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.