Watercolor Iris Demo #5

Well I had to stop at this point because I was unsure of the leaves I am making around the bumblebee...I am just making this part up and I have to rethink where the darks of the bumblebee will be so that perhaps the leaf can turn and be light or dark where needed...so that is what I will do next...I want everything around the bee to be done before I put him in so there is no bleeding back and forth of colors...and then once that is in I can decide if I want areas darker and how to finish off the middle and top of the iris...I need to gauge the values when I am making this up so they still make sense...hopefully! ha!

Four Pears

Ok gang...still experimenting here and this time I have really gone a stretch...there is still so much to do but before I go any further you can see the direction I am trying to go. The blue is not showing up right here...but this is more about the idea than the color at this point anyway. I can see where doing all of these paintings up to a point is allowing me to experiment without feeling like I am losing too much...so it has been a worthwhile test. I think today I am done as I am wore out...I am going outside my comfort zone with mostly my imagination on this...small references to use but thinking I want to just investigate possible backgrounds...if I like this...you can bet this summer I will be taking pictures!!! So here is Four Pears on Movil Lake.  I am sorry I am keeping this so small but images are being lifted again so it is what I have to do from now on.

Finally A New Update!

Alot has been going on and I am sorry to not be here as much as I wanted. I have had vertigo problems that are now somewhat better and then got a terrible cold which I am still battling. I also had begun work on a six step painting demo for Quarto Press out of London and had completed 3 of the steps when my son was in a roll over trying to avoid a deer and I just knew I did not have the strength to do anymore of it...my attention has to be here at home for now. Luke will be fine, the truck is totally a goner and we hope that something very good will come out of all of this.

I did get to work more on the clothespin painting...It is getting closer to the end but the background is still evading me. I thought I knew what it should be but that changed as the lighting changed in the painting... and so that has been keeping me at a much slower pace! I will think of something however...hopefully soon! Ha! This is a little crooked but hopefully you can see it well enough. The sun was finally shining this afternoon so grabed the chance to shoot it.

WIP Still Progressing

This was taken outside just now and the sun is setting so it is far too yellow...perhaps I will retake it in the morning. It is a long ways from completion but at least I pretty much have all the shapes defined at this point...I have begun to play with the bamboo some. It was fun starting a light pattern across them and will define that more but have to put this aside and begin the demos for Pasadena...so will be posting that when it is done...

I am looking for a title however and maybe when it is done it will be easier...but since I have almost 50 regular watchers here...you can begin thinking maybe of what to call this. The ribbons are from my daughters hair when she was little...she is now 36. The dish was my husbands favorite when he was little. The seashell was a napkin ring my daughter made for her ocean beach wedding. The clothespins reminded me of my grandmother...so that is why I have been thinking of Memories, Remembered or something along those lines...any suggestions would be great!!!

Clothes Pins Stage 2

Still no paint arriving here so I am becoming worried about this...so the last few days I have done some painting...not as much as I would like because we finally have some nice weather and I have been doing alot of gardening as well...moved a few roses I have wanted moved for 3 years! So that feels good. Tomorrow it is suppose to rain and if it does I will work more on the painting but my husband has also taken time off so then I do not get as much done. At least I am seeing progress! There still is much to do...alot of darks etc but I like to build my areas slowly...all of this will change again as I layer up on the different areas. This is not the complete painting either but it is not yet all drawn so felt I would let that be a surprise! Ha! My colors are Daniel Smith, Quin. Sienna, Quin Rose, Bt Sienna, Carbazole Violet, Transparent Brown Oxide and New Gamboge. The ribbon has not been completed as it is such straring that I have gotten headaches and backaches so will let that develop slowly I think. Anyway, it is moving along!!

Decided To Begin!

I decided to start the painting even though it is not completely drawn yet. This is just one side of it and all the lower drawing is still to be done...it is crazy how something can look so interesting and then you begin to draw it and your mind goes out to lunch! Why did I not think this would be difficult to draw I have no idea! Ha! Anyway, while waiting for the new paints to come I decided to start this as that surely will make the paints arrive sooner! We will see. They did not come today.

This old clothes pins were so neat at the second hand store so I grabbed them and started playing with them...we will see just how neat it is once I get into it but hoping it will make a nice repetitive shape through the painting. Right now I am mostly doing very light washes of Transparent Brown Oxide, Quin Rose and New Gamboge to try to establish the shapes...at this point something might change and I might want to lift some color so I do it lightly. In fact, I changed the shape of the ribbon in one place and was able to lift the Trans. Brown. That is why I love that color! It allows me to try on the color part and see the shapes better and stand back and see if I like it...if the shape is not working I can alter it some...yes, I creep into these things pretty slowly but that is just how I do it. I say move gently on the paper until you are certain it is exactly what you want. Anyway, I am going to work more on the ribbon today...and then the spoon area. Hopefully it will come together quickly and I can keep at it but if the new paint arrives I will have to stop and learn to work with it for these demos. Keep me in your thoughts!!

