IF: Ghost

BOO!

'Tis that time of year again with ghosts roaming about. So I'm sharing (again) my Balloon Lift Off Spooky for this week's Illustration Friday prompt Ghost. The house on the hill is haunted.

This painting is part of my Red Balloon series. If you're interested getting this as a print, let me know.

Happy Halloween!

©2017 Traci Van Wagoner

Balloon Lift Off 9: Balloon Parade

The red balloons have got caught up in some kind of parade!

I had fun over the Thanksgiving holiday last weekend to paint this scene, inspired, of course, by the Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade. I didn't go out into the massive crowds to see the parade myself, instead I joined the parade with the five red balloons, the girl and her dog. It was a beautiful crisp day in New York, and I'm pleased with how I captured that fall feeling.

©2017 Traci Van Wagoner, Balloon Parade

Can you name the big balloon on the left?

Stay tuned for more adventures. You can now bring the adventure home with a print, poster, book bag and more from my Redbubble store, and you'd be helping out an artist. Please feel free to leave a suggestion of where you'd like to see the balloons go.

As a bonus this lovely weekend, here's another painting I did the day after Thanksgiving while sitting on my roof deck in the now empty roof garden enjoying the slanting fall sun. Have a wonderful weekend!

©2017 Traci Van Wagoner, Roof Garden at 299 NYC by Traci Van Wagoner

Balloon Lift Off 8: The Haunted House on the Hill

The Red Balloons Keep on Flying

It's been a while since I painted more of the red balloon series. I couldn't pass up doing something spooky this week in honor of Halloween with a color scheme prompted by colour_collective and the color Ash.

The last in the red balloons series showed the girl floating toward a castle in the clouds and now she's coming back down and floating over a haunted house on a hill with a jack-o-lantern and a ghost. Eek! Her pup looks up at her from the middle of the island. Will he ever catch up with her? Will she ever come back down? Where will those balloons take her next?

©2017 Traci Van Wagoner, all rights reserved

©2017 Traci Van Wagoner, all rights reserved

Thanks again for joining in the adventure. You can now get Balloon Lift Off paintings 1-3 in my online store as posters, prints, cards and more! Check it out. I'll be putting more up for sale soon, so be sure to follow along and keep up on all the latest.

The Girl with Ruby Pink Walls

Character Art from Inktober Sketches

©2017 Traci Van Wagoner

This girl spoke to me from my Inktober sketches and begged me to paint her. I combined the two sketches you see on the left to create the final character I painted. She wants to go on an adventure like the girl and dog in my Balloon Lift Off series, which you see posters of on her wall. Her ruby pink walls were inspired by last week's colour_collective prompt. I painted most of this on my iPad Pro with Procreate, and finished it in Photoshop since the iPad was required elsewhere.

©2017 Traci Van Wagoner, all rights reserved

I had originally titled this, Running Away, but I'm not so sure she's running away versus running TO an adventure.

What do you think?

Her pen and ink counterpart in my Inktober series is on an adventure now. I'll be sharing my first week's drawings soon of Around the World in 31 days with Georgia and her Dragon, Swift, so be sure to check back.

Thanks ever so much for stopping by!

Balloon Lift Off 7: Castle in the Clouds

Up, up, up into the wild blue yonder to the castle in the clouds. The red balloons keep flying. Hold on little girl, hold on! Keep up, puppy, the best you can.

I hope my painting and this adventure will uplift your spirits in troubling times. Keep on dreaming.

©2017 Traci Van Wagoner, all rights reserved

Balloon Lift Off: 6 Balloon Crossing

In case you've been missing the balloon adventures, here's another one for fun, Balloon Crossing. The color inspiration was Buttercup. I keep debating about how much noodling to do on these. I like the loose and energetic feel, but I also like to noodle things -- sometimes too much. That's one of the reasons I'm really loving painting on the iPad. I create most of these paintings with my finger first, and then I bring in the Apple Pencil when I want more detail. My art has loosened up a lot and I think feels more fresh.

Where do you think the balloons will take the girl and her dog next?

