Painting #127, enjoyed this one

My friend Edith gave me some photo's of her sister's garden in California, well, as you can see this isn't exactly California, I combined 2 photo's (the top half is the arboretum in Hillsdale, and the bottom half is her garden), I decided to put her in the photo as well (I told Edith that I intended to put her in it), so, I'm sure she will love it.

I decided to put this painting on the clayboard, the last garden picture I did was on the gessoed board and I enjoyed painting that one as well, this one worked very similar to that but not exactly, I really did get into this one quickly and it went very well, I'd like to tell you all the ins and outs of this painting, but, I think it would take more time than I have energy to give. I'm making this short tonight since I'm very tired, didn't sleep well again last night so I'm calling this one done and I love it, I sure hope you do to.

Painting #126, lazy day today

The family gathering was yesterday, so, today was just laze around, didn't get dressed until after 1:00 p.m. (closer to 2:00), had things I should have done and didn't, what's new about that. I got to painting about 4:30 and worked on it until just a few minutes ago (11:00 p.m.), I didn't work at it steady, kept taking breaks, watched bits of Star Trek (a marathon today and yesterday, my favorite), and knitting, think I'm getting tired, can't come up with anything new and different, so I'm thinking I need to go through the photo's again, and maybe take some painting excursions, get some inspiration. We (Arts Alive), are sponsoring a paint out in Coldwater on June 11th, so maybe I'll get a painting there, I surely can hope.

It's flowers today, I've painted several paintings of petunia's, I like painting them, so, that was my desire today, I thought about another one of those fall pictures like yesterday's, but decided to give it a couple days.

This painting is started with the transparent watercolors, its 1/4 sheet, larger than my usual blog paintings, but I had a bit of a start on this one and decided to finish it. I also decided to gesso the edges and to put some interesting holes in, the background that I had on was just uninteresting, once I did the corners and got an interesting shape, then I got interested in finishing it. I did use the opaque paints to finish it, there wasn't much done before, just the first wash, I did all the negative painting of the leaves, I do love to take a shape and find those leaves, once those were painted, I fine tuned the flowers. I like this painting and I hope you do to.

Painting #125, wonderful family day

We had our family gathering for the holiday, lots of food and friends and family. I was busy with cooking and cleaning (I always wait until the last minute for the cleaning), and didn't get to the painting until around 6:00 p.m., and then I took a little break, so all in all, I have about 2-1/2 hours in this painting, it's fairly simple today, of course not much energy for much else what with everything else, so, I'm pretty happy with the results of this one.

This painting is of a place in the U.P., we were coming home from a visit with my old in-laws in Minnesota and we came via the U.P., just after we got into the state of Michigan, we found this farmland, the hills just rolled and rolled, and there were some wonderful round bails of hay(you will probably see some of those too), and the atmosphere was something else, just looking at the pictures makes me all excited again, it was a wonderful trip and I do like the feeling of tranquility of this scenery. We were either coming back to the highway from doing a hike up Black River, or it was just before, can't remember that, but it was fun, I got out of the car at a scenic overlook and looked backwards and was more excited about the scenery behind me.

This painting is on clayboard, and I really piled the paint on, everything was painted wet in wet until I got to the foreground, and I mean wet, the colors just swam together and I kept going back over it, after it was dry, and adding lighter colors and bluish color to indicate the atmosphere, once that was dry, I put in the little dirt track, and the foreground grasses, I spattered and I then put in the trees on the right foreground and the one on the left in the middle foreground, the painting is really light, but that's the way it was, hope you like this painting, I do.

Painting #124, busy day today

Not much of a painting day, but we were busy all day, so I didn't get to this early, plus got tired, now, my favorite show is on and I really want to watch, but will probably end up asleep, oh well.

This is just a simple composition, I like the hidden buildings in this, and decided to add a couple of people on the road, it just seemed to need a little something so I put them in, of course, Don Andrews would say they were too small and not to bother, but I kind of like them there so I'm leaving them. I had lost my photo reference for this one, well, actually, I have the photo in a note book, that I keep in my class travel studio, and currently, it's at the studio, and I didn't want to walk over there, so I just worked on it from memory, not a bad thing, I think it makes it less of a copy of a photo, more artistic, that's my story and I'm sticking to it.

I started this one as a class demo a while ago, stuff that didn't get finished, I have, in the past, chopped them up in smaller pieces and used them, but this time, I used the whole thing, it's not a large painting, so it really worked well for my blog. I have decided that I am going to attempt to finish a bunch of paintings that I have that have been sitting in my bag for a while, I just seem to start them and then the class moves on and I don't get back to them, so that's my intent, I think this will also round out my blog painting operation so that they aren't all the same exact size. I first thought I wanted them all the same size, but this has become limiting to me and I was feeling constrained by that. Now, I think I can kill two birds with one stone, get the blog painting done, and finish up some of the paintings that I have started, my bag was getting way to heavy anyway.

This started out as a transparent watercolor, that is what I'm teaching. I have been using the gouache a lot lately, and it is ok to add them on the transparent watercolors, if you are not just making corrections, the reason I say that is that if you use them, you have to use them on at least 1/3 of the painting to make sure it looks like that was your intent to begin with, and doesn't look like you just used it for corrections.

I really re-worked this one, it is on a paper that is a bit more slippery than my usual D'Arches, and the paint doesn't move on it as well as my usual watercolor paper, anyway, I like this little painting now, I and hope you do too.

Painting #123, a day of computer frustration

Not a great painting day, I spent most of the day trying to get my computer to stay on line, spent almost 2 hours on the phone with my carrier and was relieved to get some, I repeat, some, relief. It's still not perfect, maybe nothing is, all you have to do is add something that it doesn't like, and it starts to act up, and continues to act up, at least, that's my opinion. Who knows when you add a program that works on the old system (Windows XP seems much easier and less complicated), only to find out that they will not work on the new system, so I'm trying to decide if I'm going to upgrade my Corel Wordperfect suite, love the way the Corel wordperfect works with my Corel photo program, they work wonderfully in concert, now, I have upgraded my photo program from Corel Draw 8 to Corel Paintshop Photo Pro X3, to find out that it won't work since the Wordperfect 8 suite won't work on Windows 7 (well, it probably wouldn't work with the suite 8 anyway), what a rip off, now I have to invest in a new office suite so I can utilize the wordperfect with the photo paint, I give up, they just do that to make you spend money, besides the fact that they keep getting more complicated and, is it really necessary, I don't think so. Ok, done complaining, now to get down to the business of painting.

