Wave Abstract

A couple of weeks ago, I attended a demo at the National Watercolor Society by Kathleen Conover.  She is really nice and an excellent teacher.  Her technique is really fun.  She does under paintings and then adds a mixture of gesso, water and matte medium and covers the painting creating texture.  Some of the old painting shows through and gives a nice effect.

As I was watching her demonstrate, I got very excited because I have so many paintings that are rejects that I can't seem to throw away but can't decide how to fix them.  This technique will work perfectly to reclaim them.

This painting started out as an abstract several years ago.  I had created a horrible color combination and a design that didn't work.  I wish I had taken a picture of it before I added the gesso mixture so you could see how it looked in its previous life.  Anyway, it had a dark line that suggested this wave shape so I went with that.  Kathleen used watercolors for her paintings but for this one, I used acrylics.

I'm really happy with this painting now.  I like the energy and color mixtures.  I plan to repurpose all of my unsuccessful abstracts using this technique.  It is really fun and I feel very fortunate to have learned Kathleen's technique.

Wave Abstract
Image Size 22" x 15"
Acrylic

Sunflower Trio on TerraSkin

Each Friday, I try to get together with a dear friend who has been an artist for most of her 80 years.  Sometimes we paint, sometimes we just talk but we always have a good time and always enjoy a good lunch.  This past week, we painted.  I picked up some fresh sunflowers and we each did our artistic interpretation of them.  I took over a couple of pieces of TerraSkin for us to use.  My friend is a very loose painter, which I've always admired, so she didn't need to use TerraSkin to paint in an impressionistic way but it sure helped me.  This is really loose for me!

I just love TerraSkin (as I've told you before many times) but it's been awhile since I've used it.  No reason really - just too many other fun projects stealing my time.

And......My studio is FINALLY clean.  It feels so good to be able to work and know that everything is where it belongs and that I won't be wasting time looking for things when I need them.  I'm excited to start new works in my clean, uncluttered space.

Sunflower Trio on TerraSkin
Image Size 8" x 10"
Watercolor on TerraSkin

All Alone

I really love the photo that I used as a reference for this painting.  I've used it before and will keep using it until I get just the right feeling.  I've painted it in oil twice.  The two paintings look very different and neither one resembles the photo but that's okay.  Each time I paint it, I'm in a different frame of mind and I think it's pretty cool that I can use the same photo over and over with totally different results.  In the photo, the day is overcast and the colors are muted.

All Alone
Image Size 12" x 6"
Oil

Here is the first one I painted from the photo:

I used a lot of artistic license with this one.  The latest painting is much closer to the actual photo.  For the painting above, I just plucked the tree out of the photo and added the vineyard and put it on a hill and I made it a sunny, cloudless day.  The tree doesn't even really look like the one in the photo.  I guess the tree was just an inspiration and I didn't really use the photo very much but it was a jumping off point.

Lone Tree
Image Size 6" x 6"
Oil

Rocky Point II

Back in the 90's we went on a cruise to the Caribbean.  When we were docked in Barbados,  we asked a taxi driver to take us to the nicest hotel where we could spend the day.  He took us to "The Crane" in Crane's bay.  The hotel sat on a cliff and had such a charming atmosphere, relaxing pool area, and an old stone walkway down to the beach.  I've painted that before and plan to paint more from my reference photos of this area.  This scene was at the opposite end of the bay from the hotel.  I love that clear turquoise water of the Caribbean.  Someday, I would love to re-visit this spot but for now, I'll do it with my paintings.

I'm STILL cleaning my studio!  What a mess it was.  Half of it is done and the second half will be easier so I'm hopeful that this week it will be done.  I can't wait until it is finished and I will NEVER let it get so messy again!  This painting was an unfinished project that I finished this week so that is one less unfinished project out in the studio.  Only umpteen more to go......

Rocky Point II
Image Size 6" x 12"
Oil

Oh, here is the painting that I did of the stone walkway to the beach at Crane's Bay:

A Lot of Old Stuff

I've been doing some major spring cleaning in my studio.  Yes, I know it isn't Spring but in my usual fashion, I've procrastinated until the middle of Summer.  Since my studio is a disaster right now, I didn't have any flat surface (or easel) to use for my weekly painting.  Fortunately, I have one that I re-did a few weeks ago that I think should count.

This is a painting that I did in the late '90's and I liked most of it but there were some areas that bothered me.  Our son wanted it and I couldn't get myself to frame it the way it was so I did a little more work on parts of it.  Here is the new version...

And here is the 'before' version...

