mini cupcakes

My first painting after the portraits. Bright and edible! Exactly what I wanted to paint! These little mini's were homemade by my mom for my birthday. I had to take a picture so I could paint them later on. I need to get a picture of this hung, because it is one of my paintings where I continued it onto the side and it looks really cool!

Fortune Cookie Break!

I had to take a break in between painting portraits and this is what I came up with! I LOVE it! Could be the fact that it doesn't have a face, haha or maybe my love for chinese food?! It was just really fun to paint. My favorite part is that when I was done painting them I opened up the cookie and no lie the fortune said: "happiness lies in the joy of achievement and the thrill of creative effort"
how cool is that?!?

All 3

This was the one that I've been working on for what seemed like FOREVER. I am really happy with it though. I figured out while painting this that I definitely enjoy doing my smaller scale pieces better than larger ones. I think I just get bored looking at the same thing for too long and I also just love the feeling of finishing. So when I work on something that just seems like I will never finish it gets a bit daunting. I am happy that I stuck with it the way that I did and I have to say it is probably my best portrait(s) so far. I really think that the entire piece works really well together. Tighter in some places, looser in others.
It was finally shipped today and it feels great!

This painting is 18 x 24 inches, the small ones are 6 x 8.

3 Seperate Portraits

This is what has really been keeping me busy! A commission to do 3 seperate portraits and then one large scale portrait of all three kids together. Portraits are fun but A LOT of work. Definitely something I would only want to do a couple of times a year!
I really enjoyed the one of the little girl. It was great to do a painting that was less serious, which all of these were, but that one even more so. I would much rather paint goofy faces then the normal posed ones. I also really like the way the hair came out in the oldest boy. I felt like I stayed looser with it. When I wanted to go in and mess with it more, I stopped myself and I like that about it.

Baby Fenway

Sandy and Merlin's nephew, Fenway! This is my best friends puppy. Fun to paint because he is so fluffy and cute!

doggies

So...what have I been up to! So much!! These were commissioned by my best friends dad as a gift for her mom. It was fun since I had grown up with these dogs. I think that the one of Sandy (the more red of the two) is fun because it captures how happy and tolerant of anything he was. The one of Merlin (the more golden) is great because it just captured him in his hyper playing state.
They were fun!

Last Cardinal

I finished all of my paintings....and I just didn't feel done. I was really drawn to painting a cardinal on something larger than the 6 inch squares. So right when I was about to put down the brush I got back to work! This one is roughly 6 by 12 inches. I really like it, I feel like I was a bit looser with it and it's probably cause the stress of finishing was gone! It is still available and it is 200.

Bluebird in Berries

This is the largest of the birds. It is a one foot square. I think my favorite birds to paint are chickadees and bluebirds. Both so fat and cute! This one is sold.

Dark Eyed Junco

This was the second large one I did. It is a dark eyed junco and I think he's so cute!! I enjoyed this painting a lot and it's one of my favorites. It is still available and it's 250.00 if anyone is interested.

The Rest!

Finally decided to put the rest of my birds up. I ended up selling 2 of the other ones that I had posted before my show so I decided to wait until after opening night to put up the rest so I would have some available for that night!
These ones are the rest of the 6 x 6 inch birds which are 100 a piece. Many have sold and will probably continue but if you are interested in any, please email me: awatters9@yahoo.com. From the top, they are: Towhee, Robin, Redpoll, Indigo Bunting, House Finch, Red Breasted Grosbeak, Goldfinch, Chickadee, Bluejay and Baltimore Oriole.

Birds so far

Here are the birds I have so far (well the ones that were dry enough to scan)
Starting at the top: Winter bluebird, Downy Woodpecker, House Wren, Tufted Titmouse,
Spring Bluebird, Red Breasted Nuthatch, Female Cardinal and finally a male Cardinal.