I was running short on time so I pulled a painting out of the bag and decided to finish it up, it is slightly larger than a 1/4 sheet of watercolor paper, I probably wouldn't have done it but I felt I could do it in 3 hours, give or take an hour, well, I spent about 3-1/2 hours to finish it so, I'll explain what transpired.

This is a watercolor collage, I had glued oriental papers down to the watercolor paper then floated the flower color (blue for this one) on then took some green to indicate foliage around. The actual first thing I had done, was float dark purple or blue in the background, well, I decided right away that I didn't like the background, so out came the gesso, I really do like to fine tune the edges of paintings with the gesso, then I go around and put little holes to make interesting spots that were not there because of the papers, so, now the background is white, but I do like it that way, so it is going to stay that way. Then I started at the bottom and fine tuned the flowers, one at a time, until I was about 1/2 way up, then I decided to start with the leaves and stems, once I start to get the feel of the leaves, the rest of the painting just evolves, I really like this painting now, and I hope you do too.

Painting #122, finally, I'll get to sleep in

I'm getting this done a bit earlier than I have lately, and made it a bit more simple than I've been doing lately. I guess I need a real rest, I've not had any for a couple of weeks, I haven't even been able to read at night (like I usually do), because I've been so tired, so, I'm really looking forward to catching up. Maybe then I can get a fresh eye, and be able to continue this blog, I would guess (since this is number 122), that I'm starting to feel a little burn out. I really don't want that to happen, I'd like to continue this blog as I intended from the start, so, I need to get refreshed, and I'm hoping that I can.

Somehow, I have to get a few ahead, I have a wedding to attend in Minnesota, that means we'll be driving for 12 plus hours, to get there, then the wedding day and then a 12 hour drive back, we can't stay long, but I really want to attend, if I don't managed to get some ahead, that means that I'll have to paint something in the car on the way, it might be tricky, plus, we'll be visiting with family and I'm pretty sure that painting time will be short then too, so, I'm going to rest so I can paint like a mad fiend.

This painting is of the Split Rock Light house, from the other side, most of the pictures of that light house are as you approach it from the south, so this was a very nice different approach. I love the atmospheric aspects of this, and I decided that with this view that the sky was to boring, so I decided to add a bit of blue to it, also I missed getting a view of the rocks, so my memory isn't too good and I invented some so I could see the waterline, not too difficult since it is really a small bit. I like this painting and hope you do too.

Painting #121, a bit late again

Running behind again today, had to teach in Sturgis tonight, I designed this one and had the class start this, I might have gotten about 3/4 done, given the time, but, I paced myself so I didn't get too far ahead of them, they all did great, so when I got home, I finished mine, they will work on theirs in a couple weeks, when we have class again (we have it every 2nd and 4th Wednesday, the other Wednesday's, we have Blue Moon), so I won't be painting the same thing, I'm hoping I will have mine done before class, we'll see.

This was a combination of 3 photo's, I took these a few years ago (when I still had the Hibiscus tree, sorry to say, I killed it, I'm really not good with plants, have too many other things to do to keep up with them, and that particular one got so big, we could hardly get it in the house for the winter. Any way, I drew the flowers on a piece of paper and put some leaves in for contrast and for the compliment. I turned the photo's around so they made a fairly good composition, and when the drawing was done, I scanned it to make copies. The Wednesday class like me to find things for them to do, my other classes find their own things and I help them, which is not to say that it is bad for the Wednesday class, just that it's nice for me when they want to work on their own things, then I can concentrate on getting my blog done (except when they need me).

I basically started them by painting the flowers with water, then, using a thin red to make pink and some yellowish green for the new flowers opening up. When the buds were done, I moved them on to the larger red one in the foreground, I had them wet the flower and, attempt to lay the washes in so they mixed at the edges. Then, on to the leaves, I attempted to keep the green leaves at the top a bit lighter since they were new leaves, but the ones at the bottom were very dark. After that was done, I went in and fine tuned the centers, and put in some striations and wiped back to very light pink for the centers and laid in some opaque white where it needed it. I like this painting and I sure hope you do too.

Painting #120, work day today

Well, back to the grind, classes again today, a week off and I didn't get any rest! Not one single day did I get to sleep in, the workshop was wonderful, and the Art & Flowers show was good, then I spent Monday (my usual day to sleep in) with my friend in Indiana, well, I'm back at waiting until the last minute to get my painting done, having issues with this computer now, something is screwy in Denmark! I'm trying to download my McAfee total protection and my download time is so slow that it shuts itself off, so at this point I'm without it. I'm going to try downloading it when it isn't so late, I'm getting frustrated. I'm beginning to wonder if my Husband is correct, that all computers should be dismantled and buried, you guessed it, he isn't into computers. I have my painting done, it took me a while, I really like painting on the gesso so I went for the 10" x 10" again, my subject matter is somewhat complicated again, not as precise as yesterday's but still enough, I used a compilation of about 4 photo's, I put pieces of 4 different photo's in this to make my composition, I like it, just getting tired, need a nap, lol.

My painting today was started with the clapboard, then I decided to do the doorway, I started with the dark and moved forward, then I moved a wagon in and had to flip that so it pointed into the picture, the goose and the flowers on the right was from another little photo (same place, just couldn't get all the stuff this place had in one photo, if I had, it would have been too small and much less interesting. I moved on to the chair and the birdhouse and wreath, and finally fine tuned the walkway in the foreground, it was actually just concrete stepping stones but I decided to put in flags, once I had everything in, I started to fine tune the edges of everything, and then I painting the dark window in front of the chair and stuff, once I had that in I put some lighter twiggy things on the wreath, and I'm calling this one done, I like it, and I sure hope you do too.

