Art by Niki Hilsabeck

Now that I've gotten a little better handle on gardening (or at least not killing my plants), I find myself doing "plant checks" throughout the day.  I check first to see what's been munched on by the gophers, squirrels, bunnies, hornworms, or whatever else helps itself to my plants.  I also check to see what needs to be deadheaded, what's sprouted, and what needs water.  Sometimes I just like to pull up a gardening mat to sit on and observe the plants.  This is especially fun when new things are sprouting-- if we're not in the middle of a heatwave or a cold snap (rare here in Fallbrook), I usually have new seeds going somewhere. This morning was wet and foggy, so I also got to go out early and look for unique spiderwebs.  I haven't tried painting one yet, but having grown up a fan of Charlotte's Web , I take pictures of the more intricate ones.  The kids and I also do a "wellness check" on our current crop of entertaining bugs and reptiles...

"Mariposa" View on Daily Paintworks   It's spring, and this year that means a few more rain showers, plenty of birds, and  rattlesnakes. It also means time in the garden, along with a spring pastel workshop, which was the artistic  highlight of my month! We painted spring butterflies, and my daughter managed to turn her face green by rubbing her pastel-laden hands all over her face as she worked. Classwork from our Family Art Workshop-- Spring pastels at St. Stephen Lutheran in Fallbrook Learn more here I originally created this piece as a demo for the workshop, and finished it up a bit later at home: "Spring Butterfly" 9 x 12 pastel on paper View on Etsy Spring is a time of renewal, and every year I find myself busy in the springtime.  The days last longer, there are plenty of art events on the calendar, and the weather is much more inviting.  The birds return to familiar nesting spots.  The nights here are still pleasantly cool, and...

Having taken up gardening as a bit of a hobby, I've become quite conscious of those elements of nature that cause trouble: weather, animals, and bugs. "Exposed" 16.5 x 20.5 inches Mixed media on paper Click here to view more details With moths, I'm still not sure which ones are harmless and which ones are going to cause me headaches.  The moth in the painting above arrived on a sunny afternoon, and sat perched against the outside of the house, periodically flexing its wings.  I took plenty of close-up pictures, fascinated by the textures and markings on the wings and body. I knew I wanted to paint this creature in a work using sand, so I felt confident enough to use a palette knife to slap down some paint with decorative sand mixed into it.  Of course, that confidence disappeared over the next few weeks, as I realized I had forgotten how difficult it can be to use sand as a texture in a painting.  I grew to dislike "the moth."  My son also seemed t...

In my first pastel class, I remember learning a basic method of blocking in darks and lights when we started a painting.  Later, the teacher mentioned that pastels are meant to be painted with lights on top of darks. I always seemed to run through my light-colored pastels about twice as quickly as I used my darks, mostly because I felt like I lost my lights as I worked. What I eventually learned was how important those darks were in establishing contrast.   "Jardin" 9 x 12 Chalk pastel on flat canvas Click here to view large or purchase In the painting above, using pastels dipped in water gave them a darker finish, which helped highlight those lighter areas of the piece.  In the following painting, you can see how I got a little too excited about the color and had to work on the darks and lights to rein it back in: Stage 1: Woo hoo!  Color!  Umm, where are the darks?  Stage 2: More darks added  Stage 3: Adding lights on top of d...