#35, a little better but not great

Still a bit under the weather, not up to par yet, I'm hoping this will start to clear up soon, I didn't do any classes last week, and I really don't intend on letting it keep me down much longer, tomorrow is the first Class of March and I really need to get it together, I painted today, off and on all day, I did work on a landscape for quite some time, but it's another one of those that takes a bit more brain power than I have at this time, so I decided to keep it pretty simple today, one big flower, well, big is a relative term, 6" isn't big, by any stretch of the imagination. I decided to try another flower on the clayboard, well, I'm not all that certain it's the proper foundation for this painting, I'm thinking I should have tried the watercolor paper this time (again). The way the clayboard works is so alien from my normal painting that I need to attempt to be less worried that the flowers look like the photo, I guess I just plain try too hard to make it match, and there is no way with this support. This one isn't too bad but I think I'll try another one to see if I can get it to turn out a bit smoother (or less blobby), you just can't smooth that stuff out. I do like the outside edges, I really simplified these, and that is exactly the approach I should have taken for the whole thing, there are quite a few layers here, I tried to create the effect of the bright sunshine and the deep shadows, I think it's ok, but not great, will have to give this another try, I may go down and do it now, have to stay up a bit late tonight, not too late, can't work tomorrow if I'm sick, but Hubby had to go to Detroit to pick up a stranded Driver tonight after he worked all day and then went to a part time job and worked, got home just in time to eat supper and before he could think, they called, hope he's careful, got to get going, keep painting, I'm trying.

Painting 34, best I could do today

I think this painting cold be better, but my brain isn't working properly again, this crappy head cold has me whooped again, not a good day today, I guess, if things don't change, I'll have to break down and go to the Dr., not my favorite. I had this painting started over a month ago, and should have been done a long time ago, but as with yesterday's painting, I didn't care for something in it and couldn't work on it, today, it was the closest to done so I squared my shoulders and worked on it anyway, I started a couple yesterday, but, not much more than the first layers so this is it, I think what the problem with it is that it just has too much stuff, I think it would be more successful if I had zoomed up on the falls and left it at that, but, this happens to be the painting I managed to finish today so here it is. It started out with transparent paint and wet on dry, I had originally left out the bridge, but I think it needed something there so I put it back in, this little falls is a roadside park just outside of Iron Mountain, MI, called Fumee Creek, my husband and I climbed that sandy hill and went back, and back and back, and over and over, and around, there were several falls here and it was very dark back in there, most of my photo's aren't usable for much but just an idea of how it was since the camera didn't function well back there, since then (a trip we took about 7 years ago, they had the falls, way back in, all blocked off, I suppose there had been some damage done by some others and so now it's off limits, I'm grateful for the dim and dark photo's I have now, I did get some where the light showed up the falls better, from the steps they put up, you have already seen some of these, in this blog. Anyway, I am still using my opaques so the bridge was painted with them and bits of this and that, some on the pine tree, so, this is finished, as much as I can manage today, hope you like it, and hope someday you can go there and see this very nice park, love Michigan's Upper Peninsula.

33 paintings, still hanging in there

Well, I thought yesterday I was on the mend, not so sure today, been up and down, did finish this one but had it started a few weeks ago, but I couldn't get my brain around anything more difficult today, maybe it's just as well, I keep starting more than I can finish so I do need to finish some of these. Yesterday I hauled all my painting stuff back to the studio, well, in order to get this done, I had to go back to the studio and haul it back to the dining room, at this point, I guess I will keep it here and then I will have no excuse to not paint, ok, on with the painting.

This painting is just a few pears, I set this up, tried several variations but this one seems pretty good, I'm still using the opaques so not too difficult to make alterations, I wasn't very happy with this (probably why I took so long to finish it), I had started it with transparent paint (I started out using those in the beginning), and it was OK but not good, so I really laid in the opaques on this one, those pears have almost been every shape you can imagine, too big, too short, to dull, you name it it was too! So, I started with the red pears, they sure were pretty unappealing, so the pinks went into the highlight area, some a bit towards orange and some toward the cool range, then into the bright red, then the dark areas were with purple added (on the red pears), the green ones were a bit easier with the different shades of greens, warmish (with yellows) and some cool towards the turquoise or bluish green, the shadow areas were with some brown added in and the really dark was the sap green with purple added (some areas almost pure purple). I then jazzed up the shawl (they are laying on a shawl my daughter made me) with some indian red watered down which helped since it is a reddish brown, to go with the pears, I like the way this one turned out now, hope you do to.

32 days, woo hoo!

Here we are, feeling much better, been painting all day, even did a small extra one, wanted to try something different, so took a 4" square and just started laying wet colors in sort of a floral (this is on the clayboard, you'll remember that the colors just stand on the surface for a few and then sink in) so that was my intent, after it dried I started seeing roses, so I went with it, I really had fun with this and may do it again, but for now, on with the blog painting.

Now then, this painting was done just exactly like the one yesterday, so I'm going to be very short with this explanation, you know I have a certain way of painting on this clayboard, since there is no blending (or wet-in-wet) I just lay in the colors, when I want light, I use a bit more water, when you do that you end up with unknown shapes, that's good, dealing with the unknown is more creative, I think. I'm enjoying these fall scenes, but I'm thinking I need to do a winter scene on this clayboard to see if I can master that, but, anyway, here is the deal, the sky first, the blue/gray/white with water, then the trees, yellow first then the green, pulling down to the edge of the water, here I lost my sandy beach so I went back in and found it by lifting, the water was the same blue/gray and some white then into the greenish gray that I have (in the shadow areas) then with the wave action with a lighter version of the same blue/gray and then up to white, I think this one works pretty good, I like it, of course that's a given, or you wouldn't see it, better get going, have to get to the studio today and my husband says we are going out to eat tonight, I have to get over there and get some of this stuff (for the workshop) cut out and made (I'm making some stamps) so this operation will go faster, got to go for now, hope you enjoy this one too.

Day 31, feeling a bit better

So relieved, able to really paint today, and even washed a couple dishes, not my favorite, but, some days you have to do it. I was at least able to hold my head up today, the head cold seems to be better, at least I didn't have a head ache today, going slow though, still didn't have classes, trying not to get too crazy and end up sick again, not good. Today's painting is really part 2 of 2 paintings, I started another today also, but, I really worked hardest on this one, I will finish the other one for tomorrow's blog painting, when you see it, you'll know what I mean.

I painted this on that clayboard again, I so like painting little landscapes on that surface, I ended up purchasing a couple larger sizes of that clayboard, I'm going to try a larger painting on that to see if I like it as much as I do the 6" one's, right now, though, I'm in the process of preparing for a workshop, supported by the City of Coldwater and a grant, for the community, I believe I have a full class 14 that I know of and possibly one or 2 more, going to be an experience, and lots of fun, we are going to go crazy with "STUFF", more on that later.

Right now I want to explain this painting a bit, I think I'm doing a good job of getting a bit looser, this one seems fairly loose to me, maybe not, you be the judge. I started with a small bit of sky color (to overlay the trees with) and then jumped in with that marvelous golden yellow, and moved into the green, right and left, my water color was that mix of blue, brown and gray mixed with white to lighten it up, oh yes, we are still into the opaques, love um, love um. Then I laid in the rocky ledges with some brown mixed with the gray and put some green into the far right had for the water edge, I really got into the background trees, fine tuned those and just kept moving forward, so simple, first the background then the foreground, just kept layering lighter shades of grayed down blue for wave action and then white on top of that, you know the drill, so, I'm calling this one done and I like it, hope you do too.

Painting # 30

I'm still sick, probably should have gone to the Dr. but, I always wait until I start getting better and then the Dr. just looks at you and says "and why are you here?", not withstanding, I doubt that the Dr. would be able to help me, unless, it's not just a cold, but a sinusitis, I will go by the end of the week if it doesn't get better. So, on with this one, I will apologize, this painting was started a couple weeks ago, the photo reference was so bad, I had a hard time figuring it out, my friend Susan and I were on a plein air excursion in Kalamazoo last summer, she actually painted this building, it was really cool and I'm not doing it justice at all, her painting is much better, but, it was late in the day and the lighting was really getting sketchy, but I took the picture anyway, I like the shape of the building, but it was so dark, anyway, here is my process, I had to retouch the sky, it was entirely too dark for the darkness of the building, so I took some of that grayed down pink I have and added a touch of blue and more white, and repainted the sky right over the previous layer, some of the blue still shows through and that's ok, I redid part of the tower, I added orange for the highlight as it needed something, the actual building is very dark almost a volcanic color, I don't remember much else, except I added the flag on the left for a pointer and put the sign in, at first I wasn't going to, but I think it needs it. Then I decided to add the car that was parked in front, so, since I'm very tired and I'm very lucky to have gotten this much done, I'm going to call it a night, hope you like this one, it may not be the prettiest but it is a painting, enough said. Goodnight.

28 & 29

Well, this will be short, I have paintings for 2 days, I have no power and no internet so I'm at my daughters trying to get this done, I don't know when I'll have the power back on, they say possibly a week, don't know what I'll do if that's the case, so, I painted today, just like yesterday, finished the Pansy's and started another, so this is what you get, my paintings this time are on watercolor paper, the pansy one was done wet on dry, with the opaques, wasn't sure if it was done, but I did feel like crap again today, so they may need more finessing, I will analyse this later, I did build up the color and negative paint, as you can see.

Now, the next picture, the sky is wet in wet, then I just kept adding the colors, I skipped the water area and charged in with green, after analyzing I determined that the foreground was too dull and decided to liven it up with an opaque grayed down pink that I have I think it really worked, this one is fairly simple as it was a very early morning mist picture and the foreground and trees were just dark blobs, I think it worked fairly well, so here it is and hopefully I'll have power soon, if not I'll have to run in to keep this up, we'll see, still feel cruddy and don't know yet if I'm having class tomorrow, the center was closed today and if it's open tomorrow I may have class but the china painters will be dissapointed, they didn't get fired (the porcelain pieces that is), no electric, no kiln.

27th day, a bit boggy today

Well, it is the crud, I had a really hard time getting this one done, should have taken the flower one instead, but I had this one farther along, I am glad that I didn't take my painting stuff to the studio yesterday when I got back from the Gallery, or I wouldn't have gotten it done at all, I worked on it off and on all day, still not feeling well, and I am not sure that this one is quite as finished as I usually do but I got so tired, had to call it quits, on my way to bed, hope I don't cough all night, my throat is a bit sore and my chest hurts from coughing. Well, enough of that on the the painting.

This painting is done on a very smooth paper, not the regular paper I use, I think it's Arches Cover, a smooth print paper, I was at one time going to do some silk screen printing, I figured out really quickly that it wasn't for me, I really need a more immediate type of technique, I would not make it as a printmaker. I do have the paper though and it does paint nicely, it isn't quite as heavy as 140# Arches but it really doesn't buckle too much, so I'm using it for watercolor. I gave everything a basic middle value in the local color, what I mean by that is that the green is green and the yellowish color was yellowish (I seldom use the pure pigments, they are too bright and don't look good), so, I washed a light grayed down violet for the foreground water, the background water is greenish and brownish, the rocks are a warm gray/brown, then I start to figure out the details, I start at the farthest and work my way forward, this is a typical pastel painter's way, of course that is where I started, and probably why I love these opaque watercolors. I like working from the farthest to the foreground, it seems like the correct order of things, what you paint in the background can be layered over with the twigs and leaf shapes that make it look like it's coming forward. I finished the background and farthest water area, then moved on to the rocks at the broken dam, this is behind the Bedford Mill, in Bedford, MI, for those of you who don't know where Bedford is. I painted the foreground water then, as it is under the very foreground bushes on the left. I have to finish this as we are about the loose power, the ice storm has really gotten bad, we may loose it so I'm cutting this short, hope you like this, at this point, I do. Good night, hopefully tomorrow will be a better day.

26th painting, still on a roll

It was a good day today, worked at the Open Door Gallery today, so I had ample opportunity to paint, not much going on usually, today we had several visitors because of the Childrens traveling art exhibit, wow, there sure are some talented youngsters out there, I'm amazed at the creativity, I guess I forgot how it is to be a kid, you aren't limited by anything.

Today's painting is of a local spot, not plein Air, no no, still too cold for this girl to go on location, there may be a time when it warms up, but last week was so warm, so, now it's cold and I think I'm catching a cold, woke up with a scratchy throat, now my lungs feel heavy, I'm popping pills (over the counter) and did the nose spray thingy, trying to head it off, I guess tomorrow will tell, one good thing about blogging, I can't give it to you, so it's a good thing. The place of this little painting is the Battle Creek River, several years ago, my Mother and I went on a photo excursion, looking for some pretty areas that weren't too far to travel to, so we did that several times, I've already had a couple of those spots in paintings here on this blog, nice time to spend with my Mama too.

Obviously, it is fall, so many nice colors and the yellow and blue complement each other, of course this is on clayboard, I am addicted to painting on this surface lately, just ordered a bunch more so I won't run out soon, I tried to order the textured clayboard but I didn't find it on either of my on-line ordering excursions (too many this month), ouch! I did start 2 others while I was at the gallery, I'm anxious to work on them, hope I'm not sickly in the morning, one is pansies, and one is another landscape, neither one is on clayboard, I'm tring to keep mixing it up in that area. I laid in the sky color, a mixture of a whitish gray and some cool pink with some blue, then put in the yellow for the trees and then headed into the green and finally added the water area, I know, it looks strange, a pinkish sky with blue sky reflections, but that was how it is in the photo I have, still water, very difficult to pull off, mine is moving a bit more than it really was in the photo, but that's ok too, my decision, artistic license you see. I took my opaque pallet with me (I made sure it was loaded up so I wouldn't run out, been using a lot of them, opaques that is). I put a darker yellow under and added pink into that to give it some variation, then on top of that I added more light yellow, I mixed white into the yellow to make it stand out a bit, then the tree trunks, added light then darks on top, looking for some negative spaces in this tree mass, and worked it back and forth, now the water, I put in the reflection of the trees (always darker than the actual trees) and then floated some blue over the reflections, this worked pretty well, but I did do it in layers, back and forth, then at the last I started to get too dark so I charged in with a lighter blue to get a highlight, keeping the stroke pulling down so it looks like it is a reflection, just a trick I've found that works, you just keep building the detail up until it makes you happy, I like this one, hope you do too.
Goodnight, got to put myself to bed.

25th painting, get 'er done, lol

Well, today's art is another landscape, so, I'm stuck, I decided to try working on hot press paper today instead of the clayboard, to see if it looked as good and was as easy. Well, I think it looks as good, but the thing with the clayboard is the puddles, yes puddles. They work to your benefit when trying to fudge detail, specially in the background. This one looks ok, but the paper isn't quite as smooth so it doesn't puddle the same way, I've tried the Yupo (plastic paper) and I'm not as fond of it as I am this clayboard.

I started wet in wet for the sky, something that doesn't work well on clayboard, then charged right up to the edge of the sky color (which I used a bit of opaque blue with some purple in it and then added a bit of brown to gray it down) with yellow with purple and some opaque light gray to gray it down, and then some green for the background trees, I just kept moving down the painting blocking in the middle value of the local color for what ever, I avoided the water area until I decided how to approach it. I blocked in the darker areas and put in the fallen down tree trunks. The left side of the painting is a little ambiguous, meaning that the water had been running over the rocks so it was all wet and sort of read like water, I'm not sure if it comes across that way or not, anyway, the rest of it is just layers, some here some there, and build up the overlaying opaque (lighter leaf shapes and tree trunks) then I attacked the water, I scrubbed in some lighter value of the rocks on the falls, after I had the shadows laid in, I then took opaque white and dry brushed it to indicate the cascading water, this was primarily at the end, I detailed forground gravel by spattering with the middle value brown, I started to get a head ache so I'm calling this one done, I like it, but then I usually do, hope you like it too.

24th painting, much better today, not so tired

I started this in the watercolor class in Marshall, I was picking my photo to work from and my student Pat, whooped out these cute little 4" x 4" textured clayboard, wow, I am now going to have to invest in some of these, I had no idea that the clayboard came with texture, I was telling them how dissatisfied I was with yesterday's painting, so now that I've painted on this textured one, I am going to get some, of course mine will be the 6" x 6", I'm trying to keep all these blog paintings about the same. Anyway, I decided to put that same orchid on this small one, obviously there isn't room on 4" to make the whole composition, so I just limited it to one, I like this one a lot, so now I'll show you, then on with the blog painting, the background color isn't quite this dark, it's just dark green.

Now, on with the daily painting, love this, I'm so into these landscapes, I just love painting these water scenes on this clayboard. I started with the greenery at the top and then floated a very light gray color where the water is, then I darkened the greens and punched some orange and yellow in the background tree area (there was some in the photo, but not quite that bright), I got some browns and purples for the rocks and then started fine tuning the background. The water was last, love doing the water with these opaques (when I say opaques, they are watercolors, normally called gouache, the molecules are just larger and make the paint more opaque than the transparent colors). I floated some greens and browns and golds in the warmer areas of the water and put some darks on the rocks, I keep building up the water area with some wave action in darker colors then added the lighter colors on top, finally got down to the white, this really fine tuned it for me, love this one, can't help it, I'm pretty sure you'll agree

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23 days, hanging in there

Starting to feel the pressure, I'm not as happy with this one as I have been with most of the others, but guess that is to be expected, I got really tired today, and I don't think my brain was into this one as much as it should have been, I was trying to keep from just doing landscapes, I had taken this picture at Meijer's (the local grocery/department store), if I could grow these, I'd have had my own plants but as it is I wanted to do some orchids and that's the only place that I could get my own photo's, so, they aren't the best, of course in the actual photo, my grandson was goofing around and sticking his face anywhere the lens of the camera was, I really wanted to punch this one up so I wanted a dark background, I'm not sure it really works this time, but I was too tired to think about it, I may change it out to a mid value if it moves me to do it, we'll see, for now, this is it, I pretty much jumped in with the pink making the shapes of the flowers, I was so excited to do this on that clayboard, but I'm thinking I should have done it on regular watercolor paper, I could have made the smooth transitions a whole lot better if I had, oh well, here goes, I laid in the shapes of the flowers with pink and then jumped in with blue and green for the background, obviously, that didn't stay, I tried to add some pinks in the background and it became too muddled up, so on with the darks, I started to fine tune the bottom blower first, I punched some darker pinks in and the yellow for the center, I pulled some of the color off the edges of the petals to indicate the light edge that showed up in the photo, it also fine tuned the edges and smoothed out the roughness, the center of the flower was next and I added the darkness in the pink by adding black to the pink (I believe the pink is either Opera or Permanent Rose, transparent, of course), then I moved on to punch in some vein lines and wipe out the center to indicate the throat, I do think I pulled that off quite nicely, then on to the upper flower, the one at the very top,I didn't get these flowers as large as i had originally thought I would, but I decided to add the opening bud at the top and one on the left side to keep it touching the edges, I used pretty much the same colors and proceeded in the same way, I wanted the one on the left to melt into the background, again, not an easy feat on this clayboard, the edges weren't white enough so I got into the gouache and put a line on the outer limit of the petals, I am still thinking about this one, at this point, it's not my favorite. Hope you enjoy it though, good night, this girl needs some down time, staying up way too late.

#22 - start of the 4th week

Now, I wanted to paint on the clayboard for this one, but I didn't have any with me in class today, so, I did it on my standard 260# Arches cold press, I was tempted to start it over when I got home, I got as far as unwrapping the the package, then, my senses kicked in and said "Vivian, just finish this one, you can paint on the clayboard tomorrow", so I listened to myself and finished it, I didn't get at it right away, after class we had an Arts Alive meeting then my friend Carol and I went out to eat, so, I didn't get at it until 8:30, I'm running on empty sleep wise so, I'm going to make this quick.

This painting is primarily transparent (since I was in class, that's my normal palette), but I have opaque palette set up at the studio, so I did do some opaques, you will see that with the overlay of the leaves at the top of the picture, I did a bit in the water also. I started at the top with the green and then painted a pale wash of the beige on for the rocks then I jumped in and laid in the waterfalls, I mixed Prussian Blue and burnt sienna and added a bit of VanDyke Brown, to gray it down and then added a bit more green, the water looked pretty Blue/green gray, I leveled out the top of the falls and then washed in the blue/green/gray mix for the front part reminding myself that it's not a flat space and moved my brush around touching it to the paper here and there and softening some of the edges, I then leveled out the flat water at the bottom and added some more rocks in the foreground (I really squashed this picture up to get it in the square format), I added shadows to the rocks and kept building up the textures moving back and forth from the water to the rocks and then to the trees, at the last I added some opaque tree trunks in the far background and a couple branches hanging over the rocks, I also spattered a bit, you will notice there is quite a bit of grayed down violet/brown on most of the rocks, I think it makes a great rock color. This painting is done from some photo's I took on vacation about 21 years ago in North Carolina, the scenery there is gorgeous, I'd go again.

I hope you enjoy this painting and I'll talk to you tomorrow, good night.

Happy Valentine's Day painting # 21

Here we are, I've finished 3 weeks, I'm just hoping that I don't get burnt out, that's my style (sad to say), I'm really am tired but the painting is a plus, and is making me happy. I've been really good today, I told you yesterday that I was going to work on more than my blog painting, and I did, although I may not have, but I had to work on something at Blue Moon, I know, I'm bad, I would like to accomplish the work and paint my other stuff too, I have lots of work in my bag that needs to be finished, I also have a couple of shows I'd like to have some new work ready for entry, you guys have to help me out here, give me a little push, that's what I need, I will have to let you know if I manage to get something done, the deadline for the Michigan Watercolor Society show is March 5th, not too far off. I've never gotten in that show, maybe I can soon, I hope. Well, I'm not counting the ink resist as my blog painting, it's much larger than my prerequisite size, I worked on it a couple weeks ago at Blue Moon, we worked (obviously) on ink resist, I decided to jump in and do up this picture of my friend Carol and her Sister (well, you have to understand, it's not a perfect likeness, when you do ink resist you don't have as much control), first you make the drawing, then you fill in the spaces with tempera, then when it's dry you wash on the ink and when that's dry, you wash off the ink and the tempera and you have your basic line drawing (in ink) that you then fill in with watercolor, it can be fairly flat, that's ok, it's just fun, so I'll show you what I have but this isn't the painting.

Ok, now for the blog painting, it's a landscape again, love those landscapes on that clayboard, this one isn't as controled as some of the others, I like it, it seems a bit more abstract than the others and less photographic I think. I jumped in with both feet and didn't sketch this one, I determined the bank by laying in a wash of some green and then into the raw sienna, I'm not sure if the color is the same as the luscious golden color I used the other day or not, but it looks close, this one happens to be Maimeri Blue (not sure if I spelled that right), but it seems a bit stickier than the other one, I'll figure it out and keep looking. then I washed in a thin layer of green where the tree leaves are and I used violet with both the greens and the raw sienna (to darken and gray it down), I added some burnt sienna in too and some VanDyke Brown here and there, but mostly I used the purple. The first layers were pretty thin, I kept building up the water and the tree area, then I took a damp brush and lifted some color off to indicate the highlights on the water, in the foreground I wiggled them a bit, then went back in with some color to darken and indicate the water movement, while I attempted to give the effect of reflections, the sun was really shining brightly (oh by the way, this picture was taken in the U.P. on a Nita Engle Workshop back in '89, I've looked at this picture several times and just now is the first I've painted it), doing this blog is giving me the opportunity to use some of these older photo's. So, then I darkened the trunks of the trees on the left side and indicated the branches, in the background I darkened a few, but tried not to get too dark, I lifted out a couple lights but then went in with darker green to make leaf shapes over the older ones, I just worked back and forth until I got it as good as I could, I think this one is very fresh, much less controlled than the others and I think that's good, I have about an hour and 1/2 in this one, I like it, hope you do too.