Painting #119, a very good day

It was a really great day, spent the day with my dear friend and painted all day, well, most of the day, and I did get my painting done before 11:00 p.m. today, I had it done about 9:10 p.m.

I did a fairly complicated painting today, but knew I would want to do something very nice, so I chose a photo I took for a still life workshop I did last year, this was one of several different posses I did for this particular subject matter, this is most of my marble collection, I inherited most of them from my husband's family, some where his dad's and some his brother gave me, that were at the old farmstead, and when his mother passed away, I acquired the marbles she had, and I found several containers of marbles when we cleaned out my Mother's house that we did back in the 70's, you will remember the fried marbles, we had a great time with those, plus, my husband is bringing me home marbles quite frequently (ones he salvages from spray paint cans he gets from work), and, to me, those marbles are just as beautiful as the ones with all the colors, they sure do sparkle when the sun hits them, so this painting is very special to me, and I had a really great time painting it.

This painting is done on hot pressed acid free illustration board, that I coated with gesso. I have been enjoying this surface to paint on, and I've been thinking what I could paint on it next, when I happened upon this photo of the marbles, hunting for the photo's to send off for the art show in Battle Creek, the deadline for that is Wednesday, and because my friend Susan called to remind me about it, I did get it filled out and mailed today. So, when I was setting up to paint at Lynn's, I decided that this was a great opportunity to utilize it again, and I do believe this was a perfect subject. My friend Lynn is a wonderful watercolor artist also, she and I have been friends for 30 plus years, I met her when I lived in Fort Wayne and she was my China Painting instructor, I won't bore you with the details, but sufice it to say, we always have a great time painting when I go there.

I will tell you a little bit about this painting, I sketched out the jars and then put the marbles in, the first thing I painted was the background, I used purple, Indian red and some Golden Lake (or Quinacradone Gold), that was laid in in sort of a striped pattern behind the jars, then I decided to put the small marble can in and the marbles that are falling out of that and the ones that are on the table, I kept changing the colors, then I started with the antique canning jar with the marbles, I floated the colors in, keeping the round marble shape on the edges, I let the colors run together and once the colors were in, I cleaned out the paint and from my brush and started pulling highlights on the marbles, I handled all the marbles this way, I then did the square jar behind, and the the jar with the large shooters, this was a lot of fun and took about 5-1/2 hours (if you count the actual painting time), I really love this painting and hope you do too.

Painting #118, got it done!

I almost always get at this painting thing late, I have been tired the last week from working so hard, workshops are really draining, I then had a art & craft show to do Saturday, so, today was a bit laid back, other than the usual stuff, like cook and laundry, oh well, someone has to do it,at least once in a while. Well, I was just getting into this painting thing when Susan called to remind me that the application for the MAC was due Wednesday, so I had to run upstairs to fill out the application and make the CD and the cover sheet, then race down to get that painting done, well, made it at last, it's only 11:30 p.m., well, at least it's still the same day.

I had this painting started yesterday while we were sitting at the craft show, I didn't get it completely done and so today I had to finish it. I know, it's another stream with some falls on it, are you bored with this theme? Sorry, that's what most of my photo's are, my husband and I deliberately went all over the Upper Peninsula and Northern Minnesota to get them, and had a lot of fun tromping through the brush and climbing on the rocks, on some, he actually went right out in the middle of the raging falls on some rocks and took pictures of the falls, from down looking up, I haven't painted that one (not sure if I will, it was pretty scary).

I started this one with the purple sky and then painted the tree line and moved down the picture and painted everything with a light coat, this also happens to be on the clayboard, I'm sure that you can tell, it's so smooth. then I went in and painted some purple trees in behind the green ones, I usually paint the back ones first but this time I put them in green and then decided that they should be purple. I then painted the trees and the rocks, putting in the background water as I progressed. I then fine tuned the foreground water and, ta da! It's done, I like this painting and sure hope you do too.

Painting #117, A very long day today

After a week long workshop, my daughter and I spent the day sitting under a tent wishing for customers to buy something, well, we did sell a painting, first thing, and then the rest of the day was a wash, but, we did have a wonderful day together and I'm happy to say, it's a possibility that we'll sell another one on Wednesday, so we are hoping they meant it and will call to come pick up a painting. I guess I'm just so tired that I'm having a hard time getting to this blog today, I can hardly wait to sleep in tomorrow morning.

This will be short tonight, I don't have much energy to do this blog today, I can hardly move my fingers just now. This is Lower Tahquamenon Falls in the Upper Peninsula, if you've never been there, it's a beautiful place, I'd live in the Upper Peninsula because I think it's a wonderful place except for the snow and cold, the summers are short and the winters are long but it's beautiful. Most of the rivers up there have brown water because of the tanic (can't spell) acid from all the trees, but from this vantage point, you can't really tell that, but up close, it's quite evident. The rolling hills, the rivers, the rocks, it's beautiful.

Painting #116, hope I can keep these numbers straight

Today was the last day of the portrait in oil workshop, it was a good day, I fine tuned 3 paintings and attempted to correct this one, I think I still have to fix it but I will blog it first, since this is my painting for today, this painting has a fairly close resemblance of my ex-husband, Ronald Borgwardt, I believe I will attempt to enlarge the eyes though, I think the eyes do look just like his eyes, but for the size of the face they seem just a tad bit too small, so I will attempt to correct that sometime this next week, I will post it when I get that done, I did darken the shadows on his face and I did adjust the eyes, but I think since I got home, that the eyes do need a bit of adjustment, so, this is done but not quite right, I am going to enlarge the eyes just a bit and I'm sure it will look better.

I did finish a portrait of my grandson, Ryan, I worked on this one a couple years ago and would never give it to my daughter since I wasn't happy with the way it looked, I do believe it's better now, tomorrow she will tell me if she thinks it looks right or not so I will show this one too, so you get a bit more than one today.

