Eclectic Studio - Tammy Morrison-Koenig

  Some big changes have happened to my family through the holiday, I was offered an incredible position in the location were we vacation. But this move involves leaving my husband and kids behind until the house sells. #stressful Thankfully I am able to get home regularly. So without the chaos of family life I have had a lot of quiet time on my hands, so to fill my time I try and get out hiking as much as possible.  This community offers plenty of trails in town and even more within a short drive. The Community Forest is an amazing place to go for a walk, offering plenty of trails to discover. Yesterday while I was out I took the opportunity to snap a few shots for my reference library and thought I would share. Hope you enjoy.

I created this old sailor painting in my watercolor journal using a limited watercolor palette, black and white gel pens and a waterpen pen. Waterpens are plastic cartridge pens with plastic or synthetic bristles that are filled with water and work well in a travel journal. But when you are use to professional supplies these take a little bit to get use to as nothing beats beautiful sables, but sables do not transport well in my travel bag, and transporting a water supply is a pain.  Not a great painting, but I really love the play of lights against darks. 

We came across this old car rotting in the woods at Cottonwood Lake BC. It seemed to have run off the road, rolled, and came to rest at the bottom of the gully. Its motor was found a few feet from the vehicle and I'm sure this old car definatly has a story to tell. Feel free to use this pictures in your work, but please give credit where credit is due.

I have decided to post some of my reference photos free for you all to use in your work. These are some lovely wild sunflowers growing in the fields out by the ball diamonds in Fort Macleod, Alberta.  This little gopher was trying to photo bomb my other shots so I had to include him in this batch. If you choose to use any of these photos in your art  I would love it if you could link back. Thanks, I really appreciate it.

A few artists are very good at blogging – I am not. I get overwhelmed by creating valuable content, how often to blog, and whether blogging can be effective for artists. When we look at creating content we need to first identify: What is the objective of an artist blog? I am sure that every artist has unique objectives, but I can almost guarantee we are all blogging to create an online presence and drive traffic to our art websites so we can land a sale. When developing content we should keep in mind that y our online art gallery is a place to showcase your art, but your artist blog makes it easy for people to find you in Google’s search. Put your time and effort into what will help you to reach your unique goals. If your goal is to sell art prints, put your effort into what will help you to sell more art prints. If your goal is to sell a watercolor painting, put your effort into strategies that will help you to sell your watercolor painting. If your goals are ...

A rt has always played a major part in my life. Whether it be grabbing a sheet of printer paper and pen, some charcoal and wood or if I am really lucky I can find time for a brush and canvas, I have always used art both as a therapy and as a gauge of my mental health. I feel it is very important to find 1 hour a day to focus on your personal well being. I don't consider it selfish or negative. Our lives get so crazy and easily become of control that I find it an essential part of my emotional health and I am very lucky to have someone in my life that recognizes that.   I find 20 minutes hour a day of uninterrupted time when I take lunch. I drive down to the river, and either grab my running shoes and zip around a quick 2.5km trail or I crank up the stereo and grab my travel sketch bag. I take this kit everywhere. It contains the essentials for my style of sketching which is not really fancy, is easy to transport and knows how to get the job done. I emphasize ...

Can't you just feel the wind in your hair and the bugs in your teeth? I bet your this Golden Lab can feel just that driving down the open road, and he is enjoying every moment.  6* 8 in Acrylic on canvas board $135 CAD includes shipping 

8*10 wrapped canvas Acrylic pouring is an exciting, unpredictable painting technique that doesn't involve brushes and can provide you with finished paintings or interesting backgrounds for additional techniques such as this one. Here is another revamped failed pour painting that after the addition of ink and watercolor it transformed it into something spectacular. Carefully places accents help to acentuate the.hair and weathered face of this individual.  I also tried really hard not to cover all of the beautiful background instead using the texture to my advantage. I LOVE this painting, it has everything I look for in a self-critic of my work, contrast, color, spontaneity, interest, lost and found edges. I hope this inspires you to try something new. If you found this of interest remember sharing is caring. 

Happy New Year to you all.  Where does the time go? From Mid September to the first week of January it is non stop around here trying to fulfill orders, make gifts, bake, visit, concerts... you know the holiday routine. Ahhh Now all I want to do is just sit, have a cup of tea and of course think about my next project. Well ever since my baby girl got sick a few years ago with severe food allergies to casein (milk protein) and egg whites, it has flipped everything we knew about the world we lived in upside down. We are now required to read EVERY LABLE, whether it is a whole food or not, you would be scared to know just how lax the labeling requirements are for the food we consume. Vaccinations are touch and go and even the products we use on our body is extremely dangerous in most cases. So in order to face this challenge head on, we have taken control of what we put in our body by making 95% of the food we eat from scratch and grow it when ever possible. We have also learned ...