Chickadee in Mist

As I said before the bird show is coming! The final decision on a date was made! It will be up from February 26th-March 26th at the same location as last year, Scribe Paper and Gift in the Hamilton Shopping Plaza, South Hamilton, MA. This year I am excited to be having an opening reception!! It will be on it's first day, Thursday, Feb 26th from 6 - 9 pm. If you are around, definitely stop by. I'll be serving refreshments and light snacks. It will also be an opportunity for purchasing prints, handmade greeting cards and my famous bird calendars. Keep checking back to preview the paintings. I will be adding more and more as I finish them.

fluffy chihuahuas

These guys were a commission I got and they were definitely fun! So cute!!!

Hot Cake Fashion

Here is a link to a page where I was featured as artist of the month! Alice Rooslien, who runs the site, contacted me about featuring my art on her page. The name of the site is Hot Cake Fashion, so she thought my painting of a piece of cake would be great for it! The site is based on fashion and design. It gives tips on what to wear, budgets, how to get yourself out there and more. It's a nice site and now she is getting involved in all different types of art and how to succeed at what you love. So thank you to Alice and please check out my feature and the rest of her site!
fashion forum
On the right hand side click on how to make a living with your art, and then scroll down to recent blog posts and click on artist of the month, December.

last two Christmas Commissions

My last two commissions

last of the silverware

I just found this last silverware image that never got posted. I really like this one so I wanted to get it on here. When I took all of the silverware out of the store in December I ended up hanging them in my kitchen and it looks pretty awesome!

Two more clocks

These were two more Christmas presents and of course with the holidays I didn't manage to get a finished picture with the clock hands. The birds just had black hands to compliment the painting but I used bright orange/red hands on the cookie clock which looked really cool! Funky and bright!

finch clock

This was a Christmas present for my boyfriend's parents. His dad made me a ton of great wood panels like this and I couldn't be more thankful! They look great with the paintings finished onto the sides and eliminate the need to frame. They also create a hollow space in the back that make it easy to drill a hole in the wood and make an awesome clock! This was fun and I hope to make a whole bunch of different clocks later this year.

Eric's Bike

This one was also a fun one. It's nice to get commissions because they make you paint things that you normally wouldn't. This is my best friend's brother's bike. He had been wanting one of my paintings forever so she decided to have me do one for him for Christmas. He loves to bike and has a really nice one so we thought that would be a good subject. It was really fun to paint, challenging with all the lines and lettering but in a good way.

Paper Crane

This was also a commission from November. When I got the job I was really excited about painting origami. I thought, what a fun and different thing for me! Once I got started it completely brought me back to my very first drawing class in high school! I had completely forgotten, but that was our first assignment! It really is a great assignment for a drawing class because it makes you look to see where lines are coming and going without getting to confusing. I have to say it was quite a bit harder than I expected. Getting the paint to do what I wanted with this one was difficult, but in the end I think it came out pretty cool.

Rondo

A commission I did back in November. I'm not really a fan of crows, in fact I kinda hate them...long story...anyways going into this painting I was a little worried about my feelings towards crows getting in the way but I have to say I LOVED painting this! There was something really fun about getting all of the different colors in the black feathers, which is probably hard to see in the digital image. I also liked the simplicity of the composition and background (which is what the client wanted). It is a one foot square and really holds it's own when displayed.

Birds in 2009!

So let's see, maybe a couple of months since I last posted! Ugh! sorry! Today, I'm catching up!
After many requests, there will be another bird show this winter. Now that the holidays are finally over I can get to work! I am aiming at February 19th as the opening date, but there will be more information as the date draws closer. Here are a few to preview.
Last years show consisted of only winter bird scenes, but this year will be a mix. Most likely I will end up with more winter birds anyways because I do like my birds fat! haha, but the goal is to have a little bit of everything. If you would like to be added to my mailing list to receive a postcard please email me your contact info. awatters9@yahoo.com
thanks!

spooky painting

I am making some halloween cards and decided that I wanted something spookier than my pumpkin paintings to put on them. So I painted a spider. Yuk!!! I hate spiders and this was a really weird thing to paint. I now have the painting flipped over in my studio because it was scaring me everytime I walked in! I need to get it in the store and try to sell it! I don't want it!! haha. It is one of my small paintings, 6 x 6 inches so if anyone is interested, it is 100.00. Just email me.
I think overall though, it must have come out good since I can't even stand to look at it! haha

knife on red

I hadn't done much with the knives, and I actually had a lot of fun with this one. I liked the scrolly design at the bottom of the handle. I also think I have a lot of fun using these little scraps of wood, they make for really cute paintings. This one is only about 1.5 inches wide!

