Summer Peach

Peachy Dew Drops I

by Artist Rita Squier

Original Watercolor Painting

ACEO Art Card

Size: 2.5 x 3.5 inches

Summertime is a great time for peaches! I think my next dew drop painting ought to be of a peach with dew drops on it!

Tuesday's Tips and Techniques for Watercolor Painting

Make the Summer Last

Takes lots of photos now to use over the long winter as inspiration. Flowers are a great pick me up on a cold winter day. Start preparing yourself now with a ton of great summer fun and fancy free photos. Daisies will brighten any winter day.

Cranberries

Cranberry Orange Dew Drops

by Artist Rita Squier

Original Watercolor Painting

ACEO Art Card

Size: 2.5 x 3.5 inches

The summer is dwindling down and I hope it lasts a little longer this year. I'm reminded it's soon time for cranberry season!

Rural New York

Seen Better Days

by Michael Squier

Original Watercolor with Pen and Ink

Size: 11 x 15 inch

I have been teaching watercolor painting classes for a number of years now. After a few years of teaching, my husband started taking my classes. He enjoys sketching old barns in india ink and coloring them with watercolors.

We do a lot of traveling to and from the Adirondacks. One day instead of taking the thruway, we decided to set our GPS to shortest route to see where the roads would take us. Instead of a 3 hour drive, I think it took us 7 hours. Joining us on this adventure in the backseat of our convertible were our dog and cat. They too, thankfully, enjoyed the ride. We travelled through rural upstate New York. It is beautiful farm country. I took tons of photos of beautiful scenery, mainly farms. It is amazing the sites you miss by traveling the highways. Upstate New York is filled with tons of farms. Many of which have seen better days, including the one shown here in this watercolor painting. Seeing the sites of these farms, makes one think. You really should support your local farmers by purchasing locally grown produce and products they offer from honey, to syrup, to wool and more.

It's Official - One Year on Etsy

Orange Glow

by Artist Rita Squier

Original Watercolor Painting

Size: 11 x 15 inches

Today we have had our art on display and for sale on Etsy for one year. It has definitely been fun learning the ins and outs of selling our original fine art and designs on Etsy. It's a great place to buy art directly from the artists themselves.

We are celebrating with a 10% off everything in our shop sale this weekend. Please come and take a look, give our shop and items some love. Perhaps there is something there that catches your eye that you just have to have!

http://squier.etsy.com

End of Summer Art Sale

Adrift

by Watercolor Artist Rita Squier

Original Watercolor Painting

Size: 10 x 14 inches

Celebrating One Year on Etsy!

For those who have missed me at various art fairs over the summer I have decided to combine my End of Summer Art Sale with my One Year Etsy-versary Sale. This weekend I am offering 10% off all items in my Etsy Shop. The items included matted to 16x20 inch watercolors, collectible ACEO art cards, 5x7 watercolors, commissioned watercolor paintings, banners and more.

This weekend celebrate with me my first year of selling my art on Etsy.

Tuesday's Tips and Techniques for Watercolor Painting

The Great Outdoors

Where did the summer go? Can you believe it is already the middle of August? My tip for today is simple. Get outdoors and enjoy the summer weather. Put together a little plein air watercolor kit, get out side and spend a morning or the afternoon simply painting the great outdoors. Before you know it summer will be over and you still may not have gotten the chance to paint watercolors or nature itself right out there amongst the trees, the water, the birds ... okay the insects too. Paint nature in the middle of nature itself.

Summertime

Watermelon

by Artist Rita Squier

Original Watercolor Painting

Size: 11 x 15 inches

Watermelon a symbol of summer.

Tuesday's Tips & Techniques for Watercolor Painting

Matting Little Works

ACEO = Art Cards, Editions and Originals.

ATC = Artist Trading Card

An ACEO and an ATC are generally the same thing. A small work of art in any medium, the size must be 2.5 x 3.5 inches. Some are prints in either open or limited editions and some are original works of art.

These adorable and highly collectable little works of art look cute framed in a small frame. They also look very chic and contemporary matted and framed to fit a standard 8 x 10 inch frame.

Vacation

On Vacation in the Adirondacks

Chloe, the protector of all packages and bank deposits. It's a tough job riding to the post office and the bank everyday, but someone's gotta do it. Soaking up some relaxation in the great outdoors.

Tuesday's Tips and Techniques for Watercolor Painting

Choose Your Colors First

When working on a watercolor painting, it is a good idea to think ahead about what colors you want to use. Choose your colors before you put a brush to paper. If you are planning to paint a large area make sure you create a generous puddle of color or colors.

Here on my palette, I have ready to go primary red magenta, permanent violet bluish and ultramarine blue. I have even mixed a bit of the blue and purple together on my palette. Some colors I like to premix on the palette others I like to make sure I have enough of the color to use but will mix them on my paper.

Little Yellow Flowers

Whisper

by Artist Rita Squier

Original Watercolor Painting

Size: 2.5 x 3.5 inches

ACEO, Art Card

A cute little painting of little yellow flowers to brighten up any little space. I love to paint these miniature little paintings. Everyone needs a little piece of original art. You can find a bunch of my original watercolor art cards in my Etsy shop.

• SOLD

What a Difference a Day Makes

Late yesterday morning, I posted to my blog, took care of a little business, attended an Etsy lab in the Virtual Labs at noon time. The whole time it was raining. At one o'clock, when the lab was over, we looked out the window and low and behold our street was flooded!

Instead of spending the afternoon painting watercolors as I had hoped to do, we spent our time creating a water barrier out of bags of mulch and logs of damaged tree limbs cut from last December's ice storm. There is something to be said about not getting around to doing the things you planned to do. Our dozen bags of mulch, piled and waiting to be spread over the gardens, were used in place of sand bags to keep water from coming near our house. Our street is relatively flat until you get to our driveway. Our property ever so slightly tilts downward. The outlet to the river in the street was across my side lawn. If we had spread the mulch earlier in the summer, we would no longer have any mulch. It would have all washed away. Plus we would not have been able to stop the water from pouring into our basement.

The river only lasted a few hours, by evening things were back to normal. The street was once again a street.

I am so happy the sun is shining today!