can work from them.

'Elephant Pals' is available to buy at Fine Art America.

Elephant Pals 18 x 24" acrylic inks

Linking up to Paint Party Friday!

elephants art for sale

Toucan Play at that Game

 

Well things are pretty freezing around here. A water pipe burst the other day and soaked into a carpet. Oh Joy! After soaking up the water with about a hundred towels I spent several hours trying to dry it out with a hairdryer to no avail. Now I keep the room at the temperature of a tropical rainforest in an attempt to dry it out. I'm as redfaced as a prune and living in a sauna. Save me!

So while we are bracing ourselves for another pelting of snow we should I suppose count ourselves lucky that we do not live in Boston which has been hit the worst.

Actually I don't really mind snow all that much. As far as I am concerned it just gives me carte blanche to loll around all day in my jammies watching terrible television like Dance Moms and stuffing my face with chocolate hob nobs. Nobody can really expect you to work if it involves driving if there is heavy snow so I like to take it easy on snow days although I do get a tad claustrophobic at some point and need to take a brisk walk outside in the slush.

Did you know that on the other side of the world it's  CARNAVAL in Brazil !!! Yes, sequins, platform heels and the biggest party in the world !! The nature art group I am part of had this as a theme. So I put on my party hat and put on some Samba music - and got out my watercolors and acrylic inks !!

I ended up with this lively bunch of two macaws and a toucan which I titled 'Toucan Play at that Game.' When I first started painting it the paint started dripping which I didn't mind so I kept adding lots of drips to create a pretty pattern.

I'm sure you'll agree these birds are pumped up and ready to PARTAY!

And now I am linking them up to Paint Party Friday so come join the fun.


birds art for sale

toucan art for sale

Leopard Love

Roaring Leopard, Watercolor

Leopard, Watercolor on Gesso

Hi Everyone!

Hope you had a fun and creative week. I had a pretty great week in that I sold my colorful giraffe painting so that was good. It snowed on Tuesday but I do NOT want to talk about it! I want spring and I want to see all the little shoots coming up in my garden.

I am still fascinated by wild cats. First I did a colorful loose watercolor of a Roaring Leopard who is full of vim and vigor and color. Then I painted another roaring leopard on paper I first coated with gesso. It certainly makes for a very intriguing effect - very textural and more muted.

I am enjoying experimenting with watercolor. I have learnt to love the way it just does its own thing - ebbing and flowing and pooling and dribbling. And sometimes I just have to rein in the temptation to remove sections of paint I have just laid down that don't seem right and instead just let it drip and dry the way it wants to because you can't tell what it is going to look like until it dries. What an infuriating yet fascinating process!

What about you? Do you like working with watercolor or does it bother you that sometimes it has a mind of its own?

Linking up with #PoCoLo: