Sketched this during a business trip waiting at John Wayne airport. Very relaxing after being in meetings all day. Saw this reference in Pinterest and loved the theme of a warrior princess.

Had a tough time drawing the sword. It is still a little wonky but this will have to do. Good practice on hands too. 

I chose the quote “sometimes it’s the princess who kills the dragon and saves the prince.” Yes! Why not? We need to have more fairy tales that positions female in positions of strength instead of always being the one who is saved. 

Yes! 

I have been sketching for a while and while I love that, I need to break that up with some color play. 

This is what happened when I just go crazy with colors. Just going with colors that call to me on my watercolor palette, adding, layering and using salt to create texture. I love how this turned out. It’s a fun exercise to do, and helps me get better at understanding how colors react to each other. Some colors look great next to each other, some don’t. Just like people 😂😂😂 some people bring out the best in you, some don’t. So be careful who you surround yourself with 👍

I title this “Thank you Universe ” inspired by a quote from Abraham Hicks. “Thank you universe for all the good things in my life that I don’t yet know about”. A great way to face life💃💃💃 

Have a fabulous Sunday and an awesome week ahead! The best is yet to come! 

I love this quote by Erin Van Vuren. 

I want to be difficult to find and impossible to forget. 

Yes!

Watercolor painting. Practicing flowers and hand…

Painted her with no reference. She just emerged … and evolved. I love the fluidity of how it happened. 

I know it is cliche to say this but it is true. With enough practice, I have developed some muscle memory and that enabled me to be free and create. 

I often wonder where do inspirations come from. I have come to realize that for me it’s a combination of my environment, what I have recently been exposed to, what left an imprint in my brain. And my mood, how I am feeling. And also muscle memory from all my practice. 

That is how she came to be.

And I love her. Title “Blooming Gorgeous”.

I shared a work in progress on this girl before…and now she is done. Loved playing with collaging different elements on her hair.and for once I left the background white. So tempted to add some color or texture to the background ( which is what I always did before) but was afraid it would take away from her. I like it this way. Sometimes less is more…very proud of myself..:)

The only quote I can think of for this would be “you are rich when you are content and happy with what you have.”

What do you think? 

Often, life comes at you so fast that you could barely keep your thoughts straight. Too many thoughts racing through your mind. Nothing makes sense. During times like that, I force myself to step away, clear my mind and just breathe…. Sometimes going to the gym help (but I have to force myself to get there). And sometimes the answer comes to me when I am least expecting it. Guess my soul has spoken.. 

Not an easy thing to do but definitely a good thing to try and do. 

Here are a couple of progress pics.

I’ve always loved sketching faces. Guess it all began when I fell in love with manga characters when I was a teenager. I would read manga books, and draw the pretty girls in the books.

Since I travel often for my work, I have found that sketching is a great way to pass time at the airport and makes delays bearable (to a certain extent). And with my luck, I have been given a lot of time to practice my sketching at airports lately:(

Drawing is also the foundation of a good painting. The reality is…if the drawing is bad, no amount of great painting can overcome that.

Many people are afraid of drawing faces. I don’t think it is that difficult, but it takes practice – like anything really. And it’s important to keep the proportions of the facial features right. And then practice, practice, practice.

So, I decided to make a video to show how I draw and shade a face. This is obviously not the only way. It is just my way. I hope you will get something from this and perhaps sketch more. Let me know what you think:)

I saw the cutest face on Pinterest and tried to paint it. But I just wasn’t happy with the end result (see above).

So I decided to paint another one. See below.

Again, I wasn’t so pleased with how she turned out.

C’est la vie.. I am not going to paint a third one..

This will have to do..

Sometimes you just need to stop. I am stopping now😍

I am on a roll this weekend. So happy to be back at home, spending time at my art table. Wanted to play with hair again and as usual, I start out with blue hair and end up with orange/red hair… 

I wasn’t happy with her in the beginning. See picture below. 

The values just weren’t there. Nothing was standing out. So I tweaked it, increasing the intensity of the red and blue. And added splatter and butterflies with modeling paste for texture. But now she was too orangey. 

So I tweaked it again until I was happy. Is it finished? Maybe not, maybe it never will be. But for now I am done. 

I chose this quote as she reminded me of a fantasy being from a fairy tale. I loved fairy tales growing up… 

Happy Sunday! 

I really believe in spending time with your tribe.. It is soooo good for your soul… That is how I feel when I go to Squam every year (an art retreat in New Hampshire). 

This year, one of my fellow Squammie, Sylvia, kindly invited a few of us to her new home in Falmouth MA. What a wonderful weekend we had.. It was like a mini Squam… There was talking (lots), drinking, eating (healthy), cycling (long story,never again for me), and best of all, lots of just simply breathing and soaking in the beauty that surrounds us. 

I decided to create a mixed media piece to remember this awesome weekend.. Love how it turned out. Definitely did not have a plan.. It simply evolved. That is what I love about mixed media. 

The title of this is “the end of the world”… Exactly how I felt when it took me 12 hours to travel from Richmond to Falmouth… It was a horrendous travel day… And it felt like I was traveling to the end of the world😂😂😂 but it was all worth it when my girlfriends welcomed me off the bus and whisked me to a local bar immediately for margaritas💃💃💃

Here are some close ups. 

And here are my fellow Squammies..and some snapshots of the wonderful weekend..