fork and spoon on long green

This one is 6 x 18 inches roughly. It is an interesting composition and I'm still not sure whether I want it upright like this or on it's side. I originally painted it on it's side but when I was done, I turned it to get it out of my way and really liked what I saw. I haven't painted much in the last two weeks....I think the silverware is just getting boring for me. I have another one to post that I have already done, but I think I might just do one or two more to finish the series, there is no point in doing a lot more, if it isn't exciting me.

Foster Landscape

A recent commission I just finised for someone. This was done on a 6 x 8 inch panel with the nice wood sides, so I continued the painting onto the edges. It came out really cool! I hope to soon switch over to doing all of my larger paintings on these. I think that it looks very professional and I love the way they stick off the wall a couple inches. Plus, there is no need to frame them!

White Gourds

I finally got to participate in my favorite painter, Karin Jurick's new blog, different strokes by different folks. Each wednesday she posts a photo for whoever wants to take it and make a piece of art with it. Then you email her your work and she will post it on the blog with a link to your site, which is really nice of her! This is her fourth week and I finally had the chance to do it! I am very excited about it because gourds are something that I would normally paint, but the fact that they are on a gray background is HUGE for me. I always stick to bright colors and this showed me that I should really experiment more with the neutrals. It's amazing how many colors you can pull out of neutral colors when you really look at them!
Make sure to check her blog: www.differentstrokesfromdifferentfolks.blogspot.com

spoon on orange

This one is definitely my favorite so far. I love the variation in the background and I'm not even sure how I did it. I just put the color down quick and it pretty much looked like that. Since I liked it so much I tried not to change it much when adding more paint too it. This one is also 6 x 6 inches and when set next to the fork on yellow, creates a great little set.

fork on yellow

Just experimenting with bright colors and how you can mess with them in backgrounds. This one which is 6 x 6 inches pairs well with a similar spoon painting. Overall this series is going to be a lot of different colored backgrounds, so when hung together they will bounce off one another.

Cropped fork on red

This was the first (after Matt & Michelle's silverware) in my silverware series. It's on a teeny piece of wood, only about 1 inch by 6. I'm not sure about the cropping, but I had wanted to try something different. I think it might be a bit harsh on it's own but when mixed with all the other silverware paintings in the show I think it might work.

Matt & Michelle's Silverware

I decided to do a silverware series this fall and before I got a chance to start it I wanted to do a painting for friends of mine that were getting married. Their colors in the kitchen are cobalt and stainless steel so in deciding what I wanted to paint them, I guess I just couldn't get silverware out of my head and it just seemed too perfect to do bright silverware on a cobalt background. So this is my first silverware piece. It is 12" x 12". It was fun to paint them giant. The rest of the silverware I have done since then have been closer to actual size so I'll have to find time to do some more giant ones!

Cupcake Convention

I LOVE to paint Cupcake Cafe's cupcakes! they are so fun! This is a larger painting, roughly 12 x 18 inches. I am really happy with the way it came out! It is hanging in my Bevtown Gallery show right now. The Bevtown Gallery is located at 197 Cabot Street (across from where Bell Market used to be)

Some Fall Landscapes

I really enjoyed doing the small landscapes, so I decided to continue with some fall related ones. I really like the way all of these small landscapes have made me work and I hope they will effect the way I paint a larger one. I will definitely continue to do a few more fall landscapes because the colors are too much fun!

