Sunlit Foxgloves

Sunlit Foxgloves

Image size 26" x 18"

Watercolor

I painted from this photo before but didn't like the way that one of the background blossoms was not covered by a foreground flower so I've painted it again.  This time it was painted on a full size sheet of paper (22" x 30") but I've cropped it to 26" x 18".  I painted it oversized so that if I do a giclee print of it on a gallery wrapped canvas, the image will continue onto the sides of the canvas.  I love that contemporary look and it also makes a frame unnecessary.

The other reason I wanted to re-paint this was because I wasn't happy with the paper I used for the first one.  I used resist for the white ring around the dots inside of the blossoms and the paper I used (Fabriano Artistico) was so soft that it tore when I removed the resist.  I've never had that happen with any paper in the past.  Have any of you had that problem with Fabriano?  This time, I used  Arches 300# paper.  Arches can be really abused and doesn't break down.  It was probably a bit more work using the 300# paper than 140# would have been but I don't have any of the Arches 140# left and I refuse to buy more paper until I've used up what I've already purchased which means that I will be using a lot of 300# Arches, Fabriano Artistico 140#, Waterford 200# and Lanaquarelle 140# for the near future.  All of these papers have nice qualities but now I know not to use resist on the Fabriano.  Live and learn, right?

Here is the picture of the first painting.  Which do you like better?

Foxgloves

Image size 22" x 11"

Watercolor

Fish Lips

I took this photo a few years ago and have always intended to paint it.  It cracks me up every time I look at it.  Living in Orange County, plastic surgery and cosmetic enhancements are fairly common.  To me, one of the most noticeable procedures is lip enhancement.  When I saw this photo, it made me think of people that take enhancing their lips a bit too far.  Is this the look they're trying to achieve?  The other fish looks a bit envious, don't you think?

I had so much fun painting this.  I started with a handmade piece of circular watercolor paper that has a beautiful deckle edge. It isn't sized so I sealed it with acrylic matte medium.  My intention was to use watercolor as my medium but I was having trouble building my darks so I switched to acrylic thinned to a watercolor consistency.  Painting the thin layers to build up the colors and seeing the image emerge was really enjoyable.

Fish Lips
Image size 21.5" Diameter
Acrylic

Calm Ocean

This scene is from a photo taken in Laguna Beach.  I was up on the bluffs looking down so the orientation is a bit different.  It looks a little more pale in this photo than it does in person.  I might play with the rocks some more but I will live with it for awhile first to decide what the painting needs.

I'm still not really in the mood to paint much after January's daily painting challenge.  I'm sure I will feel like painting soon but for now I feel like I need to take a break.

Calm Ocean
Image size 11" x 30"
Watercolor

Morning Wave

It's so nice to be able to paint without having to finish a painting every day.  I'm glad that I participated in the '30 paintings in 30 days' challenge but I must admit, it wasn't for me.  As I've said before, I really admire the daily painters that can stick to that grueling schedule but I need to be inspired by a subject in order to paint it and inspiration doesn't hit me every single day.  Also, I'm a pretty slow painter which doesn't work with that daily schedule.  It was a good learning experience and I feel like I did learn a lot so I'm glad that I participated, but would I do it again?  NO!

I'm really enjoying painting waves.  I think I'll do a series of them for awhile.  This one is a watercolor with some acrylic added at the end to soften some of the edges and add a bit more spray.

Morning Wave
Image Size 15" x 15"
Watercolor

30 Paintings in 30 Days Collage

Well, here is proof that I did paint 30 paintings in 30 days.  They aren't in order because that would have taken a few too many brain cells to figure out how to do that with the program I used.  Not that the program "pic monkey" was hard, I just didn't want to spend too much time on this.

I wanted to post this on the 31st but we were traveling and the internet signal where we were didn't seem to like pic monkey so I wasn't able to make the collage until today.

The majority of these paintings are 6" x 6".  My usual price for a painting this size is $100.00 but because I consider a lot of these to be studies, the price is only $50.00 for the next month.  There are a few paintings that are substantially larger and of course that won't apply to them but if they are a little larger, then it will.  If you are interested in one, it can't hurt to ask.

To see better pictures of them, just scroll down on this blog and you can see them in the reverse order that they were painted.

If you are getting this posting by e-mail, the blog address is nancygoldmanart.blogspot.com