Category Archives: Trees

The Creative Gathering, September 2025, Final Week.

This challenge was strenuous for me. In the beginning I painted several times a day, before getting something worth posting. I struggled each day, as I expected I would after not having painted for months. Still, here we are at October, and it feels like September passed in no time at all. Part of the strange time anomaly that happens when you take part in a limited event.
I’m already looking forward to our February 2026 gathering!

I included one piece from last week, in the first series above. So that you could view them together. (4 x 6 inches.) I wanted the collection to be light and airy. But I can see now, I could have gone a bit deeper on some elements, to have more contrast. Another lesson learned this month!

More quick trees, 4 x 6 inches. The technique is so fun, I want to do a large version. A forest!
It will take a lot more practice to get there. 😁

To finish the month, I decided on a graphic series. I worked on them all at the same time. I started with a capital letter. I thought of faith, healing, spirit, and belief. After playing with
design elements, I thought to add more text. Tried to do asemic writing, but mine was coming out too spikey and rigid. Not the mood I wanted. For fun, I thought of a quote by Pooh. I used one in each piece. I veiled them, for a little bit of mystery. A foggy memory you can’t quite recover. It wasn’t as much about the words, as it was about letters, as a design element.

“A friend is one of the nicest things you can have,
and one of the best things you can be”

“Sometimes the smallest things take up the most room in your heart.”

“If there ever comes a day when we can’t be together,
keep me in your heart, I’ll stay there forever.”

“We didn’t realize we were making memories, we just knew we were having fun”

Day 24, of the September 2025 Creative Gathering. © 2025 Sheila Delgado.

Day 25, of the September 2025 Creative Gathering. © 2025 Sheila Delgado.

Day 30, of the September 2025 Creative Gathering. © 2025 Sheila Delgado.

Of course the F could be for finie, finale, finally, or finished. And the month is finished.
Tomorrow I will share my favorites with you, and the 30 day collage. See you then!

Week One Of The September Creative Gathering

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A Week Of Practice & Relearning

Day one left me painfully aware that getting back to painting, was not going to be easy. I haven’t touched a brush since our February gathering. My first piece was meant to be a loose and sketchy coneflower. Small, 3 x 5. I painted it five times. Still, it is not loose, or sketchy. My pen lines all but disappeared. I did finally manage to get some decent blends.

Feeling frustrated, I decided to do some abstracts. Hoping again for organic, free flowing shapes and colors. One led to another, and soon I had a series of three. These are all 6 x 6, mixed media. Watercolor, paper, acrylic and Inktense pencils. The paper is lacy, mulberry paper.

After watching a video by Kristin Van Leuven, The Easiest Way To Paint Watercolor Trees. I was excited to try her process. It looked like fun. HA! For this out of practice watercolorist, it was very challenging. Days 5-7 are all watercolor on paper.

It all comes down to timing, and the amount of water on the paper. Basically you have a blob of color at the top, the trees. And a blob of color on the bottom, the land. You connect the two with tree trunks. If the colors are still wet, the colors will blend in the trunks.

I plan on doing more of these. It is fun, as well as a great learning practice. And I still haven’t got it quite right. I completely filled the space. Big huge blobs for sure. A stand of trees.

I want to work at varying the tree shapes, lacing them out. Create softer colors, washy tones, loose and organic. So there you have it. I suppose that is my theme for this month. What I struggle with the most. What I attempt, year after year. To loosen up, and stop trying to control the watercolor.