I am a little behind in my posting. This is one of the pieces I completed for the Christmas commission I received and haven't got around to getting up here yet. This aceo (art card edition and originals) is of a country farm in the fall. It measures 2.5 * 3.5 inch and was created on 140lb CP arches using artist grade watercolors. Hope you enjoy.

My wonderful husband stuck a cheap watercolor set in my stocking this year. More for a travel kit than for any serious work but it made me realize how easy working with the right supplies can make your job, especially in watercolors. An inexpensive paper has no real absorbancy and your colors don't flow or mingle like they should. Considering this, the painting style and application of paint to the surface has to reflect these limitations. These few paintings were done in a direct painting style as this paper did not accept washes or glazes well. These are a few of my attempts, hope you enjoy.

This painting practically painted its self. Using a value study as an underpainting to your watercolor is an easy way to paint any subject. This portrait used water-soluble markers to apply washes of color. by using color left on your water pen you can bounce some softer transitions this is also another way to control your hard and soft edges in a painting.  After applying the first washes of darks I went back in with a few washes of color to bring this lady to life. The best part is that the shading was already taken care of for you. I hope you take this opportunity to practice a variety of painting techniques. Hope you enjoy. Merry Christmas everyone.

Christmas - My second favorite time of the year. Every year we try and add some homemade decorations and after perusing Pinterest I saw this awesome image of Santa and just fell in love with it. Pottery Barn did theirs in silver glitter and Bower Power did theirs in red glitter. Hmmm. 2 young children and a bowl full of glitter is just asking for problems so I did his image in the traditional red and white. I love how he turned out and a wonderful addition to our Christmas decor. He is quite large measuring 2ft * 2ft on a 2inch gallery stretched canvas. Hope you enjoy

Hi everyone and Happy Thanksgiving to all my American friends and family. We have been busy getting ready for the Christmas season, decorating, sewing, baking. It just seems like it is never ending, just when you think you are ahead of the game another project pops up. Well, this project is a collaboration project. My aunt (a major inspiration in my creative life) has asked me to design a couple of zentangled quilt blocks to be used in one of her famous quilting projects. These are the first few, hope you enjoy. They measure 4.75 * 4.75 inch and are done on cotton fabric with micron pigment pens. fish, button, flower and recessed blocks cupcakes, braids and beads flowers and leaves tracks, tentacles, wovens

This week I decided that our family photo wall needed some updating and maybe a little color so I got to work on these 2 photos of my babies. Somewhere between a scrapbook page and a journal page done with a black and white copy of the photo mod podged to a 4* 6 canvas board. I embellished these with puffy paint, markers, acrylics, stamps, paper cutouts and some mod podge. Hope this inspires you to have a little fun with those family photos.

My daughter needed a lunch bag for school and so I went shopping, but anything pretty was incredibly overpriced for what you get, and being in kindergarten I know we will be going through at least 3 during the year. So while I was at the dollar store I found this "blank canvas", grabbed my fabric markers and turned it into what looks like a designer bag. My girl is so happy, even though it's not pink. ;) Hope this inspires you to turn something boring into something beautiful.

It has been a long time since I posted a demo so I will take this opportunity and share with you my latest commission. This is Maia, her wonderful husband asked me to paint this gorgeous picture of his wife as a surprise for her birthday. Awe isn't he just so sweet. I have known this couple for many years and was so honoured when asked, and in all reality who could pass up such a beautiful model. :D Step 1: This is the third workup of the line drawing hence the 2 pieces of paper taped together, nothing fancy here. So I waited for a nice bright day taped her to the window and transferred her to my watercolor paper. The hard part is over. I think that probably my most challenging aspect of this project was the fact that I knew this lady and wanted to do her justice. Stage 2: Lets add color. So in this stage I masked out some key highlights, like the glints of lights from the underskirt and earring, and eyes. The other highlights, like the one on her shoulder I could work around be...

Some of you have already sent your little ones off to school... we are doing the big count down to the first day of Kindergarden. YEAH!!! So while "B" is working on her school prep mom is sitting at her easle painting up a new aceo. This one features an african woman carrying her wares off to market. It measures 2.5 * 3.5 in watercolor on 140lb CP arches paper. Hope you enjoy.

These are a few of the small paintings I have been working on this week. Outcroppings was done mixed media with an ink and watercolor wash and old trees on misty lake is a traditional watercolor. Hope you enjoy. :) Click Here For Auction!

Hi everyone, What a long last 6 months. It has been pretty hectic around here with travels and family and I havent had alot of time to do anything as far as market pieces. So to get back in the swing of things I pulled out my pens and waterbrush and sketched a few 10min studies. The first 2 are done on watercolor paper and the dog was done in my moleskin. A few months ago I purchased a couple of sakura waterbrushes and when combined with both a watersoluable ink pen and a permenant ink pen most of the work for me. Hope you enjoy. :)