20th painting, so far so good

Doing pretty good with the painting a day thingy, but, so far not much else, that has to change, tomorrow I am going to work on a larger painting besides the small one. Promise! Now, I did finish this last night but you'll remember I did say that sometimes on Saturday I would do 2 just in case I get to spend the day with my husband, and he appreciates it (at least I think he does), anyway, I decided to try a landscape on that clayboard, well, I really like it, now of course, I'm painting with those opaques again, can't leave them alone, and when you paint with a lot of water, this clayboard does strange things, but when you paint thickly, it is so smooth you really get clean lines, so, knowing your support is paramount to good paintings, figuring out what happens is just, paint, and paint, that's the intent of this blog, to get me painting more than in classes, and so far it's working, hope that keeps up, just trying to paint everyday will really improve my work, I'm sure.

since you really can't do wet in wet with this board, I just jumped in with a mix of sky blue with some purple in it and added a bit of gray to keep it from being too intense. I then went right in and started with the dark area in the tree line, and put some greens in. The water is the most fun, I laid in a wash of a light gray called Fog (an American Journey color), and some blue charged with a bit of green and some of that luscious golden color that I haven't figured out what it is yet (I'm going to have to, 'cause it's all gone in the palette now), and some brown with purple in it toward the bottom, now these are just basic under-painting, I am going back into all the areas with more paint (all except the sky), and add information, next I started with the trees and put in trunks and then some leaf definition, and the right side with some pale greens and some darker greens to indicate dense forest, here, the water is pulling me in, so I just start working the water, it's movement and reflection is paramount to this composition, so I work back and forth with the blues and greens and browns with violet in it and then jump into the white to pull up those sparkles, I painted the white pretty thick and let it skip over the spots to create the sparkles, then fine tune the trees on the right with more leaf definition and darker values on the trunks of the trees. The branch at the bottom is, of course, last and was fun to turn it in a direction that would pull you into the focal point (of course the branch was there, and of course, it was not pointed that way, artistic license you know).

That pretty much sums up the painting, hope you like it, I sure do, and I'm the one that counts (at least at this point, lol)

19 Days, starting to really get into these landscapes "again"

I started a painting yesterday, well, I worked on it but it doesn't make me happy yet, so I put it on the back burner and pulled out a sketch that I did on location, just a little blip in the Coldwater River (you know, the one that runs through Waterworks park, well, it goes on quite a way, and out on one of those roads that run north and south just East of Angola Road. The Blue Moon Group (Bev, Sue, Carol and myself). my friend Carol and I found this little stream, it's not much, and this painting now makes it look very large, but that's not the case it was only about 5 or 6 feet across and not very deep, but then I didn't have the photo I took so I just painted, and made up pretty much most of it, I have a tendency to make things look a bit non-realistic when that happens, but oh well, I started to really get into it, so this is what you got today.

I just used the watercolor sketch that I started last summer and kept adjusting it, the original was painted with transparent colors that were pretty much brown and green, not very interesting, so I (of course), got out the opaques, those watercolors are so versatile that I am really getting to love them. There wasn't much sky so I just put a bit in the corner for interest, then yellow green in the very back ground, leaving the foreground trees and foliage until almost last, I put in some highlights on the water, they were too large so I went in with some greens and blues and in the foreground, some brown and a golden color that is between yellow ochre and yellow orange, when I find it I'll let you know what it is, it's very rich and luscious. I kept at the water, adjusting it and moving forward and attempting to put in some water action so it looks something like water, I think it's pretty good, considering I didn't have the photo to look at (it's somewhere), anyway, I then put in the tree trunks (remember that the water is like the background, with all the foliage falling over it you have to put that in first, it's kind of like putting the sky in first then the tree branches, you know.
So then, I put some more leaves on the trees in the foreground and some weeds on the banks (mostly to hide the inequities) and voila! It's a painting.

This one is painted on my regular Arches cold press, this paper is a little thicker than 140#, it's called 260# Mural paper, the paper size is very large 26" x 40" when you fold it in half the long way, then fold it in half again the long way, then fold it in half the short way and then fold each one of those in 1/3rds, you get about 6-1/2 or so square, it makes 24 pieces out of each piece, just the size of these little gems, and I do think they are gems, I'm loving them, hope you do too.

#18 and the paints are still wet

My today's painting was really painted yesterday, I was so excited with those clayboards that I just couldn't stop, well, probably a good thing, since I didn't finish one today, I did start one though, so tomorrow I will finish it, I did go over there and work, I cut matts again, something I have to do ever couple weeks to keep from getting behind, then I had to figure out how to matt those little clayboards, they are thick enough that you can't just put them on the foam core backing like I've done with the others, so I experimented with ways to fit them into the foam core. I tried to cut a 6" x 6" hole in it to set them down into, it didn't work really well, I did make it work but I still have to come up with a better way of matting them, I may have to align strips between the foam core and the matt, not totally sure what I'm going to do, but I did wear a really sore spot on my thumb from cutting the foam core and the holes, probably will do the strips, will be a whole lot easier on my thumb.

