Painting #96, just a simple rose today

I decided to try painting of gesso coated paper, I've painted on it before, it isn't quite as slick as clayboard, but still not absorbent, you can almost wipe it back to the white of the paper. So, this painting is a bit smaller than my 6" square, it's about 5" Square, I'm thinking that my 4" square paintings may become blog paintings too, there really wasn't a size requirement, I just figured it would be easier to frame them all if they were the same size, and I do believe that most of the painting will be framed 10" x 10", I started to order the frames, I've gotten the first 20, and to keep it fairly simple, I probably will do most of the painting so they fit in a 10" frame. I do have a few 12" square gesso boards and some 8" and 10", I'm pretty well set for most of this year, and what I don't have in boards, I will paint on paper, I do believe I've spent my "wad" this year already.

This photo was taken several years ago, these are roses from a bush at my old residence in Coldwater, I started it from a bush that my Mother had and it's very special to me, I transplanted part of that bush here too, but it isn't doing quite as well. This rose only lasts about 2 weeks, so if you want pictures of it you have to be on the spot. A very simple rose, and beautiful, it blooms about the same time as the mock orange, early summer.

I like the composition of this, I just held up a small vase of these in front of the window in my old living room. The light coming in the window was very dramatic so I decided the window should be there. I started with the rose, a thin wash and then laid in the darker shape for the background, the green is just a small spot under the pink, but you need the green to compliment the pink so I didn't wash that out too much, I really love the simplicity of this composition and I certainly hope you do too.

Painting #95, I'm really into this portrait thing right now

I don't know what's going on with me, I had 2 that I could have finished in about an hour, and what do I do, I start a portrait of my Mother-in-law, she passed away more than 2 years ago, but it doesn't seem so long, she was a real sweetheart, wonderful woman, welcomed me into the family, and never said boo about the age difference between her son and I, I'm sure she would have loved to have some grandchildren, but she made do with the ones I already had, even though they were already grown, wish we could have kept her longer. Of course this portrait will go on the wall eventually, and not for sale as most of the others will be.

I drew a rough sketch of her, not much detail, just the outside edges and then I put middle value flesh tone on her face and arms, I worked back and forth, lighter and darker until it suited me. Then I painted some greens, yellowish and purplish in the background, wet in wet. By painting the background, I pretty well had the shirt painted, pretty easy, I put a few shadows for the shirt wrinkles, and Ta Da! it was done (I did have to go into the background at the end and ramp up the flowers and greenery, getting really dark close to her, and that helped to clean up the edges of the sleeves. I really worked hard on the face, I wanted it to look like her (for lots of reasons, mostly my husband and his family), when you do flesh, the colors you mix vary, cool and warm, since my palette is opaque, I did use some of the light flesh tones available, juane brilliant reddish and some juane brilliant (more of a yellowish, these are very light and then I added Indian red and yellow ochre to that, then I did add some some blue to that mix to cool it down and that's what I used. I had a lot of fun with this portrait, I like it and hope you do too, she was a unique woman.

Painting 94, love my students

My students are so generous, my friend and student, Pat went to Cheap Joe's in the Carolina's and found that wonderful textured clayboard I've been looking for, and gifted one to me, so I decided to do another painting of an old photo, out of my Grandmother's photo album,on it. I think these women are related to me somehow, possible great great aunts or grandmothers or cousins, who knows now, my grandmother's been gone since 1965. I really like this photo, there were actually 4 women in it but I just used 2, I think getting 2 people on this 6" x 6" board was doing pretty good. I really enjoyed this painting today. The regular clayboard is slick, and the textured clayboard paints similarly to watercolor paper, so it's very comfortable to paint on.

I started by drawing the porch and steps with the women in place, I probably could have just jumped in and started painting, but this way I didn't have to make any adjustments. I started with the heads and then put in the clothing in the shapes of the coats, then the hair, which was kind of lost in the background, this picture was probably taken around 1910 or so, which is black and white, I blew it up but it's a bit grainy and not very detailed. I liked having to figure out what colors the clothes were, and the hair, and so on, lots of fun, it's almost like dressing dolls, which I really enjoyed as a child. The house in the background looked so dark, that I assumed that it was a brown house. I had a bit of trouble with the faces, at first I got the correct ages, then as I worked and lightened the flesh, they seemed to melt away the age, that's the one on the left, and the one on the right was just the opposite, she seemed to age from a young girl, to a 30 or 35 year old, but I managed to get them back to the right ages, or at least close. I know, I'm a slave to the photograph, I always do that, with people especially. I can move things around, eliminate things, and so on for the composition, but when it comes to putting the people in, I want them to look just like the photo. Well, this painting is close but not exact, but it was a lot of fun, love it, and hope you enjoy it too.

Painting #93, I really am painting

Today's painting is kind of out of my head, originally I painted one similar to this a few years ago, I had to come up with a painting for my class, I don't know what I was thinking, I gave them a photo, but they have trouble painting the negative spaces, they want to paint the flowers and not worry about the background, so, I'm not sure they really got into this one, it started out wet in wet and I really laid in the red orange (actually it was cadmium red light), I had them draw the rose shapes but they couldn't see the lines very well through all that red, so they struggled, so, I may have to figure out something a bit easier for the next class, or at least an easier approach to this style of painting, hopefully I can come up with something that will work for them. I didn't have any trouble, but negative painting is what I do well, so, I had fun.