Safe Haven

I am also calling this one done as I can hardly wait to begin my next piece. I just really need to see some fresh paper! Ha! I darkened a few more areas on this and put in a few more yellow glazes...lightened above the one birds head to make it stand out just a little more and hope it will be ok. This late afternoon sun was hard to capture...so much goes into shadow and makes it hard to define even the petals as they begin to melt into one another. This painting really has no one focal point but that is ok with me...this began with the intent of designing another garden flag so the approach is alot different. Thanks for hanging in there with me!

Summer's End

Not sure about the title as it is only the end of spring when they fall apart but it does take a few months to get the big fuzzys...so the title is not definate yet. I just could keep picking away at it I know and it would never get done but I really need to get this one behind me and move on! I think it turned out well considering it began as a demo and so many things went wrong...I just cannot paint and talk at the same time! Ha!

I'm Back!

Well, the presentation to 100 artists went well. I now have a two day demo to work on and then a workshop for 3 days coming up in 2 weeks...then I hope to raise my feet in the air and review my life goals and weed the garden.
I did fiddle with the dahlia painting some more. Once I added the birdhouse to cover the pom juice I spilled, I realized the blue sky was too light...it fought with the light dahlias. I will be darkening them anyway now because this shifted the values alot but at least it will not have to be as much as if I had left a light colored sky. In the end this is going to be more of a painting to see if it can license for garden flags than for anything else...but I hope all of you will stick with your work and solve problems...it is always a neat learning experience...I found I loved the blue wash on all those leaves,,,so much blue and I wondered if those background leaves would even work but the veins being blue is working...and it just pushes me to think outside the box and make up things. I did take a photo before this to show the sky partially covered so you could compare but silly me. I did it with that new camera that I cannot seem to get a program to run to bring the photos in...so that one is there but unobtainable now...I will post it if I ever get it out. so here is where I am right now...alot of work now needs to be done on the flowers but that is not bad,,,the shapes are there so when I get time I will get into that and try to finish this up. still alot of work to do...deepen shadows in leaves and birdhouse etc...but I always adjust as I go to make sure I do not go too dark too soon.

Dahlia in Progress

I am sorry this is slightly crooked but it still is ok for this step by step. I finally returned from my daughters and got to paint a little today and thought I would post where I am. I am hoping to paint the sky a turquoise blue and so I am placing some of this color into the flower petals now. White flowers sure aren't white are they? That is what makes them a challenge and so much fun I guess. I have decided to leave the birds until the end because I am thinking that will allow me to think about them for awhile. I will paint them as if they are in sun...one is but the other I will decide in the very end where to throw a shadow over him so I sort of need to see the final painting before I do that.
Thank you for your patience...I still am not 100% at all but alot better than I was! Thank you everyone for your kind emails and words!

Otter continuation

I have been working on this quite abit and got behind in posting so will do a post for each step. Here I am blocking in the shapes still and finding the surface or area color starting with the lightest shades mostly. I always like to get the white covered most places to get a sense of the values. I am also trying to get the glass from the aquarium wall completed so that I know the values there. The texture turned out quite well using the salt but now I have gone in and glazed over parts of it and deleted some. I also have made some into the droplets of water that are running and condensing on the glass.

Sprinklers Continued!

I am finally closing the gap. I took a good long time thinking about the background and not knowing photoshop I had to guess and hope it would work. I really had some wonderful suggestions but in many cases if that area was dark it would have been impossible to see the workings of the sprinklers so it had to be light...or a mid value to work. I have been wanting to add license plates to a painting for some time...but have never taken pictures of any. This was out of my head and now I love what is happening I will take some pictures for future reference. Most of you realize that when I post a picture in progress, obviously all the darks etc are not in. At this point I have established the mid values and lights and so can now go in and finish off the details and really get in some good darks. The direction of the sun is not lending itself to shadows and I think if they were places on the wall it might be distracting in this particular painting so I am steering away from that. This picture is 9 inches by 30 so I am not working with alot of space and the tiny cogs etc are really like trying to paint a miniature...it has been a test of patience!!! Also, you will note that yes, it is crooked again! Hopefully you can over look that and wait for the final professional picture which will be straight! Thanks so much for following along and for all the nice emails I have received!

Progressing On New Painting!