Now, the painting, if you read yesterday's blog, you already know how I painted this one, I did it pretty much the same, although, I think I like this one a tiny weeny bit better (mostly cause it's purple, my favorite), it really looks nice in the matt, even if it was a pain getting them in there, I'm glad I matted them, I am painting all the paintings for this blog thing about 6-1/2" x 6-1/2", well the closest I could get with the clayboard was 6" x 6", I really want to keep them all the same, I'm matting them to 10" x 10", I think it will carry nicely if I manage to get a show to exhibit them in (I'd like to have all 365 lined up in a row, how cool would that be, well, 3 or 4 rows probably, maybe more), I'm already getting a box full, now I will have to go find a few more boxes that are that size to keep them in. Well, have to get going, have some knitting I'd like to finish and I have to make some jewelry for the Open Door Gallery, lots to do and so little time, lol.
Hope you love this painting, I sure do.

painting #17- I'm tired but not of painting, found a new support

I told you yesterday that I had found a new toy, well, it's clayboard, never used that before and have been having a lot of fun with it, now you get to see what I did, it sure is a different kind of support than I usually use, it sure doesn't respond like paper does, and the first thing you notice is, it looks like the paint is just sitting on the surface but, wow, it soaks in, as you are watching, even faster than it dries on paper, yesterday when I started this, I was so excited that I was painting way later than I should have, should have been in bed 2 hours before I got there, so this blog may be short, as I'm really running on a short night and it has been a long day, 3 classes on Thursdays 2 china painting classes and a watercolor class. Yesterday, when I first painted on this support, I thought it wouldn't lift, but it does, not a lot but it does smooth out if you work with it a bit, I fine tuned the painting I did last night, smoothed the edges, enhanced some colors and tried to make it look finished (of course, I probably overdid it, I always do), anyway it works pretty good and I like the drippy look to it.

Ok, you want to know what I did, well, you can't make washes, it just puddles, so you really just start painting, I started with the flowers, the pink that is, then I dropped in the centers, moving top down (didn't want to spoil what I had painted, but guess what, no chance of that, it dries faster than on paper) so how ever you want to do it it will work, except blending is a bit tricky, how I did it was drop the colors in and after I finished the whole thing, I went back with a damp brush and smoothed it out, the best I could without lifting all the paint, obviously, some did come off but not an excessive amount, guess you'd just have to watch me paint to figure out how I did this, that's what the girls in the watercolor class did today, I did another one today, but you won't see that one until tomorrow (that just means that in keeping with this blog, I have to get to the studio and paint something - the whole idea of this is to get me into the studio)anyway, I filled in the gaps (the little white spots between colors) and smoothed out some of the drippy stuff, the stuff that kind of bugged me, but I did like some of it and so it's a good thing not to get rid of it all, hope you like this one, I really do and tomorrows is really fun too, wait and see, good night, talk to you tomorrow.

16 days, what do you get? Paintings, lol

Well, well, another day, another painting, well, almost 2, I have a few finishing touches to put on the next one, I was supposed to be finishing this one and I got home and, in the process of unpacking some stuff I got from Dick Blick, I unwrapped some 6" x 6" clayboard, well, it is something that I have never painted on before and I just couldn't resist trying something, so out came a flower picture and I started one, well, an hour and 15 min. later I almost have it finished, it's not like the ones I usually do, you can't work on clayboard that way, so you will just have to check back tomorrow to see what I mean, now on with today's painting.

I taught a watercolor class in Sturgis tonight, my class wanted to do Hibiscus, well, my photo's of those are deep in some file system (unknown) so I just decided to do my old stand by, Hollyhocks, oops, I already taught that one time before with a couple of those girls, so, they didn't seem too upset with that, so we painted them again, so I decided to give it a slightly different approach than before.  I just jumped in with a bit of pink, in class I used Opera, but I don't have that on my opaque pallet, I have permanent rose, that's almost as good, and painted all the flowers at once, all the same value, I'm doing this in layers this time so I didn't charge in with others this time.  Anyway, we mixed yellow ochre with yellow green and added a bit of permanent magenta to the mix to gray the yellow green down a bit more so it was sort of olive.  After than we painted in the yellow (ish) centers, I used Cad Yellow deep.  Then I put in some shadows on the flowers with some cobalt and the opera (or permanent rose) so that the flowers that overlapped would be more defined, after the centers were dry we wet around the yellow centers larger than I want the paint to go so it had soft edges, the charged in with a really thick permanent magenta and some Opera, then while that was drying I went in and found the negative areas behind the large leaves and started to define the buds, I didn't get much farther with them but on the painting I did before I kept getting darker with the negative spaces and put some vein lines on the leaves and on the flowers, it doesn't translate as well small as the other one but those are the breaks.  I have to teach in Marshall tomorrow so I'm going to cut this short (or rather shorter than I might) and head to bed, good night, hope you like this one.

Starting the 3rd week, painting every day #15

Well, this is the one that I started yesterday and decided that it was more than my little brain could handle, see why?  Well, I keep telling myself that I'm not going to do that to myself and, what is it that trips my trigger?  Huh . . Huh?  Well, it's this stuff that really gets me and I love it but when you are trying to paint a painting in a couple hours, this isn't it.  Oh well, I did enjoy it but I'm really going to keep this type (or at least try to) down to a minimum, I don't want to take 3-5 hours to do one of these and that's what it took, so, now that we have that out of the way, I will explain a bit how I did this one.

I used the opaques again, although I did paint on it a bit in class today and I did use a few transparent colors, the darks behind the tree trunks, basically, the rest is opaque.  I like playing with the negative spaces and there weren't that many here, on the left edge, the lights, that was some.  Mostly, this was a lot of detail and there is no explanation for that except jump in and do it.  I started with the old gentleman in the foreground, he posed for me, I would have rather he was natural, but when one has the camera in hand and you ask for a picture of them, they usually just do what this gentleman did, pose.  Notice that he has only one foot, he told me that he was a world war I vet, of course this photo was taken about 20 years ago and I'm pretty sure he isn't still around anymore, I meant to paint this one in pastel, and I do have one started but, obviously I never finished it, I still like this photo so I decided to do it small, but, it's still a lot of detail, even though some is just infered.  I then painted the little shack behind him and worked my way around until I had one layer of paint on pretty much everything, then you just pick a spot and work, then move to the next, don't think about the whole thing, it's too much, just pick one spot and work it up, you don't have to even finish it, just do a bit more than you had, and keep it moving, I did start to get tired, and you can tell, I left the foreground melons for last and I see that they could use a bit more fine tuning, ah well, it's in the matt now and that's where it's going to stay, that is my motto, once I sign my name and put the matt on, it's as done as it will get, if I decide it needs more something, then I will do it again, not change the one I have.  Well, it's been a long and busy day and I'm going to bed, try again tomorrow, goodnight.  Hope you enjoy this one as well.

14 blogs-14 paintings, not bad!