And last but not least, my nephew Murl, I didn't get this one finished but it's pretty close, I think I need to adjust the eyes on this one too, so this one will get a bit more adjustment too, all in all, it was a good day, I already signed up for the workshop he is going to give next year, also on portraits and hands, he's an excellent teacher and I totally enjoyed this class.

I know, usually I have one painting completed, but this is a bit late to make adjustments, I have an art fair tomorrow so I had to get some heavy stuff loaded in my van while I had help, tomorrow I will put the paintings and stuff in and be gone to Spring Arbor all day, hope the weather holds and that I sell some art, I hope you enjoyed these paintings, I did.

Ron Borgwardt

Ryan Tackett

Murl Kinsey

Painting #115, another oil today

This picture is a photo from my Grandmother's album, I believe it is family, possibly my grandmother's cousins, and I believe it was taken at a family reunion, around 1916 or so, just about flapper age, these girls just made me want to paint them, I like the way they are all connected, physically, and emotionally.

I didn't intend to work on one this large, but my small paintings were all too wet to work on, the paint was just sliding around so I pulled this one out, I had started it about 3 years ago, it's been sitting on the back burnner for several reasons, mostly, it takes such a long time to prepare the palette, then the paints dry out if you don't put them in the freezer when you are done, I really like the feeling of oil painting, I just have a hard time mixing and getting all ready and then the paint only lasts a couple days, so you have to plan the amount of paint you mix, so you don't waste it, my freezer doesn't have enough room in it to store the palette. When I said that I had started this one 3 years ago, it was one of about 8 that I got to the basic stage of the dark paint and the wipe out of the highlights, I did have a very minimal layer of flesh tone on the skin and the colors on the dresses, very light, the rest of it was done today, and I mean the whole thing was painted, quite an accomplishment, since it is a 16" X 20", a lot bigger painting than I've been painting, so, today was very intense, I really worked hard trying to get a similar likeness, there are some flaws in that, but since I am not pleasing anyone but me, I think it will be ok.

I re-worked the hands and that was an accomplishment too, like I said this was completely re-painted today, I deliberately didn't fill in the faces too much, first off, the photo I used was an old brownie photo, black and white of course, and you surely know what those look like, I scanned it into the computer and enlarged it to 8 x 10, but that doesn't leave much detail and the light was so bright and the darks so dark that I had to interpret most of what I did put in there, so this was an interesting project, I relly like this painting and I hope you do too.

Painting #114, the watercolors are back, for today

I worked on the portrait of my X in the workshop, I decided (in my infinite wisdom), to paint on the gesso board, well, the oil paint paints really smooth on that, a little too smooth, for my taste, I really do prefer doing oils on canvas, I had a terrible time getting the paint to stick, if I were not putting the paint on as thickly, it might have dried, but I am working fast and so the glazing isn't the method that works for me, I intend to let the painting dry, probably will take 3 or 4 days, it's really wet, so I couldn't show you the painting I worked on all day, even though it is almost finished, you aren't going to see it until I think it's finished. So, tonight was Blue Moon night, and I got the watercolors out and finished one that I had started before, so it was one that needed some fine tuning. I think it works now, I re-painted most of it, so it counts (I think).

This painting was started with transparent watercolor, we had watched that Shirley Trevena tape, and decided to try her style, well, I can't paint her style, but I did like some of the stuff that I managed to paint, so I took it and fine tuned most of it, I repainted the whole thing using opaques, so it has a different look to it now than it did originally, I added the plant behind the table to keep the yellow green moving around the painting, I like the diagonal of the dark blue and the glass bottles and pitchers, on the whole, I think this painting works, I like it and I hope you do too.

Painting #113, We are still doing oil

Today's portrait (that is what the workshop is, portraits, so, if I get it done it's the blog painting), is my Mother, I painted a similar one in watercolor just after she passed away (that painting is living at my sister's house), I have another painting of her in progress, a much larger painting 24" x 30", and I know I can't get that one done in one day), but this happens to be my favorite picture of her, so I decided to do a 10" x 10" painting, not sure where it will go, or if my Daughter will get it, we'll see (I'm sure she would want it, since all she has is a inkjet copy of the watercolor, I worked on this one pretty much all day, so if I do more oils after this workshop, I'm sure they won't be portraits, not that I don't like them, but just seems to take longer when you are trying to get a likeness, this painting needed to be altered, when I got home I knew it didn't quite look right, something was wrong, so I narrowed her face by about 1/2 inch on the side where her ear is, and I made her hair smaller, it was a quick fix and didn't alter the painting (the facial features) by much, and it does look better, it is on a gallery wrap so I painted the sides of it so it won't have to be framed. Well, this may be short, but, I have to get some other stuff done before I head to bed, I love this painting, and hope you do too.

I did get the painting prepared for tomorrow's painting, hopefully you will see that one tomorrow (if all goes well).

Painting #112, it's an oil portrait today

This was the first day of a 5 day workshop in oil painting, I'm sorry to say that I was on a mission, I had one ear on the teacher, and with the brush in hand, meaning I was painting as soon as I had my paint's mixed with the medium, and on the palette, I guess you could say that I didn't let any grass grow. I believe there is a bit of fine tuning to be done here, but, I really kind of like it the way it is. This is my sister, she had no idea that I was going to do her portrait today, I didn't really know either until a couple days ago. I have several others lined up and I'm hoping that I can accomplish getting one done every day, if I don't, then I will have to come home and get the watercolors out, but, I think I can, I think I can, I think I can.

