January 11, 2012 January 12, 2012

This is my 300th post! Yeah! Do I sound like I’m breaking my arm patting myself on the back? I’m really pleased and happy that I have made so many new friends and learned so much during the last two years of blogging. Thank you….

We have been having a warm and wet winter in Indiana. Snow is due today along with colder weather. I have been thinking about the flow of seasons and about winter. In the mid-1980′s I painted one of my best paintings ever. I copied a photo of a lynx in deep snow and was so proud of the beautiful pink, lavender and cerulean blue highlights I achieved. They brought the snow to life. I decided to try to capture some of this winter beauty with my current abstract painting style. This was a challenge and working with white watercolor is a difficult. It looks so flat! But I learned alot and tried something new and so all’s well that ends well.

Flow of Nature - Winter

I did like the sense of snow being blown by the wind in this abstract world. Feels very cold.

January 8, 2012 January 8, 2012

My mind seems tired and lacking in focus. I see that in my latest painting. As I mentioned I was not very happy with the painting below.

The Sky Wept - the painting I painted over

Sooo… I decided to scrap it and use the watercolor board for a new painting. First I decided on a landscape orientation and painted over the surface with gesso.

Gessoed layer

Next I put on a layer of Black magic ink and another layer of gesso – both applied with rough cross hatching.  I followed that with a rough application of white watercolor. At this point I didn’t really know what I wanted to do so I decided to paint the sadness and sorrow and lack of focus that I am feeling. For the first layer I poured and dripped Venetian Brown, Cobalt Violet and Payne’s Gray with a little Burnt Sienna.

First paint layer

I continued to drop, spray, float and splash paint until the paintin g felt finished. Very bleak but this creation got me back in the studio and put a brush in my hand so that is all good. Ken would be pleased.

Sorrow 1

 

2011 in Review – Linda Halcomb’s Blog January 1, 2012

Last year I posted my year end review. I don’t know if this is a good thing to do but I am posting this summary in the hope of encouraging others to blog. It has enriched my life and introduced me to new friends. I hope you will now consider sharing your passion. A big thank you to the WordPress helper monkeys!

The WordPress.com stats helper monkeys prepared a 2011 annual report for this blog.

Here’s an excerpt:

The concert hall at the Syndey Opera House holds 2,700 people. This blog was viewed about 25,000 times in 2011. If it were a concert at Sydney Opera House, it would take about 9 sold-out performances for that many people to see it.

Click here to see the complete report.

December 29, 2011 December 31, 2011

Over the last few days I have been working on a new painting. It is inspired by the stages that we go through. Some are full of highs, some are low points in our lives. All help us grow, learn and gain wisdom if we allow that to happen.  From Ken and from my mother who died of pulmonary fibrosis in 2002, I have learned how to live and how to approach death. These are powerful and comforting gifts.

Stages 1 - Full sheet Arches Watercolor Board

 

 

December 24, 2011 December 27, 2011

Ken ended his life in peace and comfort at 9:00 pm on Christmas Eve at St Vincent’s Hospice. Appropriately It’s a Wonderful Life was playing on the TV in his room. He is no longer in pain. His fight is over.

When we received his diagnosis and were told that his cancer was aggressive and advanced I asked him if he wanted to start a bucket list. He said, “I am not afraid to die. I have no regrets. I have nothing left undone.” I pray we are all so lucky.

We both want to thank you for your kindness and generosity – for your blessings and prayers. You were our teachers and enriched our lives.

December 18, 2011 December 18, 2011

I want to thank all of my friends in the blogging world for your kindness and for sending blessings, prayers and positive thoughts our way. It has been a very trying and challenging period for us. To make a long story short I will tell you only that in the last two and a half weeks Ken has been in two hospitals and last Thursday he was admitted to inpatient hospice. His pain was uncontrolled and he has refused to eat and drink. At the hospice they have adjusted his pain management plan and he is painfree at this time. We have had two and a half days of comfort, quiet and peace. If this continues he will probably come home Monday afternoon. Hospice will be with us from here on out and they are wonderful and the facility is homelike and incredibly peaceful and comfortable.

I have only had the energy to do one drawing. It is in colored pencil and as you can see was done several days ago. It is my little Sami girl and I am still trying to capture the fact that she glows with light.

Sami Girl Redux in Colored Pencil

I don’t know how often I will be able to post. Ken will have my attention from here on out. Thank you all again for your kindness, generosity and support.

 

November 30, 2011 December 1, 2011

Three days of rain…gray and gloomy…another 7 hours in the emergency room…hard days!

I thought about the rain and began to think that the sky was crying. I started a new painting and I knew this one would be dark without the flashes of light. I did capture a few steps in the process. Step one was an underpainting to begin to develop texture and a general color scheme.

The Sky Wept - Step 1

As you can see I reversed my normal orientation. I saw the rain as falling and wanted a feeling of downward movement. For step 2 I began to develop the layers of the design and to build the colors in layers.

The Sky Wept - Step 2

Finally I am showing the finished painting. I am not really happy with it but am afraid if I keep tweaking it I will just totally mess it up. Anyway – the sky wept hard and long and cold. But now the sun is out and I’m hoping that is a good omen.

 

 

November 28, 2011 November 29, 2011

I’ve been doing some sketching and I love to work with faces. My first is done with black and gray Sharpie markers.

The Ancester

and the next one is just graphite pencils. Both are in my little 6″ X 9″ sketchbook.  Both are inspired by photos in the latest Smithsonian magazine.

The Navigator

November 26, 2011 November 27, 2011

One more time…here is my second 16″ X 20″ painting. Scaling up can be challenging but again I was very pleased with the result. My husband doesn’t like it because it is so dark but it comes from a different place. With this painting I was thinking about convergence and things coming together. Those things might be good or bad but they definitely change each other. I wanted the darkness but also a feeling of hopeful change. With lights flashing of course! Once again this is painted on my new stock of Arches watercolor board which I continue to find pleasing to work with. I got engrossed amd forgot to take photos of the steps in my process but I do have the first layer:

First Step

and the last:

Convergence 2 - Watercolor on 16" X 20" Arches CP Watercolor Board

 

November 24, 2011 November 25, 2011

Hope your Thanksgiving Day was peaceful, happy and full of good things!

I finished a new painting and am REALLY happy with it. I was running low on a couple of colors that I use alot so I decided to order some art materials. At the same time I was reading about new art materials in one of my current magazines. They had good things to say about the new Arches artboards. Now I have not had great luck with Arches paper because of the buckling and warping when I work super wet and I have not had good luck with illustration board because it curls up when I work in watercolor. I was sceptical but I ordered five sheets anyway – who knows? Well this product did curl up like the illustration board but I was able to reverse most of that by rewetting and taping the board. I like the surface (CP) and was happy with the durability. Previously, the largest painting I’ve done in my cancer series was 12″ X 16″. This board is 16″ X 20″ so I used a whole sheet. I thought the larger size would push me to add more complexity. When working on this I was thinking about blood pulsing and then got into the change in seasons and the pulse of nature. This feeling of throbbing, pulsing life is what I wanted to share. I hope you see my hope, my feeling of change and my vision of a new day dawning.

Pulse 1 - Watercolor on 16" X 20" Arches Watercolor Board