What the witches brew concocted...

The top painting is on Arches 140 lb. watercolor paper and the paints really did beautifully - especially the walnut one I made which was smooth like butter and very, very rich which is why I used it alone in the very zen-like second painting.  Done in the Sumi-e style, it is simply walnut paint on the handcrafted pampas grass paper I made.  

Hope you enjoyed todays lesson.  = )

My husband thinks I'm a witch! LOL

OK, to be fair, he's not entirely off base.

I mean, on the front door, we have this smartass window sticker we bought when in Glastonbury (UK) this past fall that's a spin on the Neighborhood Watch signs that every good whitebread neighborhood posts.  Ours reads "Neighborhood Witch." 

Then, there's the pot of pampas grass boiling in the big corn pot on the stove.  You can't smell it, but there's a definite scent of Fels Naptha Brown Soap wafting in the air. 

And finally, there's these glass jars of liquid on the dining room table, shown above.  To the uninitiated, they COULD resemble witches tinctures and such. If you look closer, though, and are familiar with the color chart below, you'll figure out that they are artists paints.  Mine though are non-toxic, environmentally pure as the driven snow, and all natural.  Really. 

You see, I'm entering a juried art show this coming weekend where the emphasis is on "green" - the movement not the color.  So... I figured what better way to "represent" than to create works using all-green materials, right?  And as you can see from the chart, I do have an array of colors to work with, though, ironically, there's a dearth of green in these...

Oh, and the pampas grass boiling on the stove?  It's for the paper to paint on, silly!