Like I told you before, Michael likes to start the paintings out with an under-painting of liquin and yellow ochre (before you get to painting that you have to draw your subject so it's on under the yellow ochre and liquin), I had to cheat a bit, mine was started with acrylic because I didn't have my canvases prepared far enough in advance that they would be dry enough to paint on, also, after the layer of liquin, he has us apply a layer of burnt umber (I guess I didn't really read the list of stuff to do and didn't get a layer of raw umber, some did, I didn't), ah well, anyway, I gave it a semi-applied coat of burn umber (I mean that I didn't coat the whole thing since I wouldn't have been able to see my drawing (it kind of melted into the yellow ochre coat), anyway, I had a semi reasonable brown painting to amplify today, this particular photo of my sister was taken a couple of years ago, and I liked it, so I decided to paint this one today. I think it looks like her and I really like it, I hope you do too.

Painting #111, Sunday, a restful day.

I am supposed to have my oil painting stuff together, I should have it loaded in my car and ready to go, I don't even have my canvas prepared, I think I will prepare it with acrylic so it's dry for tomorrow. I'm going to blog this and then go to the studio and get my stuff in the car and prepare at least one canvas, I was hoping to get to bed early tonight, but I think I will have to try that tomorrow, it will depend on whether I get my blog painting done, if I don't then I will be painting that when I get home, pray for me, I need it. Thanks.

Well, here is today's painting, I had this about 1/2 done yesterday at the gallery, I really intended to get it all done, but that didn't work out since I spent most of yesterday working on the Merry-Go-Round painting, oh well.

This was started with transparent watercolors, but I finished it with opaques, this is done my usual way, first the stuff that is far behind, and mostly that was the water, then I started with the tree's and the light on the grass, I darkened the trees and put in some far away trees in the background, then I started to fine tune the trees in the foreground, the leaves and branches, once I had that done, I finished the bank on the left and darkened the bank on the right. I went back in and altered the color of the grass on the right (the yard grass), and put a few more ripples in the water, I darkened up a bit of the foreground water and finished it, I like this painting and sure hope you do too.

Painting #110, Had a good time with this one, took way too long though

It was Gallery day, I, in my infinite wisdom, raced off this morning to get to the Gallery on time, of course, I was late, but, ah ha! It was already open, I thought I had to work all day, but Mary was there, and the place was open and all set up, I looked at the schedule and low and behold, I was scheduled for the afternoon. That's what you get when you change your work schedule, I had to change the work schedule since I'm signed up to do the Spring Arbor Art & Flowers show next weekend, so, They only had one Saturday open and it was the afternoon. I usually work all day and I just presumed that I worked all day since the only day that I remember I was working 1/2 day was across from Susan and then she remembered she couldn't work so I said I take the whole day, that's where I messed up, I was thinking this was the weekend, oh well, I had a nice visit with Mary, I couldn't see a point in going home, a 50 minute drive, so I just stayed, I at least got to paint, if I'd gone home, I probably wouldn't have.

This painting was a project I originally started at Blue Moon (another one), we had taken a workshop with Donna Zagotta and we were doing something with people, I'm not sure why, but, I decided to do the same process, she does a sketch, and from that she reduces the number of shapes to a minimum, I mean by that, she knocks it down to 10 or 12 basic shapes, then she outlines the shapes with Opera, a very hot pink watercolor from Holbine, once that is done, she fills each space in with the same hot pink, all except the whites, once that is done she starts to paint the painting by sections , it's amazing how she does it, but it all works out. Well, I'm not nearly as good at eliminating stuff, but it all works out in the end, I do tend to keep too many shapes, but like I said, it all works out. I usually start with the background, and anything that is under or behind the main subject matter, which in this case is the 2 girls on the Merry-Go-Round, so, I had to do all the background, then the grass, then the people in the middle ground and the slide and trees, then the very front grasses, then the dirt under the Merry-Go-Round, and then the Merry-Go-Round, finally the girls, it took a long time, but it was worth it, I really like this painting, and I sure hope you do too.

Painting #109, the days are too short

As per, I didn't get this done until late again, don't know what to do about it either, I guess the point is that I got it done, and all's well.

I should have been preparing for that portrait workshop I'm scheduled for next week, but no, I did all kinds of other stuff, and I'm scheduled to work at the gallery tomorrow, so, I'm hoping that I can manage to get 2 blog paintings done, so I can work on the oil painting stuff Sunday.

I did a small one today, out of my head, you may decide it looks like it, I was at the studio and didn't have access to a knife and I wanted one in the painting, so I made it up. I've enjoyed the slightly abstract still life's lately, so I decided to try another, the colors are a lot more muted in this one. There is some crayon in there and some scratching, and of course, some opaques, I thought the background was to ho hum, so I stripped it and I liked it a lot better, other than that, I finished up the pears and called it good, I like this little painting and hope you do too.

Painting #108, this is April 12th's painting

I was all set to blog this, tried to get on and Google had it locked down for repair, so this will be short since I have to finish the painting for today which is the 13th. I tried to get it done this morning but it was still out, don't know when it got back on line but it finally is.

This was done partly in class yesterday and partly when I got home, when I'm teaching, I have a hard time completing my painting, so many questions and needs, have to help the girls, so I usually finish it during the china painting class when I get home, I know, it's not quite right, I should be china painting during class, but it's mostly my sister and my daughter, Susan is my only other student and she doesn't seem to mind that I'm painting watercolors instead of china.

Yesterday, I felt like painting the Bird of Paradise, my parents took this photo back in 1972 at my Aunt Eulah's home in Pompano Beach, Fl. I used a close up of a calendar Bird of Paradise, since I don't have access to a real plant, but this composition is all mine, I didn't use the photo of the calendar, only for information, because the photo was small and I couldn't really see the detail, when I blew it up, I knew I would need some better information, lucky for me that my friend and student, Edith, had one. I like this painting and I sure hope you do too.

Painting #107, getting in late again

Well, what's new about that, I'm supposed to be getting ready for an oil painting workshop I enrolled in and I haven't prepared one canvas, I like to have at least 3 prepared, I can pretty much work on 3 at one time, this is a portrait workshop, I have several I need to work on, so it will be good, I do have a couple that need to be finished and I will probably take them along.

I will probably be making this a short note today, running on empty and need to get to bed, I didn't get to my painting this morning, should have but didn't, finished that book though, glad I'm done with it, but, it was a good book.