Well, made it to the end of the second week, there is hope.  I haven't got my habits changed yet, I'm still procrastinating, but I am painting, better late than never I say.

I really started 2 today, but the first one I started was a bit more complicated than my brain would deal with, so I opted to paint the floral, always a no brainer for me, I'll finish the other one for tomorrows blog and the beginning of the third week, yea!  I do enjoy the flowers but I've been so enthusiastic about these little landscapes, ah well,as Scarlet would say "tomorrow is another day", hopefully we'll paint.

This little beauty is a watercolor collage, always fun to work on, mostly you paint a beginning shape (the sunflower shapes with the yellows and greens, then you collage the papers on, of course you have to wait until the paint is dry.  Then when the papers are dry you jump back into the flower color and put some of that around where the flowers will be and then the green, you have to keep these washes of paint thin so you don't get too dark too quickly, better to go slow, it's amazing how thin the wash can be and still show up as a second layer, then I find where the center of the flower is and put a wash of a brown/violet color there, and the rest is just do a bunch of negative painting, you have to go in and paint behind the stems, then behind the leaves, and so on, it takes several layers, larger washes first and then as you go darker, smaller ones until you get enough darkness to emphasize the main flower, also, at this point I go in with gesso and make little "holes" on the edges to give some interesting shapes and I usually paint the corners making sure that each corner is a different shape, although, I did not paint all the corners this time with gesso, generally I like to make a cruciform with my flower shapes, which means, it touches on all four sides, always at a different spot on each side so that you end up with an uneven cross shape, as Tony Couch would say "repetition with variation", makes a great composition then.  Well, time for bed and another day of painting tomorrow, hope this one meets with your approval.  Good night.

13th posting-Yea, I painted on Sunday!

Here we are on Sunday, I usually spend the day totally with my Husband, we wash clothes, we shop(usually groceries) and we sometimes go out to eat, today we had family over and I cooked, I cleaned (not great but enough) and I washed the dishes, kitchen all clean, I even took a short nap, then I went and painted, now here I am talking, it took me about 2-1/2 hours, lots of detail in this one, there wasn't much wet in wet, but again, it's opaque, sure have been having fun with those opaques lately.

I did draw this one (lots of times I just jump in with the watercolor), then I did a small sky wet in wet, used some purple and that opaque blue (no white this time), then I put in some yellow green here and there, moved on to the barn roof and painted that in between the green splotches, then I roughed in the junked van and the old thrasher (I thought it was an old horse trailer but my husband corrected me, showed me what the stuff was and I think I did a good job of rendering it, it's an old McCormick, if you can read it), then I put in some green for the grasses and blocked in the trunks of the trees and slid in that little edge of the building on the right, then I charged in with some yellow green with white in it to indicate the highlights on the leaves and and put in some branches.  I then went in and fine tuned the junk stuff and tried to get it to look as much like the photo reference I had.  I put in some opaque light branches and then went in and put in some thin darker ones, since I saw that in the photo, I'm kind of stuck painting lots of detail, I love that stuff and it's fun, but I'm hoping that I can start abstracting if a bit more and get into doing some more simplified pieces, we'll see.  Anyway, back to the painting, I scrubbed my brush over the grassy area in the foreground and then spattered, first with lighter and yellowish paint then with a middle brown, and then went in and made some grass shapes to indicate the detail, I really like this one, hope you do too.

I think this photo was taken in Minnesota on a picture taking trip that my father-in-law took me on, when we went there for a visit (it was my ex's father but I still keep them as family, I divorced him not them), over 10 years ago, I have so many photo's and I haven't had the chance to paint a lot of them, when you paint the large paintings it takes much longer, so this will help me get some of those paintings done, all-be-it small, I've had a lot of fun with these little paintings
 

12 days and it's still fun

Today's painting is winter again, one of my favorite subjects to paint, the contrasts just make the compositions sing.

I started with the sky, wet in wet with that opaque blue and then I charged into it with a darker blue at the left side on top and let it fade going down, then the opaque white for the clouds, I'm not as happy with my background trees as I usually am, but they are what they are, a back drop for the focal point, so don't sweat the small stuff, I say.  I painted around the small barn roof with the background trees, then most of the painting is wet on dry, I did swipe the driveway area with water to give some softness for the snow.  I painted this scene many years ago as a triptich (obviously not just this, there were two other parts, this is part of the main section), but it was done in pastel, I've loved this painting, my son-in-law loves this painting, (the original one, of course), so someday maybe he'll get it, we'll see. 

I then wiped out the part of the tree that went across the background trees and let that dry, while that was happening, I painted green for the fir tree and let that dry, then it was just move around the painting putting some weeds in with that orange, grayed down.  The large tree in the center was painted in with orange grayed down with purple and then some dark blue for the shadow on the main trunk, and dark brown for the branches, of course the snow is opaque white, then some snow shadows in the middle ground, I originally had done the shadows while I was doing the pine tree but the color went too green, so I re-did them with the opaque blue, softening some of the edges.  The egg box, of course, was was painted with grayed down orange and the yellowish circle on it was done with naples yellow (that is opaque) , and can you guess what the rest of the junk is?  Well, obviously, one of my favorite things to paint is junk, love it, love it, love it.  So many shapes to play with and now I'll tell you, there's a tarp and an upside down bed springs, did you figure it out?  The color is off a little bit with this one, I couldn't use the flash because it made everything so blue it looked too cold, so I used the one that wasn't as cold but the foreground is warmer than it really is, sorry about that, I forgot to take the camera over to the studio so I had to use the lighting at the main house, not as good.

Well, got to get going, I've neglected my husband a bit today, got to go feed him, I enjoyed this painting, hope you do too.

11th day, I think it's amazing

All in all, I am painting, since that was the primary reason to do this blog and pin myself down to painting everyday, it's good, even though I'm not doing much else yet, there is always hope (but don't hold your breath, you could suffocate, lol).