The rest of the mini landscapes

Here are the rest of my mini landscapes series for my show at Bevtown Gallery. I have been so busy getting ready for that and my fair at the Wenham Museum that I haven't been able to put any of them up. Starting from the top: This was found while driving down a road in Wenham on a beautiful puffy cloud day! I loved the reflection that the bright day was creating in the little stream. The next one was a picture I had taken 3 years ago out in Upstate NY. I just think it is so pretty there, especially all the bright red barns that pop out of the beautiful green and yellow landscape. The third one was from a recent trip to Spectacle Island off of Boston Harbor. Another beautiful "puffy cloud day"! The next barn was one I had passed right after a crazy storm while driving through pennsylvania. I like the color of the sky as the eerieness was going away. The last one was from a farm up in Woodstock, VT. Just thought the path was so cool.
Thanks for looking, sorry it's been so long!

Clouds

I was having a lot of fun with the clouds in all of my other mini's so I decided to do one that would be more "about" the clouds. This is what I came up with. It was a fun one!

NY Hay

I actually did this painting 10 times this size a couple years ago and I was never happy with it. Doing this version showed me why. I have a harder time getting the loose strokes with big brushes and with all the trees in the background it definitely needs the right kind of strokes.

Appleton Path

This one is definitely my favorite one so far. I feel like I was able to stay really loose. Another great thing about doing these is that if I find that I really love one then it will almost act like a sketch for doing a larger version.

Dodge Street Barn

I have been driving past this barn for over a year now. It is along my beautiful drive to work. I took some pictures of it last summer and just now got around to attacking it. I think doing these small landscapes will give me the opportunity to tackle landscapes that i've been trying to do and just never get around to.

Appleton Tree

The first in my mini landscape series. I've always been a bit scared about doing a landscape on one of my 6 x 6 panels. It just seemed crazy to do something so large on something so small! I am so glad I finally took the chance! I have done 6 now and they only keep getting better and better. They are making me work much looser since it would be impossible to get all the fine details. I will have a grouping of 9 hanging in my Bevtown Gallery show coming up next month. I was only planning on doing these but I am enjoying them so much I'm sure I will continue to do more.

Hot doooog!

I love this painting!!! so summery! I have always wanted to paint a hot dog with the ketchup all zig zaggy. I finally had some extra left over hot dogs and figured it was time! This will be in Gallery Della-Piana in August.

Strawberry Shortcake

Another cupcake. This one was hard to paint....because I just wanted to eat it!

Jenny's cupcake!

A cupcake I did for a friend. There is a place in my town called Cupcake Cafe and it's amazing! This lady makes all different kinds of delicious cupcakes and they are so fun to paint!!! as well as eat! I look forward to painting some more.

daily paintings

Here are a bunch of new 6 x 6 daily paintings. They were in beverly arts fest a few weeks ago.

sprinkle cookies

I love these cookies! They are soooo good! Super soft, lots of frosting, it's almost like eating a flat cupcake! They were a lot of fun to paint and I love all the colors. I added some crumbs to this painting, my Nana had given me the idea, and I'm glad I listened!

NYC cookies

So I definitely haven't kept the updating going as I'd hoped but here are some of my new ones. These are two black & white cookies I got in grand central station back on Mother's Day. I knew they would be a ton of fun to paint, it was hard though because I really wanted to eat them!

M&M cookies 2

My second painting a day for my June show. I'm on a cookie kick right now. I also have one of some black & white cookies and some yellow frosted cookies. They'll be showing up as soon as they are dry enough to be scanned.
I painted these M&M cookies last year when I was doing a painting a day, so it was fun to do them again a year later and see how much easier it was.

Rylee's Alphabet

This was the finished gift. They looked cute all tied together

Little Sweets

The first of my new painting a day series. I have the beverly arts fest coming up at the end of June and I want to have many small painting a days for it.

Rylee's Alphabet

So this is what I've been busy with. My good friends just had their first baby, a beautiful little girl. I've been very excited since I hadn't had any friends with kids yet. I really wanted to paint something special for her room and ended up doing these. The "A is for apple" concept. Possibly a little over done, but it's always fun to put a fresh spin on an old favorite. I enjoyed doing these so much and I think I might have come up with something really great. I plan to keep working on building an alphabet and we'll see where it takes me, but it would make a nice little company for small gift shops to carry.

Sugar Star

This was a commissioned piece that I ended up really liking. I definitely think it's my best sea piece yet