This painting is 8" x 8" today, and I'm matting it to 12" x 12", I had class in Sturgis today and the girls wanted to do pansies, I know, I just did one, but, since that was what we worked on, you will have to put up with it. This one is done on the clayboard, whereas the previous one (last weeks), was done on watercolor paper, so the look and technique is different, the clayboard is so smooth, it doesn't really get very clear until you have several layers built up and the paint starts to get thick, expecially with the opaques, I do like painting on it with the opaques, I don't know if I'd like it as well with the transparent watercolor, maybe sometime we'll have to give it a try. I started out painting the pansy colors, first one then another, when they were painted, I put some green in for leaves, at this point I didn't have any background, I decided on that when I got home to finish it. I actually worked on 2 tonight, I worked on small one for the girls, and while they were painting theirs, I painted on the clayboard, I don't have them working on the clayboard, it's a difficult surface and I want them to figure out how to paint the watercolors before they even think about working that surface. I will have to work on the other pansy painting another time, I didn't take time to finish it tonight since I was running so far behind. I didn't eat supper until I got home, it was after 9:30 p.m. and so I didn't get to working on this painting to finish it until after 10:00, that's why. I decided to put in the background because working on the clayboard, it just seems like I should paint on the whole surface, maybe not, we'll try another time, I fine tuned the flowers and the leaves, and call it finished, I really like this painting, and I hope you do too.

Painting #106, An old friend

Many years ago, my dear friend Lynn and I went on a picture taking trip, it was bitter cold, we still had ice on everything from the ice storm that had hit the day before, and we traversed several back roads in Indiana to get some really great pictures. One of my favorite things to paint are dilapidated old buildings, houses or barns, and the more junk hanging around the better, I wouldn't want to live there but this house is so awesome, I just love it, I took pictures of it from several different directions, I walked up the old drive way, which is on the other side of those pine trees, and took some really great pictures, then on the down side, she informed me there was a "no trespassing" sign, oops, too late now, but I'm so glad I got those pictures, that house has been raised and never to be seen again, I also took some great pictures looking up the road, there was a great fence, and a hill and this other great house peeking over the top, it was a great trip, I'll never forget it and I can still feel the cold.

Of course this picture isn't in the winter, and you don't see ice, since I decided to make it late summer or early fall to change the atmosphere, the photo I used, of course, is in the winter but that is easily changed. I painted this on the clayboard, I've been resisting finishing this one, I started it over a week ago, I wasn't happy with the colors, and the detail in the foreground was invented, on this side of the house, there was not household debris, but, the other side was something else, there were boxes, box springs, and you name it, it was there and trashed. I wanted to emphasize the abandonment of this place, so I added some junk. I had to change the sky, I had to change the house color, I changed the grasses, so I really re-did the whole thing. The sky was too dark, I wanted the house to be the dark, (well, you can't see that it is darker than it looks here, and the roof isn't white like it looks here, hard to take pictures on the clayboard), so the sky became lighter, and then the house, it really was a light dingy yellow, and in the shadows it was sort of brownish yellow, well the color I started out with didn't do a thing for me, it was a greenish and dirty brown, really depressing, so I took that off and put the cleaner color on for the shadows, I really think that made the difference for me, after than I really got into it, I finished this at about 12:30 (lunch time, I painted this at class) I actually ate my lunch while my painting stuff was still laid out, then finished the painting), the china painters were coming in so I had to put the watercolors away, but I left my weeks worth of blog paintings out on the table for the class to see. It was a good day, now I can go finish that dumb book that I got wrapped up in yesterday, glad that I didn't have to get my painting done when I got home, I could relax, so, here it is for today, I love this painting, and I hope you do too.

Painting #105, today was lazy, late again

I didn't get into this painting until late, again, I went to the studio about 12:30 and did a framing job, it was the portrait of my Dad that I did 20 plus years ago, it is pastel and since I framed it the first time, it fell off the wall, my Dad re-did the screw eyes and wire, and hung it back up. Well, I got tired of looking at the pastel dust on the mat, so I decided to take it apart and make new mats for it and re-frame it. I did a great job, but, when I turned it around, the inside glass was dirty, I did wash the glass and thought it was clean, but it was not, now i have to take it apart again. This painting is framed 24" x 36" in a very heavy frame, plus the glass, after it fell off the wall, my Dad really put some heavy wire on it, almost as big as my pinky finger (slightly smaller than that), plus, I had put corner brackets on it to hold the painting and glass in place, when I re-wired the back, I put two extra places to run wire through, so the weight would be more evenly distributed. I didn't have the heart to re-tackle it today, so, I came home and picked up a book and read, not what I was supposed to be doing, oh well, all's well that ends well, the painting is done.

I started this painting a few days ago, and then worked on it again last Friday but couldn't get into it, today I was running on short time so I finished it. I sometimes don't know why something doesn't give me that spark, but once I got into it, I got it. I like doing the water, but this time the water in the foreground just kept getting wider and wider, it just morphed. Love the little misty falls in the back, and all together, I think it looks really good. I like this painting and hope you do too, heading to bed, got to work tomorrow and no time to read (even though the book is really good), goodnight.

Painting #104, busy day today, and special

Sure hope you all had a wonderful Mother's Day, those of you who are Mothers, I did, saw both my children and all the grandchildren, got a rose bush and had breakfast made for me and served to me, wow, such a nice day.

My painting today was a bit rushed because of it, oh well, I'm still cleaning up some of those older paintings, so I chose one of those and finished it. Maybe you think that's cheating, but I painted on it for 2 hours, so I believe I did more than 1/2 of it, and it's finished so it counts.