I have completed a picture of sweet peas but my photographer is out of town until next week so that will have to wait. So I began another painting and thought I would show you where it is at this time. It is 9 x 30 and I am using the Daniel Smith Primatek colors to get the granulation for all these rusty sprinklers! It has been difficult as these are only about 6 inches high so each area where all the mechanical parts are is quite small and they have become miniature paintings I guess. There is still work to be done on them but I am already scared of the background to go around all these little parts since I do not use masking!!! I will have to come up with a plan on how to proceed with that for when the time comes. I have included a close up so that you can hopefully see some of the granulation that occured.
These are copyrighted pieces so you are not allowed to be painting them for yourself. I am just showing you in hopes that it will inspire you to try these paints and do something similar! Good Luck!

Getting Closer!

THESE IMAGES ARE COPYRIGHTED AND MAY NOT BE REPRODUCED!
This is the last step I will be showing until it is done. I think that if I had 4 days I would be done but Tues and Wed I will be gone so my aim is to be done by Friday of next week. There is always those last days when you clean up edges and darken here and there and it just takes so much time to bring it to completion. Here you can compare to the previous one and see I have worked in the dishes and am beginning some of the Hardanger lace. I have taken this in full sun so not sure if it looks washed out for you but hopefully it is ok...thanks for peeking and wish me good luck on finishing this one up!
I took a photo indoors and it seems better, you can decide and also a close up of the linens so you can see some of the work there.
Oh and by the way, I have been considering a title and it seems with the angel carved into the plate rack, a possible title could be Angels Keeping Watch or Angels Among Us...something to that effect. Any ideas?? I would be interested in hearing them! Thanks again!

Getting Closer!

This stage is always very time consuming and challenging...but this part also reveals whether this is going to be a good painting or not so it can be exciting. I am glazing up the colors as I go to try create different values using the same colors. Hopefully you will see what I am doing...if not...ask questions!

Third Step on Peonies

I have been working on the peonies some more and hope to post soon with the next step as well. In this step you can see I am beginning to block in some background. I am going lighter in areas allowing for any negative painting I might choose to do in the next step. Sometimes just getting in some darks helps one evaluate the values in the work you have already done. I never want dark near an area I might want to prime with water as it would bleed so I am pretty careful about that.
Some of you may be wondering about my colors. I am using Daniel Smith Naphthamide Maroon for most of the flowers and adding just a bit of Quinacridone Rose in places. The background brown has been made by mixing the Maroon with Sap Green. I often make my browns by using the pink or red I am using with Sap Green and get a nice brown that is unifing with all my colors.
Now on to the next phase!

Peonies and Norwegian Collections Paintings

Well! Finally! Company has left and I am working on 2 commissions that need to be done...hopefully everything will go normal from here on out! I will keep you posted as they advance and if you have questions I will try to answer them.
The first is a grouping of peonies. The hardest part is over as drawing all those petals took forever! I believe that is harder than lace sometimes however, you can put a petal most anywhere but lace has to be pretty accurate to the pattern...so perhaps lace is technically harder but it was a challenge on the peonies as well. I thought I would try something different and try to establish this darker area first...I never do that because I fear bleeding back into areas that I wish to keep clean. We will see how it works. These darker flower heads are in areas where I will not be washing glazes too much so hopefully they are safe!
The second painting is of Norwegian furniture, dishes and textiles from the 1800's. I was asked to document just a small part of a very large collection. This is hard as it is a collection and requires some accuracy but I still will make some painterly choices as an artist. I like color and will not change my style so hopefully when it is done they will still like it!
We have been getting alot of rain with the company and the gardens are over run with weeds. I cannot keep up with the bird feeders either. They seem to be so hungry but the April blizzard we had killed alot of insects I guess so I feed them faithfully. I will also have to post a picture of all the pet chipmunks that are here. I have been feeding them organic peanuts and now you have to be careful where you walk! Some see them as pests and I suppose they can be but I enjoy them along with my large grey squirrels. It seems some days it is a zoo I am running! Ha!
Hopefully I will keep up with this better for you this time! Sorry about the delays but life happens and I do not want to miss out on anything! Life is to be lived!

Demo of Purple Waterlily step 3

I have begun to lay in the water in this case, blues as I would like the blues to move through the last layers of gray that I will be adding. This has been a difficult piece because I am straying from my resource material and plan which is one of my first rules when I teach a workshop! I am setting myself up for failure. Not a complete failure but that it will not be the best it can be because I have no plan and I could make a big mistake in color choices at this point. I always work from the back to the front so I am trying to lay in any background colors and to find shapes before I proceed.