©2017 Traci Van Wagoner, all rights reserved

Balloon Lift Off 5: Wild

Happy Saturday! I've been on another Balloon Lift Off paint play adventure with the red balloons, the girl, and the dog. This one grew into WILD the #scbwidrawthis prompt for August. It started with a bunch of trees, some hills, the balloons, girl, the dog, then one cave popped up with a mama bear outside and her cubs inside, then more caves, more bears, and what to do bears love? Honey. So, in came a bear eating honey from a beehive, and more beehives, and bees. So, yep, wild. And I'm left wondering how the dog will get through all those bears and bees to follow his girl.

I hope you're enjoying this wild journey! If you have suggestions of where you'd like to see this balloon adventure go, feel free to comment with your ideas.

Wild, ©2017 Traci Van Wagoner

Balloon Lift Off 4: The Lighthouse

I usually post my paint play inspired by Colour Collective earlier, but I'm a bit late this week since I have a tight deadline with sketches to finish for a book for Pelican Publishing (more on that later).

I stole a few minutes (okay, more than just a few) from my sketching time to paint another adventure with the the red balloons using Cordovan as the color inspiration to post to #colour_collective on twitter. I'm trying to keep a logical storytelling sequence to this series, so I also used the teal ocean color from last week and have the girl being swept in from the ocean this time.

Did she travel across the entire sea? I shrug. Perhaps. I was going to paint her in the middle of the ocean with the dog on a boat (which you can see a peek at the dog in a boat possibility with the time-lapse video on instagram), or passing a Cordovan colored pirate ship, but this is what came out when I put finger to iPad with Procreate. I go where the wind takes me, so to speak.

The first image is what I posted for #colour_collective, and the second one is because I felt I needed to push the lighting a bit more, so I spent a bit more time with it. Which one do you like better?

©2017 Traci Van Wagoner, all rights reserved

©2017 Traci Van Wagoner, all rights reserved

Balloon Lift Off 3: Swept Away

The red balloons are still flying.

This week I was inspired to continue with my Balloon Lift Off series with Swept Away inspired by #colour_collective weekly color Vert Réséda as the background color, which screamed ocean to me. Once again, the color inspired the art and the balloons won't let me go, so this is what happened:

©2017 Traci Van Wagoner, all rights reserved

Will she ever land? What will she see in her travels? How will her dog keep up if she is swept out to sea? Stay tuned, I'm sure there will be more of their story unfolding here. Have an adventurous weekend everybody!

Balloon Lift Off 2: Up, Up and Away

I had so much fun with the red balloon painting I did last week for #colour_collective and had a big positive response to it,  I decided to do another painting in continuation of the balloon lift off story.

Up, up and away she goes! Where she lands, nobody knows!

I shared an earlier (not quite done) version of this piece on twitter and instagram since I had other work to finish and wanted to get it up on time to share with the rest of the @colour_collective community. I've noticed that the art I create on the iPad is brighter than when I share it online. So I brightened it up and added a lighter sky and more highlights to this version. Color consistency in our digital world is tricky.

Stay tuned, I may just share more of this girl's (and her puppy's) journey. In fact, I'd love to hear your suggestions and thoughts on where she might land and what she sees along the way. Enjoy the balloon ride.

©2017 Traci Van Wagoner, Up, Up and Away

Balloon Lift Off

Happy Friday! Inspiration struck early this week for this week's colour_collective with the prompt color Portland Orange. Balloons! High in the sky with a kid holding on and being lifted into the blue.  This is about how it unfolded for me as I painted this in Procreate. I started with a dark blue background, then with a big, blocky brush I splotted on orange, red balloons in a new layer. Some green below, some lighter blue, a swath of sidewalk, a girl holding onto the balloons, then, of course 'cause there's always gotta be a dog, her pup standing beside her all concerned. Mostly I painted this with my finger, but the Apple Pencil came in handy with adding the final details, which is what was missing in my paint play before on the old iPad with no pencil.

I had a ton of fun painting this. I hope it brings you some joy viewing it. Have a great weekend filled with balloons and good times!

©2017 Traci Van Wagoner, all rights reserved