I originally started this with transparent colors, I put masking fluid on the flowers and some of the leaves and stems, when the masking fluid was dry, I wet it all over and applied blue at the top left and then switched colors to pink then again to a yellow, while it was still wet enough to paint into, I decided to put some far away leaf shapes and tall grasses on it, this makes them fuzzy and that is like out of focus weeds, I let that dry. When I looked at it after it was dry, I felt the wash was a bit wimpy so I re-wet the paper and re-applied all the above colors, when it dried this time I was satisfied with the density of the wash. After the wash was dry I removed the masking and started to apply color to the white paper where the flowers and leaves were, the opaques came in about here, evidently, when I was teaching this, I got the flowers too dark, I really didn't get the highlight on the flowers as bright as I wanted it and the opaques helped here, I had added the clover on the left and it really needed a lot of help, I cleaned up the edges and fine tuned the flowers and leaves and now it makes me happy, I like this painting, and I sure hope you do too.

Painting #103, very interesting day

What a day, I've had a very interesting afternoon and evening, the studio called my name about 12:30 and I've been at it pretty much since, it's 10:45 p.m. and I just got in with my new painting, I cut mats, again, and sorted through a bunch of old class projects, cropped paintings, coated paintings with gesso (only the ones that were not interesting enough to fix up), I still have a few to do, but all in all I think it was a great day.

I've decided that I must clean up some of the class project paintings that have been in my bag for months, if not years, I'm really good at starting them, and unless it really grabs me, I'm bad about finishing them. I cropped a bunch, this painting is one that I worked on at Blue Moon about a year ago, after we watched a Shirley Travena video, I don't know how she does it (Shirley, that is), but I love her stuff, even after watching the video, I can't do it.

We put up a bunch of little objects (they were all Susan's, since we were at Susan's house), when Shirley starts some paintings (sometimes she does this to get inspiration or just to practice), she picks up each item one at a time and turns it and looks at it and starts painting while it's in her hand, so we decided to do that too. Tonight when I was working on this painting (it originally started out 1/4 turn counter clockwise, it was a vase with flowers but, a totally different vase than the one you see), I was painting some leaves, and turning my painting, when the blue dish (it wasn't blue at the time, it was white), and the vase jumped out at me, I believe I found a much better composition, I really like this one, I couldn't leave my hands off it. I added another pitcher, and the brush was sitting there waiting for me to paint it. I had a blue blob in the middle of the table, and decided to make it sunglasses. This painting is quite a different approach than my usual style, but a lot of fun, I really like this painting, and hope you do too.

Painting 102, a bit late today

I didn't accomplish much of anything today, family stuff going on and the Coldwater Art Walk tonight, of which I had to man the refreshments table at the Tibbits, we had our South West Michigan Watercolor Show going on at the same time and we were having a little reception besides that, so I didn't get to my painting until after I got home, then had to eat, so there goes some time, and you name it, I can come up with any excuse as to why I didn't get my painting done, it is technically tomorrow, except that I didn't go to bed yet so I'm not counting it as tomorrow, I'm counting it as today, Friday, so you will get to see Saturday's tomorrow, lol.

I spent about 2-1/2 hours on this one, I think I managed to do a pretty good job of the cow, he wasn't in the photo, well, as a matter of fact, I couldn't find the photo, I did this mostly out of my head, originally I had the sky dark for a night sky, but I decided that the cow would be sleeping so I decided to put it in the daylight, this picture is so not like the photo, it's almost out of my head, well, that's not all bad, anyway, I ramped up the barn, it was a brown barn and I decided that the barn should have some color in it, especially behind the holstein (my husband says I should just say black & white, as I'm unsure of the real spelling, oh well) cow, I had to look up a picture of a cow, since I'm not a country girl and cows are kind of like aliens to me, but I like cows, so, I thought this painting needed something as a focal point, so the cow went in. my fence posts were too short for a cow pen, so I made those longer, so, here is today's painting, it's a lot less complicated than the last couple days were. but that's the way it goes some days, I like this painting, and hope you do too.

Painting #101, thinking gets you in trouble sometimes

Thought this one would be fairly easy, so, I decided to give it a try, I love the play of light on all the foreground objects, I did really well with the milk can, and the fence wasn't a problem, but I sure did have trouble with that tractor tire. Thought it would be so easy since it was just put in the shadows, well, don't know how I did, but I messed up on the tire treads right away. I struggled to get them right and they aren't totally right yet, but it's as close as I can get it. I think it looks fairly well, but I don't think I'll do a tractor tire like this one again. I do like it though.

I coated this paper with gesso at the same time I did the one I painted yesterday, it is done with the opaques, primarily translucently, but I did get into the opaques pretty heavy right at the end, I put in the trees in back and the grass, I painted around the fence and tire and then when that was dry, I started with the pale wash on the milk can and the tire then the fence, the detail was done at the end, the grasses and putting in the wires and tree branches in the back, then in the front I put in some weeds.

I love the composition and the eclectic collection of items. I did not pose this, this was taken on a photo trip with my friend in Indiana. She had a workshop at her home, one where she organized where we would go to take pictures, and we found this one by accident, after we took the photo's, we went back to her studio and painted one of the photo's we took, well, this one has been in my computer for a while, and I keep looking for something new and unusual to paint, well, today I decided that this one would be a good one, I do think it is, but it sure wasn't easy, but when things are easy, it doesn't necessarily mean that it will be a success, and, on the other hand, when it hard it doesn't mean that it will be a success either, so you will have to decide, do you like it or not, I do, and I sure hope you do too.

PAINTING 100! Wow, thought I'd never make it.

Another good day today, although I didn't get as much done as I intended, do you ever? I always think I can get more done than I really can, the only time that really gets tough is when you have a deadline and you wait until the last minute to do it, which I'm very good at. Or, I always underestimate how much time it will really take me to do it, always fun, oh well, hard to change old habits.

