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?