Ok, now the procedure, of course I wet the whole page, which was a 1/4 sheet of watercolor paper (I don't believe the girls could handle the slippery clayboard yet), then I made a really thick puddle of cadmium red light and floated it over 1/3 of the paper where the roses are. After that was dry, I made a puddle of veridian green, and a puddle of permanent violet and one of ceulean blue, these were the original colors of the background, I had them paint water around the rose shapes 1/4 of the paper (the top 1/4), and float those colors in right on top of some of the red orange (which makes a very dark background), when that was dry then we did the other top 1/4 and did the same thing, also thinking of the stick type things in the background (this was some of the negative painting they had trouble with), then the bottom 1/4's were much lighter so I had them do the same thing only water the paint down (I know this painting looks square, well now it is, I cropped it, I didn't care for the long stems that were originally part of the design, but that was a final decision not in the middle), so I'm getting ahead of myself, when that was done I started to define the roses. some were having trouble keeping the shapes of things (paint goes where ever there is water, if you know what I mean), so, I got out the watercolor crayons, some of this painting was done with those, now I forgot to tell you that I was doing all this with the transparent watercolors, when I got home, the opaque watercolors came out and I fine tuned it to my satisfaction, that was when I cropped the painting, I like this painting now and sure hope you do too.

Painting #92, it was a great painting day.

Today was Class day, watercolor class in the morning, and china painting in the afternoon, and then, blue moon, we spent so much time getting the stuff together for the Ireland thing that we hadn't had any time to spend just doing art, which is what we are all about. My dear friend Susan even made us dinner since I had class today and didn't get home before we had our Blue Moon gathering (I'd call it a meeting, but we usually don't do a regular meeting type thing), we just paint, and plan things to do and shows to get into, that sort of thing.

Ok, on with the painting, this happens to be Kings Mill, a very picturesque place to paint plein air, I did sketch there and painted, but this one is strictly from a photo I took at the time. It's a very nice park, and lots of people go there to paint and relax.

I started this a little over a week ago, but got wrapped up with several other paintings, sometimes I'll start 2 or 3 and then work on one to completion while the other two wait for a spark of inspiration, so, I got the others done that I had started at that time, and this was the last, I had to start 2 others today, so I will have them in the wings for another day, maybe tomorrow, it will depend on how I feel about painting one of them, well, actually they are almost 1/2 done so they have a big head start.

This is painted on paper again today, and I really get into painting the reflections, but this one is very sedate compared to the other water paintings, I painted this, again, with the opaques, it has been my favorite lately, so as I started with the sky, painting around the building and painting into the trees wet in wet, then I put a thin wash on the building, and then jumped into the water and reflection, then it was fine tune the trees, then the building, and the water really grabbed me so, today I got right into that. The tree on the right was put in last and the tree branches hanging over the whole thing, this is a cute little painting and I like it, hope you do too.

Painting #91, got another late start

So many things to keep me from painting, but I did get at it, had fun when I finally got there, this painting started out a few weeks ago when I was testing some liquid watercolors, I wet the paper and then just dropped pink and blue and purple randomly over the wet paper, it was wet enough that it pretty well dispersed all over, with some color variations but pretty much one value. I was scanning the photo's again ( Saturday I decided that the bunch of photo's I had in my travel bag was getting boring, that is to say, they seemed like the same old things I've been painting, and I wanted to do something different). So, I found this photo, taken at a workshop, again, this was taken in Hillsdale and at the same Tony Van Hasselt workshop, he also painted this house, but this looks nothing like his, I tend to overwork mine, oh well. Anyway, I decided to give this composition a try, I would certainly like to get as loose as tony, but I'm still working on it.

Over the pink and blue and purple paper, I sketched this house, then I negatively painted the sky and the tree area on the left, I then decided to attempt to put in the shadows to get the form of the house, I tried to do it simply, but I had trouble with this one, so it became very opaque, not the lovely translucent watercolor that I was aiming for, I keep trying, I may get there. I think my problem is that I want it to have good perspective, so I keep messing with it. I should be able to put that brush down once and get out, leave what ever happens. Well, I can't do that yet, maybe someday. Anyway, I decided to put a couple people in it, then for some strange reason, I think that lady on the porch had a baby in her arms, did you find it? It's pretty small, but I like it. So, I just kept going around putting little bits of information here and there until it suited me, the very foreground bushes were just splattered and then, I signed it. So, it's done, I like this little painting and I hope you do too.

Painting #90, wow 3 months!

In one sense, it doesn't feel like 3 months, but, on the other hand, it doesn't seem like it should only be 90, it feels like forever. Is that bad, or good? Who knows, all I know is I'm still working at it, some days it's easier than others, but that's life, like I've said before, it's got me painting everyday, and that's good.

I started this painting in my class on tuesday, but it didn't grab me as much as a couple of the others have, it was kind of ho hum, but, I decided to throw some chickens in there, now I like it a lot better. I'm back on the clayboard, I do like painting on it, I have bought a couple other sizes, so I may jump in with one of those one of these, days, I decided, that my standard 6" was restrictive, so now I'm going to paint what ever size I feel like for the photo that I'm using, by doing that, I am hoping that I will be able to loosen up a bit, I'll have to in order to get the painting done, the small ones made it easy for me to keep my style tight, now we'll see how this proceeds.

This painting was painted my usual way, I started with the sky, then the building and the grasses, I decided to put a dirt drive in, actually it was a major highway, there wouldn't have been chickens on that road, they'd have been road kill. Anyway, I had to make some adjustments, I had to eliminate a fence and some stuff between the two barn sections, I forgot to leave space enough for it, so I just left if off, also, my photo was so dark, it was late, almost too late to take a picture, but I just wanted the shape of the barn, so the rest of this painting is all me, at the end, I decided to put something in, I pondered a person, or some horses, well, horses would have meant I would have to look for a different photo, because I would need to make sure it had the correct shape that says horse, well, the chickens came out of my head, I think they look like chickens, also being small, I could infer, so that's what I did, I like this little painting, and hope you do too.