Monday, March 18, 2019

Gesundheit and Stock Up on the Tissues


It has been a week now and I'm still yawning and trying to adjust to daylight savings time.  Here I am at 3:00 am not being able to sleep and so I'm here making stickers and thinking about blog posts.  Spring is certainly arrived with it's high pollen count and gusty winds so I'm taking preventive measures to head off any allergy side effects.  Hopefully I will be successful in that and stave off all that sneezing.


Other than allergies, spring is such an amazing time of year.  I grew up as a child in the Ozark hills of Missouri and the transformation that happens from the gray of winter to the vast color palette of spring is awe inspiring. 

Here in Las Vegas the transformation isn't as noticeable. I do have three chaste trees (vitex) in my yard and sometime in the month of April they are covered in brilliant lavender flowers that resemble the shape of lilac blossoms.  It only last about a week but for that week my yard is amazing. Oh how I miss the sight of the dogwood trees in bloom.  I am going to have to research doing a piece or two that features that beautiful tree.

Anyway, back to original blogging plan, which was to introduce these stickers sheets I designed with spring in mind.  They are a total of 111 stickers here and I had so much fun designing them.  Unlike most of my stickers, I used royalty free images in the designs.  I usually try to focus on my own original artwork but I think this spring set has only the chick that comes directly from my sketchbook. 

I made the 4 sheets available on my Etsy shop as a digital download so that you can print them out at your leisure.  I have provided the link below if you are interested in checking it out.  If you are working on your planner and need something new than you had best hurry and download this file because SPRING IS UPON US! 
So grab the tissue box and get ready to say
"GESUNDHEIT!"


Spring Flower Sticker Etsy Listing







Sunday, March 10, 2019

They Keep Messing with Me?


This is like a cruel joke that gets played on you every six months jut to mess with you.  I don't know which I hate more, the end of day light savings or it's beginning each year.  They both have their unique mind messing properties. 

So today will be a busy day with church,  bridal showers and family dinners and most likely I will need an extra cup of coffee just to keep my eyelids open.  Somewhere in there I have to squeeze in the time for baking my mothers blackberry cobbler.  So my day is full as us my coffee cup,

I hope you enjoy both of my little memes I've come up with.  The coffee pot one is available as a magnet and I have a t-shirt with the same theme on my Etsy Shop.  Go check them out.

Magnet Link

T-shirt Link






Saturday, March 9, 2019

Good Morning Glory

It is a glorious morning to celebrate one of my favorite flowers, the Morning Glory.  I have for several years now been featuring this cheerful annual by giving it a grandiloquent presence in a number of my paintings and now drawings.  This flower is one of several flowers that has strong memories of childhood affiliated with it and beside who can resist this cheery morning flower.

I just read that I can grow morning glories in a container and so today I'm off to the home improvement store to purchase a pack of seeds and a few color flowers to accent the front of my home.  I'm so excited at the prospect of once again enjoying these climbing beauties and yet having them contained as not to get out of hand.  They will be my inspiration in a pot during the hot summer months that are coming.

Whither you want to see them or not, this is where I'm going to share just a few of my MORNING GLORY artwork work with you.  READY OR NOT, HERE THEY COME!

These first three photos are taken while the artwork is still in my sketchbook.  These pieces are drawn using Prismacolor pencils and pen and ink.  All have been done in the just the past 2 weeks.  I'm currently working on a large canvas piece that features a small jersey calf lying on the ground just in front of a huge cluster of morning glories.  This piece has been a challenge because of the size and shear number of flowers and leaves needed to pull it off.  Drawing in my sketchbook helps me be a better painter and besides these three drawings stand on their own as cute artwork.



The next five pieces are all paintings that I have complete over the past 2 years for a series of work the I call "Down Country Roads".  Each large piece features a different farm animals standing near a fence covered in bright blue morning glories.  Of these five pieces shown here in this blog post, only the last one featuring the trio of noisy geese in "Neighborhood Watch Committee" is available as an original.  I can make prints but they have all been sold and have found new homes.

If you like my artwork and are on Facebook, you might consider following my art studio page.  I always post my newest work there and on Instagram first.
@JulieTownsendStudio