Drifting

When I began this painting, this was NOT what I had in mind.  I soaked a piece of Winsor Newton cold press watercolor paper and began painting a wave in a horizontal format.  I could tell as soon as I wet the paper that the sizing in the paper was no longer there.  I've probably had this paper at least 10 years.  I've had problems with sizing before with other brands of paper and found out a few months ago that sizing is a plant based substance and it does degrade over time.  I can't remember if I've told you that before or not so if I have, I apologize for repeating myself.  The loss of sizing does not harm the paper and has no effect on the longevity of the artwork, but it does alter how paint reacts on the paper.

Anyway, I've got a lot of older watercolor paper (I had a little too much fun buying art supplies for awhile) so when I start a painting and the sizing is no longer there, I coat the paper with matte medium which seals the paper.  It creates a different surface than sizing does because when the paper is sealed, the paint sits on the surface, which can be good and bad.  Lifting paint becomes very easy but care must be used when glazing so that previous layers aren't lifted.  Also, it's harder to build deep darks.

In this case,  I didn't seal this paper.  I had really saturated the paper with water and when the wave didn't seem to be working the way I had intended, I decided to paint an abstract.  I really do love abstract paintings but don't paint them too often because I find them hard to do because I'm such a literal and realistic painter.

This is painted with transparent watercolor and I also used some watercolor crayons and Derwent 'Inktense' watercolor pencils.  Such fun!

I think I like the painting with this orientation the best but I also like it in a horizontal format with the darker part on the bottom.  Which way do you like best?

Drifting
Image Size 22" x 15"
Watercolor

Autumn River

A friend from my school days and I just returned from the east coast where we were visiting another childhood friend.  She lives in New Canaan, Connecticut which is a beautiful town.  Actually, I didn't see an area of that state that wasn't beautiful!  We took a day trip north to go apple picking and to find more trees that were changing color.  A lot of the trees had already started to lose their leaves but we did see some great autumn color.  We stopped at a spot in Kent with a covered bridge above this river.  The covered bridge was nice but I thought the river was much prettier.

This is another oil painting but I think I will be switching back to watercolor.  I enjoy it so much more.  I feel like I'm always fighting with oil paints and I really prefer the flow of watercolor and thinned acrylics over the thickness of oil paint.

Autumn River
Image Size 12" x 6"
Oil

Torcello Bridge

I started this painting several years ago.  I'm taking an oil painting class for just 6 weeks so I thought I would take this in to the class to finish it. After dusting off the cobwebs, I toned down the colors and finished painting the foreground.  It looks a lot better than it did but I think I will re-try this one in watercolor.  Oils are still a challenge for me.  The shadows look much darker in this photo than they really are in the painting but the rest of the colors/values look pretty true.

I've always loved the photo from which this was painted.  It was taken in Torcello, Italy which is one of the islands by Venice, near Burano and Murano islands.   Each of those three islands are completely different and each has a special charm.  Torcello is a very quiet, calm island with very few tourists, which was a nice change from the rest of our vacation.  This funny little boat really did have that unusual shape.  Those Italians are very creative.  : )

Torcello Bridge
Image Size 16" x 20"
Oil

Lakeside Reflections

I put that gesso mixture on another old painting and of course I forgot to take a picture of what it looked like  before I added it.  It was a wishy-washy watercolor.  It's no masterpiece now but I do like the textures I was able to create.  I still have at least 10 more paintings that are major rejects that I plan to re-work using this process.  If you missed the post where I talked about this you can find it here.

Lakeside Reflections
Image size 15" x 22"
Watercolor