January 23, 2011 January 24, 2011

Big day yesterday of trying to paint while watching football. I have not created an ATC (artist trading card) for several months so I decided to do one with a poinsettia as the subject. I painted it using the aquabrushes and the S&W pencils for the first step. I created a gray (grisaille) underpainting. I have never done this and did not really know how it would work but it turned out OK. There was more texture and detail than you can see in this scan.

Poinsettia ATC - Step 1

I painted the ATC in layers starting with the aquabrushes and watercolor crayons. I could not get deep, rich color so I embellished with colored pencil, marker and even a few strokes of Winsor Red.

Poinsettia ATC

I have learned to use whatever it takes to make the painting “right”.

January 22, 2011 January 23, 2011

I have been wanting to do a painting of a poinsettia for a couple of years but, during the busy holiday season when the plants are available, I never think of it. I received a beautiful poinsettia plant as a gift this year and yesterday was the day. I also wanted to do a sketch using the S&W pencils on paper that is made for wet media so last night I did it. I got two birds with one stone as the old saying goes. (Somehow I couldn’t force myself to use the word kill!)

 

Poinsettia Sketch using Sketch & Wash Pencils and Aquabrushes

The results are much better if you use the right paper. I achieved the best results by wetting my aquabrush and then dapping the lead at the end of the pencil. Kind of the same way I typically use watercolor crayons. I am learning and I think you can see the improvement. I am still not really happy with what I can achieve (I am not getting dark darks) but I am having fun trying!

 

 

January 13, 2011 January 15, 2011

During January I’ve posted two just completed paintings of tulips. I thought I would show you an older painting of tulips. This is my first original painting of tulips and, as you can see, I must have a thing for the RED tulips.

Red Tulips (2008)

I thought you might enjoy seeing how my work has progressed in two years. This particular painting found a very happy home with a local photographer who, unknown to us, had taken a photo of our dogs at the Farmer’s Market, modified it to look like a painting and then left it for us as a gift. I wanted to thank him so I matted this painting and gave it to him with a BIG round of applause and thanks. He told us later his wife was thrilled with my painting so it worked out as a win-win for everyone.

January 5, 2011 January 6, 2011

Finished Three Yellow Tulips and I had forgotten how difficult yellow is to work with. Trying to lay in shadows and develop depth is TOUGH. But anyway I am happy with my three sunny floral friends right now. When creating this painting I reversed the process that I used on Three Red Tulips as Wric suggested. I think it worked well in this case.  The white highlights are not quite as bright as they appear in the scan but all-in-all this is representative of the painting.

Three Yellow Tulips

Today will be a challenge because we are converting our family email to a new system and upgrading our cable with lots of new features.  Neither Ken nor I are very computer literate so wish us luck! Off to work on cleaning up our “address book”.

July 4, 2010 July 5, 2010

Happy 4th of July! I hope all of USA’ers had a fireworks fourth full of family, food and friends.

I want to thank everyone that offered a critique of my painting of geraniums. I appreciate your generosity and helpful spirit.  Universally the problem stated was value.  I believe 100% of you mentioned that. (And frankly I think I knew that but there are times when I seem to lose my confidence.) I have been working on the painting and think I have taken it as far as I can. I am on the precipice and if I do more I think my vibrant color will become MUD! YUCK!!#@! In my opinion the painting is much better than it was and this experience has reinforced (AGAIN) a couple of things for me. First I need to do a couple of sketches before I start. They may be small thumbnails but I need to check the composition and values. I can be impatient and too spontaneous and it always gets me into trouble. Also in most cases I need some sort of reference even if I am not painting directly from it. Light hitting geraniums would have been nice in this case. And value, value, value. Seems pretty basic, right?  Anyway thank you all. I appreciate your support. Here she is:

Geraniums in a Pot

May 24, 2010 May 25, 2010

Oh my gosh, has it been a struggle! This painting has really given me fits but I THINK it is done. I started it by working on a wet-in-wet background as part of my demo at the Broad Ripple Art Fair. I painted the entire thing and decided that it was flat and boring because I did not have enough variation in my values. Plugging away over several days I got that fixed but then I decided that the color was very blah so I’ve spent the last day working on that. I think the painting is about as good as I can make it. I find dark purples to be hard to bring alive but I’m learning. I am not unhappy with it and I thought about cropping and making small paintings of the parts I really like. But then I decided to leave it alone…it is a quarter sheet size and I really didn’t want to cut it down because I’ve done so many small paintings lately. Anyway, here goes…

Purple Iris, 140# Arches Paper and Transparent Watercolor

May 16, 2010 May 17, 2010

Last night I was reenergized and went back to the painting of Dogwood that I started at the Broad Ripple Art Fair. It has taken me most of the day (interrupted by one LONG trip to the grocery store) to finish the painting but I am pretty happy with it. Aren’t flowers a lovely thing to paint? They always put me in a happy mood – even when the rain has been falling all day and the dogs are bouncing off the walls. This painting is 9″ X 12″ and is on 140# Arches paper.

A Dogwood Spring

May 15, 2010 May 16, 2010

The Broad Ripple Art Fair was held yesterday. It is one of the largest Art Fairs in Indiana and probably the Midwest. They have 225 artists, 10 Galleries, four stages with live music, great food and a large kids area. It is held on the grounds of the Indianapolis Art Center where I take classes. I was asked to demo at the fair so for 3 hours yesterday afternoon I drew, painted, talked with families, entertained the young ones and shared ideas with visiting artists. It was a great experience. I had three watercolors “cooking” during the demo. I wanted to show that watercolor is not just pastel colors so I did the following abstract. I have been working on a series of paintings that use only primary colors since I started painting in 2007. This little guy is Primary Colors #8. I made some technical errors but you get the idea and it communicated my thought really well. Some folks were really surprised by the deep color and the use of watercolor for bold abstracts.

Primary Colors #8, Broad Ripple Art Fair Demo

I also had two soft, pastel, traditional florals going – a dogwood and an iris. I have the background for the dogwood fairly complete so I am going to show it but the iris is still in its infancy. It was really a great day.

Dogwood (in process), Demo Broad Ripple Art Fair