My Alcohol Ink Hummer

Today's painting, My Little Hummer was done with alcohol inks on Yupo paper, a new fav of mine.  

I finally got back to my animals art class that I am taking through Karen Walker.  

I basically used 2 colors, we'll kinda.  Purple and green: Twilight Purple and about 3 or 4 different greens and a touch of butterscotch.  Ok, so I guess that's three.

I first drew my hummingbird out on a piece of computer paper, which is my preferred paper for drawing.  I then scribbled on the back of the drawing so I could trace it onto the Yupo paper.  

  This is where the fun begins, I started pouring on the inks starting with the purple.  I really used a lot of ink and I let it lay flat most of the time, taking a brush to fill in the white spots.  I also used a little blending solution In the upper left quadrant, and held the paper up for a very short time.  Most of it was done wet on wet, except for the flowers in the upper right, and some extra green on the bird's back.  Using my paintbrush to lift, blend and add color, a cotton ball with a little blending solution and cotton swabs to lighten areas and add flowers and a bit of Spectrum Noir markers under his chin.  

With a little blending solution on my tiny brush, I traced over my drawing to lift the color and bring out the humming bird.  From there I blended the lines, lifted color, added color and this is what I came up with. 

Reference photo by Michael D. Utin from paintmyphoto.ning.com. 

Hope you enjoyed reading about the process.  Have a great day!  To see my paintings that are for sale, visit my etsy shop 

~Brenda 

Alcohol Ink Artists Team Video

Enjoy this video created by Joann Y Wheeler of some beautiful artwork from our AIART Team on Etsy! For more artwork search AIART Team on etsy.

Busy Little Hummingbird

Last January a bunch of my family members and a couple of friends took a cruise on Carnival Cruise Line.  It was a blast!  One of the stops was Honduras. 

   I was walking around with my husband, dad, brother, sister-in-law, and brother-in-law and this beautiful little hummingbird flew right in front of us and started enjoying the flowers like hummingbirds do.  Unfortunately I didn't have my big camera with me and so I wasn't able to get any pictures because I was having trouble with the focus in zoom mode.  My brother-in-law had his camera, so it was "Curt to the rescue!"

He and my sister are very supportive of my artwork and are sweet enough to let me use their photos for reference material for my paintings.  Curt especially is big into photography.  

Busy Little Hummingbird is the painting I created from the shots that Curt took.

It is listed in my Etsy Shop and will soon be in my Zazzle shop too, under "Birds".

 

 My hat saved me from a lot of light rain and drizzle and will never be the same again.  Can you say forever floppy?

 This is my dad and brother in Honduras and it rained for a part of the time, but was warm.

 First day on the ship.  Me and some of my family members.

(Photo taken by Ronda Reimer.)

 More family members lounging around.

(Photo taken by Ronda Reimer.)

My guys!

Left to right: Curt, dad, brother and hubby!

Hope you have a great day!!!
hugs,
Brenda

Proud Pelican

I had a lot of fun painting this little show-off!  Reference photos taken by my daughter, Jessica Thour.  Thank you Jessica for your support. 

Proud Pelican

11x14 oil painting.

I am going to put him in the Sister Kenny Rehabilitation Institute Art Show that's coming in May.

Grand Opening Thursday, May 2, 2013

5 to 8pm

Sister Kenny Rehabilitation Insstitute

800 East 28th Street

Minneapolis, MN  55407-399

Show runs from May 2 - May 24, 2013.

Hope to see you there.

Magnets

I now have magnets with images of my paintings.

So I was looking on etsy, and seeing all these cute marble magnets and thought I'd give it a try. First I tried regular computer paper, but then I tried card stock, and that worked much better. I used mod podge to seal the picture before glueing it onto the marble. Bought some good 3/4" button magnets and E600 glue. I think they turned out good. I like them. I have Splendor In the Meadow magnet for sale at my etsy shop http://luvs2paint.etsy.com/ and will be posting more every day.

Pink

These are my latest two aceo's I did. Why are they pink, you ask? They are for a charity auction for Breastcancer, and they are suppose to be pink. I came up with these two ideas. First I created the bird, named it PRETTY IN PINK, then I came across a picture of this tiger we took at the zoo, and couldn't reisist creating this PINK TIGER.

Rooster aceo

I love the colors of this guy. This is oil on watercolor paper, aceo size. ACEO stands for Art Cards Editions and Originals. They are 3.5x2.5 inches, and they make affordable, addorable mini works of art. Can be framed, displayed on a mini easle or added to your collection.

You can find Rooster aceo at http://www.brendathour.com/

WWAO July Showcase

WWAO July Showcase
Every month, a member of WWAO (World Wide Women Artists Online) hosts a themed showcase. This months theme is 'My Favorite Works', hosted by Noelle Hunt. She did a fantastic job, I hope you will take the time to view all the beautiful works of art. Clink on the link to view this months showcase.
http://wickeddollz.angelfire.com/WWAO.html