Eclectic Studio - Tammy Morrison-Koenig

I came across this article that i thought I would share. Simple amazing. http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1203226/Pictured-Incredible-watercolour-paintings-boy-aged-just-SIX.html People ask me all the time where I find the time to paint while raising my kids. They have been told since they were young that if they want to eat- dad's gotta work. If you want to go to college mom's gotta work. LOL ;) No seriously, art/craft supplies are stashed in every nook and cranny of the house. I even utilize the kids finger paints for the bath. Shhhh! They are never the wiser if you wash your creations away. I paint at my kitchen table while the kids are eating. I incorporate learning time/ craft time into our daily schedules. While I am painting i teach colors, shapes, numbers etc. I also tend to work in watercolor and pencil/ink for the majority of my work during the week, I have wrecked to many brushes because of having to drop everything to deal with bubba's, bum's and mel

Finally got enough courage to enter a competition and would appreciate your support in voting for my March of the Clowns Painting. Tammy's entry on the Winsor Newton Artists' Acrylic Competition. You can vote for them here!

  This is one of my most helpful tips - create color cards. I have about 100 of these tiny 5*7 reference cards that show different color mixes under different circumstances. Some for people, landscapes, floral etc. This one represents some caucasian skin tone color mixes. There are alot of people out there that use Cadmium red in their mixes but i find that it doesnt lend it self to glazing well and it is a pretty strong color. If I use it it is usually right at the end for detailing.

So I thought I would share a few things with you today. 1. Are some beautiful pictures of the whore frost we have been getting lately. You will have to excuse the power lines.. but i just wanted to show you the difference lighting can make.

This is what happens when a painting paints itself. I started this little piece by wetting my paper and just dropping in some color. reserving some lights - as the darks I can always paint in later. Let it dry. Now it is just rotating your picture until you see pattern you like and start "carving" the image out. This painting started out as a 6*6 and ended up beign an art card size. I will probaby use the extra in either a scrap booking page or a collage.

Hi everyone, Im stil here, just trying to pack up the rest of the house. T - 2.5 weeks and counting. We are moving to a much bigger and most importantly brighter home. So inbetween the baby starting to crawl and now climb all the boxes i have scattered all over the house the 2 year old is stressed because she has no room to move.. it is turning into choas.. lol I am working on a lesson on "negativity" so stay tuned.

Just doodling and this what I came up with- I thought it was done after the first shot but it needed atmosphere to go along with mood. So i added some bushes in the front, and yet it was still missing something- so i went back in added the fence and deepened the shadows a little. Im thinking the shadow behind him is a little off it should be taller abd skinnier and sitting more off to the right a little - but oh well. One of the joys of watercolor is it is very hard to correct mistakes. These little paintings start out with a few simple Random brush strokes on a comination of wet/dry paper, I let them dry and them find pattern with in what was and work with it. That way your brain has the chance to switch over to the left and paint "what you see.. not what you think you see" Thank you Betty Edwards ;) These are my versions thumbnails.

When i started painting i was overwhelmed with the amount of tube color out there. But I soon came to find the best color mixes are the ones you make yourselves. Greens are a prime example of this. One day I was bored and pulled out every watercolor in my paint box and do a simple color chart. This color chart is very valuable when it comes to seeing the saturation, opacity, staining quality, and any special notes or qualities that the color may have. But out of this rainbow I only use the first 11 colors on a regular basis, adding an exotic color every once in a while just to switch it up a bit. A palette is such a personal choice and not all people will be drawn to using certain colors, I use palette because of its simplicity. A warm and cool of each color and neutral mixer (burnt sienna). I am looking at switching my warm red from napthol (grumbacher) red to more of a transparent. When I was working on March of the clowns I found that this red was NOT a good glazier as it seemed to