It's still landscapes, although I did paint on some collage paper today (remember I told you the other day that I collaged some oriental papers down to some watercolor paper), the collage paper really helps when you are painting rocks, since the paper edges can help when painting thin layers over the paper, they just almost paint themselves.  I did paint in some gesso for the little falls and the trickles of water, and since I had my opaques out, I used them again, this seems to be becoming a habit.  anyway, I started out with thin washes, mixing the colors on the paper, trying not to get to thick with the paint since it is opaque, I added some greens in here and there since the rocks had some alge or moss growing on them, the rock colors were burnt sienna, yellow ochre, thalo blue, cobalt blue, and, of course, purple, and white, remember, thin.  then I went back in and started to shapes the rocks, a bit of scumbling to give the rocks some texture, the little specks you see on some of the rocks is in the paper, kind of cool, don't you think?  Well, to make this a bit short, very tired tonight, I just kept going in and darkening the rocks, adding blue on some of the rocks to cool them down, and some brown and yellow ochre on some to warm them up, and I kept darkening the shadows until I got almost black, that is with blue and burnt sienna, I seldom use black, once in a while but not often.  I got into the yellow ochre and some yellow green for the foliage on the trees on the left and I painted blue and purple back over the dried gesso to make some shadows on the little falls, I did go into that more than just once, I did it until I was happy with the way it looks, so now I like it.  This is the second time that I painted this painting, this one is much smaller than the first and I painted the first on the watercolor canvas, that was different, a unique style for me.  So this is finished and I like it, hope you do to.

                         

10 days, Landscape or not?

Well, I don't think you can technically say this is a landscape, since you see no land, so I guess it's not.  I had to work on this during my class, and so I don't think I was totally programed into it, I am thinking about this one, I kind of like it, but the jury is still out, I'm must be tired. 


The whole thing was started wet in wet, you should have seen the girls faces when I charged in there with bright color, and they look at those blurry edges and really can't see the fish, so they really are looking forward to seeing this one to see how it turned out.

I was excited with the beginning stage, I love wet in wet, as I started to fine tune it it still kept me working, but my favorite part is the wet in wet so I question myself as to the direction to go from here, well, I've done other koi paintings that I like a bit better (not a lot), but that's neither here nor there, this is the one for today.  I used opaques again (that was because I left my paint palette on the table at the studio and didn't remember to take it, so the opaque palette that I carry with my traveling paint studio (a box on rollers and a handle to move it with) had to suffice.  When I'm using my regular palette, I like to ad the opaques a bit at a time, I usually start out transparent and then move into the opaques, so I had to think about this one, I would have liked to see more water movement, but my photo had still water, I did move it a bit in my painting but not a lot.  I charged in painting green and blue in the water area and painted around the lily pads and the koi, I started lighter water at the top and gradually moved down to the blue/purple at the bottom, I worked a bit here and there on the koi and alternated with the lilly pads, some of the lily pads had some pink on them (I think those were the new leaves) and some had yellow (I'm sure those were the old ones since they were ragged and had holes in them), anyway, I just moved around painting here and there, I like some of the koi and I like some of the lily pads, I didn't see much of the weed area and so I kept that similar to the photo, I think it works pretty well.

Day 9, landscape again, are you bored yet?

Well, I really intended to do something other than a landscape, but, the landscapes have me just now, I've been enjoying them, so why mess up a good thing.  I did, however, glue some oriental papers down to 6 pieces of the square papers, maybe that will get me moving in a different direction, I do like painting the flowers too,but, like I said, the landscapes have me, for the time being.

I started this one like the others, wet in wet sky, then the background and mid ground unterpainting, I put the sky blue (opaque) with the opaque white again, really like that.  I then mixed up some purple with some orange to get the background tree color and, of course, orange for the middle ground bushes, that was pretty much wet in wet, then I moved into some of the snow area, this is wet on dry but very pale, I then put the water in the ditch, and started with a touch of orange and then sky blue along with some white to get the feel of the water, this is all a first wash but middle value, not a wimpy wash.  If you didn't notice, I am not a wimpy watercolor artist, love that color.  From there it was just to put lots of fine lines, first in the background trees, then the middle ground trees on the side and the small twigs, and, I also went in with some opaque blue on a little brush trying to get that "sky through the trees" look, this is all pretty fine, I know I'm spending way too much time with the details, but I can't stop (yet), so I then start moving into the mass of orange along the side and start pushing back and forth with darker orangy and some middle blue opaque value, moving them like the trees are moving (toward the ditch) and some darker lines too.  I put in the small bunch of trees (or twigs) in the middle of the snow, top of the ditch, first dark and then moving into orange, oh yes, I did put some orange in the background trees too, trying to get the feel of sunlight on the branches, then over the top of that with bits of opaque white.  I did enjoy this painting, I have painted it before, but a 1/2 sheet, but that one was strictly transparent.  The small squares give me a different challenge, and I have been loving the feel of it, but that could change.

Day 8, 357 to go

This is the 8th small painting, it's winter, I figured I should at least do one winter scene, this scene happens to be just a ditch, but I really liked the composition so, here we go.  I started the sky wet in wet with opaque sky blue and charged into it with the opaque white, I liked the effect with the other ones I did so I decided to do it again since this was a bright blue sky, this painting is almost monochromatic, but just shy of it, my palette was simply prussion blue, burnt sienna (the redish color), a touch of yellow ochre with the burnt sienna, to lighten the weeds in the foreground, and VanDyke brown, oh yes, the sky blue and opaque white, those are it.  The trees in the back ground were burnt sienna with prussian blue and keeping it lighter where the trees come forward, I dry brushed in the background snow shadows and then the shape of the shadow on the ditch, then I painted in the water and reflection.  the shapes of the weeds on the light side of the ditch were very light burnt sienna with some yellow ochre to warm it up, painting it in the shape of the weeds (how they fall over the bank in an arch).  then I put some dark shadows in the weeds at the bottom edge and fine tuned those here and there by using the blue and put some white into it to create the shadow snow shapes then I went in and put some darker marks under those shapes to indicate the weed branches and so on, then the small trees in the fore ground with burnt sienna and to finish it off I went in with the opaque white and put in the branches that went over the dark areas, also some spots that needed a bit of white to indicate snow on top.  It looks pretty good to me, how do you like it?