The rocks looked like they were floating at the waterline so I darkened them along with some of the water and the rock on the left in the foreground.  I left the sky and the upper rocks alone because I thought they looked okay.  It looks really nice framed and I'm glad that I won't have to cringe every time I see it when we visit our son.

As I was cleaning, I found some old, old projects.  This one cracks me up!

Yes, it's one of my unfinished projects and I can guarantee that it will remain that way.
Here is the reference photo:

Have you ever seen a sadder face?  This was taken when I was 18 and this project was for my art class my senior year.  Even though it was a long (LONG) time ago, I still remember that when my teacher was taking the picture, I was thinking, "Don't smile, you'll have to draw teeth if you do"!

I loved my high school art teacher.  He had such a creative energy and motivated all of us to try new things.  I'm assuming that this was an extra credit project since it's unfinished.  I was a bit of a nerd and always got mad at myself if I didn't get A's so if it was a required project, it would have been finished.  Obviously, I've had many years of practice not finishing projects.  That's probably why I'm so good at it.  : )

We drew a grid on the photo as well as on the paper to transfer the image.  I think this was done on Bristol paper because it has a very smooth surface.  We used all of the different pencils from 6H to 6B to get the different values.  We looked at the shapes rather that seeing it as a face which made it easier to draw.  This was all drawn using very small circular motions.  It took forever!

Here are two more projects that I found during my cleaning.  They were done in the late '80's using china paints on glazed tiles.  After each layer of paint, they were fired in a kiln to make the paints permanent.  It took many firings in order to get the depth of color.  China paints are dry pigment mixed with oil and the tile surface is slick so it was hard to get the color dark enough in the beginning because when I would try to add more color, it lifted the color that I had already painted.  It's not impossible to build up the color without firing each layer but it was impossible for me.

It's still going to take at least a few more days to get my studio the way I want it.  I've torn everything apart and am cleaning from top to bottom like it's never been cleaned.  I was getting so distracted trying to find things while I was painting because I wasn't putting things away when I was finished with them. I have soooooo much stuff out there that I found I was wasting a lot of time looking for the supplies that I needed.  It was getting so bad out there, I was afraid that someone was going to submit my name for that show"Hoarding; Buried Alive"!
Okay, I admit that when it comes to art supplies and fabric I do have some hoarding tendencies but I really do use the stuff that I save.  Our daughter loves it when she has a project to do and finds out that I have ALL of the supplies that she needs - some of them from when she was 5 years old.  She's 26 now so that tells you how long I keep things.

Along with the art supplies, I had a lot of tools stored out there from when I used to do a lot of fix-it projects around the house.  Because of that, in my mind, the space was more of a workshop than an art studio.  I decided that it was time to change my view and get all of the woodworking tools out of there, clean it up, and have a pristine art studio.  Well, pristine except for all of the unfinished projects and hoarded art supplies.  I'm about a third of the way done and I'm very excited with how it is looking.  My friends that come over to paint each month are going to be SHOCKED!!!!  I'm hoping that when it is done, I will be able to focus on my projects and have more time to work on them since I won't be searching through the mess for what I need.

Wish me luck!

Tick Tock

This painting has a combination of pouring and direct painting.  I've really been enjoying using that technique recently.  I used a 260# Waterford hot press paper which is a really nice paper.  The smooth surface is good for the detail and straight lines in the design but doesn't show the beauty of the sedimentary paints that I used.  That effect shows better in a more textural paper.  I guess I can't have everything.  It  would have been really hard to paint the lines straight on a textured paper which is why I chose the hot press surface.

Tick Tock
Image Size 22" x 30"
Watercolor

Figure Drawing Class

Five weeks, twice a week for eight hours a day and this is the only drawing that I felt looked human enough to post from all of the drawings I've done during that time.  We actually drew this model from the waist us but in the interest of keeping this blog rated PG, respecting the modesty of the model and the fact that I drew her breasts leaning the wrong direction, I cropped the drawing to show just her face and shoulder.

This class has been brutal for me and definitely the hardest thing I've ever done.  The teacher is excellent, but there is so much to remember and I seem to have a hard time getting the information to go from my head to my hand.  I've always had a mental block about drawing people but I never realized how hard that block was going to be to break.  I can see that this is going to take a lot of practice to get to the point that I feel comfortable and happy with my drawings.  I plan to take another figure drawing class in the Fall, but I'll take one that's only three hours for each class.  That's stretching my attention span about as much as it will go and still accept information.

