Spring in Seattle

Found these two at a local doggy park.

I loved seeing these cherry blossoms all over the place near the Seattle area. 

I couldn't believe how spring like it was there. We must be at least two to three weeks behind them in Montana. 

I think that these cherry blossoms will have to be painted for my living room. I'll keep you all updated on that one.

We had to do a bit of kite flying while we were there of course!

These next three photos where taken at the Snoqualmie Falls just east of Seattle

near the Salish Lodge & Spa.

My Meadow Lark

This is a series that I have started to include all Montana State birds!

I sketched, hand carved and stamped on archival watercolor paper. Then painted watercolor over the top and used an ink dipped pen to sign Meadow Lark on it. I am thinking of doing this as a limited edition of 50 of each bird. To help make them much more valuable. 

Making an Impression

I have been following this amazing watercolor artist for about a year now named Geninne Zlatkis. She has an amazing blog and recently wrote this fantastic book that is worth every dime! She made a suggestion in her book to make tags out of hand carved stamps. I used a fragile stamp that I made a while ago for my etsy flat mailers. Which I was using block ink for. I decided to purchase some pigment ink instead and make these tags for gifts. A direct inspiration from Geninnes' book Making an Impression.  It's full of so many of her own designs and ideas for you to explore your own imagination. She even encourages you to go for a walk and get renewed by your own surroundings to be inspired for your designs. I love that about her book! Well she has certainly inspired me to make my own impression. 

I was limited to the stamps that I could make because I have only a few colors now and green was one of them. So, I thought why not make a kiwi! I also had black so I made the seeds too. They really turned out too big but I think that the affect is kinda cool though.

Thank you Geninne for writing this amazing book and being such a huge inspiration to me and so many others!

The Columbia Gorge

Check out the Columbia River Gorge on your next road trip.

This was a great pit stop on the way to Seattle for our Spring Break this week. The view was amazing and on the left hand side you'll find a massive sculpture of the wild horses in that reserve.