It was Blue Moon night, I took all my stuff to work on my blog painting (I didn't get to the painting until I got to Blue Moon), but, I didn't paint on what I thought I would, my dear friend Carol brought a basket of Pansies, so I really got excited to paint the flowers, I had planned on a landscape, but the flowers were a big pull. I really enjoyed these flowers, it was like painting plein air, I decided to not draw the pansies and just jumped in with the color, the first one I laid in was the white one, a bit difficult, if you think about it, white on white, but I got some very pale blue and added a bit of yellow ocher so it wasn't the same color all over for the shadows, then I started with the burgundy flower at the bottom, the one all folded up, and that was a lot of fun, so I just kept going until I had the burgundy ones all on the right side, then I decided to start adding green, I painted a light layer, trying not to fill the whole space in, I skipped around and made little lines and so on, so it would have spaces and character. then I decided to put the bud in on the left (you almost can't see it) and the purple ones at the top, then, I decided to start to fill in some negative spaces with a darker green and pick out stuff that was behind by painting it negatively, a tricky process, if you have't practiced, but it's one of the things I love, so I just moved around and picked up some darker colors where it was needed and I called this one done, it took about 2-1/2 hours, more or less, and I love it, hope you do too.

Painting #99, a wonderful day

I really got enthused about today's painting, I think part of it is because I prepared this board a few days ago, I, in my ignorance, purchased a couple of sheets (30" x 40")of illustration board, hot pressed, I thought I was getting hot pressed watercolor board, sending it back was more trouble than it was worth. When I first got it I attempted to paint on it, boy, was that a big ugly mess, well, the paint doesn't really work well on this, it's so smooth, it's even worse than using Yupo, if you can imagine that. So this is what I did, I coated it front and back with gesso. Now, you might say that painting on gesso with watercolors isn't much better, but I disagree, painting on this was almost as fun as painting on the clayboard. Now, I think I will be preparing the other boards that I have in the same manner.

I'd like to mention that this photo was taken at a workshop in Hillsdale a few years ago, I'm not sure, but I think this may be my friend Lynn's photo, I know she did a painting similar to this one, and she was much better at getting the scenes then I was, I was so wrapped up in close up for detail and I thought that I wanted to do panorama pictures, so I took lots of photo's just a little overlapping so I really appreciate Lynn sharing her photo with me.

This painting is the full 10" x 10" size, so I will have to mat and frame this one to about 16" x 16". I started it by sketching the rough shapes, I wanted to make sure that I left the figures unpainted since I'm using a basic watercolor technique for most of this painting, it's painted with the opaque paints but translucently, I wanted to leave the whites as the unpainted, so I painted around them with the green and pink thrown in, a light color at first and then went back in with the darks to pop the whites, then I painted the path and the trees and the shadows, I was having so much fun with those figures that I really didn't want to stop for lunch, but I did, then I had to put the watercolors away and paint china, so when I got home, I finished it, this painting took me between 4-1/2 to 5 hours to finish, I probably won't get this detailed and this large again for a while, I can't afford to spend that much time on one painting, but this was a lot of fun, I hope you like it as much as I do.

Painting #98 one of my favorite places

This is from a photo taken on a trip we took to the North Shore of Lake Superior a few years ago, this is either just before Split Rock Lighthouse or just after, very close, if you've never taken that road and driven along the North Shore going out of Duluth, you will be amazed. You will find so many things to paint, falls that come right out of the rocks along the highway, and if you follow it, it goes way back, and then you come to Gooseberry Falls, wow, you will not believe that place, I just can't explain the wonder of it all. I took so many photo's that I had to get more storage space, I was using a camera that used 3-1/2" floppy's and I had 20 with me and had to buy another 20 to store all the photo's I took, and I was even downloading them onto the laptop as we went, all I can say is, you should go see it for yourselves.

This painting is done with the opaques, but I painted it on paper, so the sky and water were wet in wet, I tried to add the far coast line with the darker blue, but it melted together too much, so after I got the trees in I went in with wet on dry and added another small strip to indicate the coast. I waited for that to dry and then painted the headland in the middle, I fine tuned that before I went into the trees in the foreground, then the reflection, after that was dry, I painted leaves on the foreground trees, opaque Naples Yellow then some burnt sienna to add the brownish look to the leaves and some green, then I fine tuned the tree trunks, once that was done, I jumped into the foreground brush and got that looking good, I like this little painting, and sure hope you do too.

Painting #97 and a second one too (very small)

Today's paintings are fairly simple, by the time I got to painting today I hadn't much time, I spent the morning cutting those mats, and as a result, my shoulder hurts, shouldn't do so many at one time, but I don't have much room, and the mat cutter is big and heavy, I teach china painting classes on Thursday's, so I have to keep putting it up and down off the table, it would sure be nice not to have to lift it on and off the table, maybe someday. the first one I did is just a little landscape, I got a sample of textured clayboard in the mail a couple years ago, didn't know if I liked it then, I found it a few weeks ago and decided to paint something on it, may as well use it, it's only about 2-1/2" x about 4", so you see, pretty small. I started this at one of our Blue Moon gatherings, but never finished it, so decided to give it a try today, hope you like it.

Now, that was just a small thing, so I started this other painting, the one I'm calling #97, yesterday, I actually started another one too, but I didn't have time to work on that one, maybe I'll get it tomorrow, but, on with this one, This little ditch was taken on a trip we took to our friends home in Gillman, Illinois, it's a very small place but big farms, you could go for miles and miles and see just little tiny houses on the left, and then maybe on the right, way far away, and very flat. Anyway, they took me on a photo expedition while we were there and I got lots of farm stuff, you've seen a couple, the cows 5 or 6 weeks ago and the barn doorway, just a couple, I have some other photo's that you will probably see too.

This is one that I really liked because of the water and the ditch and I just liked the composition and simplicity of it, the sky was wet in wet, I added opaque white for clouds and then dashed a bit of purple with brown in it for under the clouds, I put in far away trees and painted around the small shed there in the background, the rest was just the green, I left the water in the ditch for later, when the green was dry, I put the blue in for the water, and then I filled in the pile of rubble (I'm presuming that it is either a fence row or junk they took out of the ditch), then I put darker green to indicate the ditch sides and then the grasses in the foreground and the bushes. I fine tuned the shed and then spattered a bit in the foreground and put some branches on the bush and called it done, I like this painting, and hope you do too.