Taking such a class as a summer course was probably not a great idea.  Learning something that is so foreign to me in a compressed period of time made it an extremely stressful class.  We only have two classes left and I'm looking forward to what I will learn and also to the class being over.  : )  I need a break!  Who knew that art could be so stressful?

Anyway, I'm glad I finally took a life drawing class and who knows, maybe you will actually see some people in my paintings in the (far) future.

If you happen to be at the John Wayne Airport, Orange County, anytime between July 10th and August 8th, check out the art on display.  I will have 13 of my paintings in the non-secured areas of the airport.  They will be located in cases next to the security entrances for all 3 terminals and in the 2 baggage claim areas, adjacent to baggage carousel 1 and 4.

All of the paintings are watercolors that I have painted within the past few years.  Although I finish a painting each week, it was challenging to pull together a cohesive group of only watercolor paintings that I felt would show well together and were the right sizes to fill the cases nicely.  

I'm very excited to have this opportunity to show my work in such an unexpected venue and hope that people will have the time to check out my art as they wait in line for security or upon arrival when they get their luggage.

Secret Cove

I had so much fun playing with pastels last week that I wanted to continue for this week's painting.  Last week's painting had an underpainting of watercolor and this one also has an underpainting, but I used pastels for this one.

Here is how it started.  I rubbed a light layer of pastel on Wallis sanded pastel paper.  This paper is very durable and can be used wet or dry.  Some pastel papers aren't so versatile.  One of my favorite pastel papers, Sennelier La Carte, can't tolerate any moisture at all or the surface will fall off.  Below is a photo of the first stage .

This looks pretty childish, doesn't it?  I didn't use much pastel because just wanted a light map of where the painting was heading and didn't want to fill the tooth of the paper.   If I wanted it to be darker, I would apply more pastel.  Next, I used a paintbrush and water to liquify the pastel.  I know a lot of pastel artists use alcohol but for me, water works just as well and is always available.

It looks just like watercolor, doesn't it?  Normally, I would probably use watercolor for an underpainting but I wanted to show another option (for you KimmieK) in case you don't have watercolors handy.

I used a combination of Nupastels, Rembrandts and Sennelier pastels for this painting.  My friend gave me the Sennelier pastels awhile ago as she was cleaning out her art supplies and this it the first time I used them.  They have a wonderful soft, buttery texture and are really nice to use.  Thanks Peggy!  I thought my Rembrants were soft, but compared to the Sennelier pastels, they seem like a hard pastel.

The reference photo for this painting actually had a very sculptural silhouette of a leafless tree in the foreground which is why I picked it for painting, but I was happy with the painting at this stage and was afraid that I wouldn't be able to describe the tree successfully and get the edges hard enough with the pastels.  I'll try that version with another medium in the future.

Secret Cove

Image Size 9" x 12"

Pastels

A Hint of Sun

I was a bit of a slacker this week as far as painting is concerned.  I'm taking a life drawing class that is 2 days each week from 8:30 to 4:30 and it's really killing me both mentally and physically.  I've never done anything that is so frustrating.  I'm one of the worst students in the class.  I've always had a mental block when it comes to drawing the human figure which I'm finding is very hard to overcome.  I am getting a little better though.  The first 3 classes, I was close to tears by about 2:00.  The latest class I actually saw a little (very little) improvement and wasn't quite so depressed.

Anyway, cutting 2 days out of my week has had an effect of how much I'm getting done around here.  I'm also working on the final details for a show that begins next week.  I'll tell you about that in my next post.

So today, I found myself with no painting to post.  I decided to paint some figs that I picked up that were really beautiful colors.  I spent an hour and a half working on it and it was going from bad to worse - probably because I wasn't motivated to paint and it is also really hot and humid here right now.  I wiped all of the paint off of the canvas and now have a nicely toned surface for my next painting but an hour and a half is a long time to end up with just a toned canvas.

The painting above started as a watercolor.  I found a piece of printmaking paper (no sizing) and wanted to see how it would accept the paint compared to the piece of watercolor paper that I painted on a couple of weeks ago that seemed to have no sizing.  It was even harder to build the darks on this paper.  It wasn't a successful painting so I decided to add some pastel and see what happened.

I'm actually pretty happy with the outcome.  Below is a picture of the watercolor painting before I added the pastel.  I had to blend a lot to hide the texture of the paper.

I think it has a completely different feeling than the pastel painting.  The pastel is much more dramatic. 

I hope you like the pastel better than the watercolor because the watercolor is now completely covered by the pastel. :)

A Hint of Sun

Image Size 4" x 6"

Pastel over watercolor