Breaking Wave

"Breaking Wave"

Image Size 15" x 22"

Watercolor

I'm embracing one of the symbols of summer this week.  I really enjoy painting crashing waves and trying to capture the feeling of power in the water.  It's fun to paint in any medium but painting it in watercolor is always a challenge because the whites have to be saved when working with only transparent watercolor.  I used resist to save many of the whites and then worked wet into wet to get the softness of the spray and color blending in the wave.  I like the graphic quality that the hard edges of the resist add to the painting.

Pepper Trio

"Pepper Trio"

Image Size 14" x 14"

Watercolor

The majority of this painting was done on saturated paper.  I'm really happy with the colors and softness of the background.  I used a blend of green, blue and purple in the background to bring out the complementary colors of the peppers but in this photo only the green really shows.  I probably could have painted the blue and purple a bit bolder, but didn't want to take away from the shadows by having the background darker.

The Red Hat #2

"The Red Hat #2"

Image Size 11" x 11"

Watercolor

This is my second attempt to paint my friend Beverly.  I still don't feel like I've captured her essence and I know the reason for that is that both paintings I've done show her not smiling.  I'm surprise I even have any photos of her not smiling because she's always smiling.

I will try it one more time using a reference photo with her smiling.  I have several good ones but have hesitated to try painting her smiling because I don't want to deal with painting teeth.  It's probably not a big deal, but that's one more thing that I've always found intimidating.

Cerulean Sky

"Cerulean Sky"

Image size 7" x 11"

Watercolor

I haven't painted a skyscape for a while so that was this week's project.  I love the colors in the sky, going from ultramarine at the top into cerulean at the horizon.  I remember the first time I saw a distinct color change like this in the sky was when I was visiting Lake Powell.  The colors always seemed to be more intense there than in So Cal - probably because of the cleaner air.  It was as though those two colors had been used directly out of the tubes to color the sky that day.

So, that is what I did in this painting.  The sky is the focal point of this piece and the sand dune/water is less important to me.

I painted the sky on saturated paper and after it dried I added the land and water.

Guacamole II

"Guacamole II"

Image size 11" x 18"

Watercolor

This probably looks very familiar to you because I've painted it before.  I wasn't happy with how all of the values were in the middle range so I painted a second one with a very dramatic background.  I masked the subjects so that I could get a very smooth background and used colors that lift so that I could soften the edges after I removed the masking.  Unfortunately, since they were liftable colors and I didn't get the darkness that I wanted with my initial wash, when I added more washes, the color lifted.  I don't usually use an airbrush, but for this project, it worked perfectly to achieve the darkness and the variegated background.  After removing the masking, I wasn't able to soften the edges anyway so I'm not sure what was happening - suddenly, the liftable colors weren't lifting.

I really like my idea for this painting but I can't really say that I'm thrilled with either version.  I like the value contrast of this one but I should have used a different background color.  This is too much green, even for me.

Here is a picture of the first painting:

 I would love to hear your honest opinions of these two paintings.  

Agitation

"Agitation"

Image Size 11.5" x 24.5"

Encaustic

I painted this on oriented strand board (OSB) which I have always called chipboard.  It has thin, random pieces of wood glued together and they make a really interesting pattern.  I left areas of this painting with no color so that the wood shows through.  That's what those brown areas are but I don't think you can really see the texture in this photo.  

Usually, I try to get the wax in my paintings pretty smooth, but in this one, most of the white areas are very textural.  I almost added sand like in my last ocean encaustic, but I wanted to try getting texture with just the wax.  The tricky part is fusing the wax enough without losing the texture.

I used a little amber shellac to do a burn but I also got some clear shellac and added green powdered pigment to it and burned that.  The green doesn't show much but did add an interesting texture.

Lake Powell in Wax

"Lake Powell in Wax"

Image size 9.5" x 6.5"

Encaustic

I've painted Lake Powell many times using many different mediums.  It is such a beautiful place and the blue and orange complementary color scheme has always been a favorite for me and Lake Powell is an amazing example of that color combo.  

I love the way the wax moved in the water in this painting.  At first, I fought against it but each time I hit a new layer of wax with the heat gun, this is the direction it moved and now I really like it and think it is interesting looking.

I did a little shellac burning in the cliffs but because the color was the same, there was little change in the effect.  It does have a shine that it wouldn't have otherwise though.  I also added oil pastel but that didn't add much detail either - just a little extra texture in the cliffs.

Crashing

"Crashing"

Image size 5.75" x 11.75"

Encaustic

I started this on Saturday when I was doing my encaustic demo.  I was trying to show as many techniques as I could.  Some techniques were covered up as I decided what this painting would become.  I started by using the leftover color on my palette which turned into an ugly dark gray.  I'm sure everyone watching wondered what the heck I was doing.  You can still see some of the initial color in the background, which I really like.  As with many of my encaustic paintings, I don't know where I'm going when I start. I look for something in the wax that will lead me in a direction.  I showed inscribing and adding colors to the marks initially, which I covered up as I made my wavescape. There is some shellac burning done in the lower portion and I embedded sand at the bottom also.  I've never added that before and I'm not sure if I would do it again, but I like it in this painting.

I am so happy that everyone that tried painting an encaustic on Saturday really enjoyed it and they were amazed with how much a painting can evolve as heat and wax are added.  I think their favorite part was doing the shellac burn.

Here is a note that my friend, Nancy Grubb sent to me to post on my blog:

An open note to all of Nancy Goldman’s bloggers:

My daughter, son-in-law and I hosted  Art Salon II on Saturday for artists who work in watercolor, colored pencil, metal smithing/jewelry and ceramics when Nancy demoed encaustic.  It was fabulous– she had us absolutely enthralled.  As she started her demo the circle of participants was about three feet back from the table.  As she continued to work, everyone was moving in closer and closer – the ooooohs and aaaaaahs were resounding along with gasps and WOW, look at that! exclamations.  It is truly an amazing technique.

Nancy had brought along all the materials so 8 or 9 of us made our own small piece under her tutelage – such fun!

We all felt enriched at having that wonderful opportunity to experience a new-to-us medium.  Many thanks to Nancy for so generously sharing her expertise! 

Nancy Grubb

The Murphy House

"The Murphy House"

Image Size 14" x 22"

Watercolor

This was an interesting commissioned painting.  My daughter's friend lived in this house for much of her life and before her family lived there, it was the Murphy house in the movie "Home Alone".  I thought that was so interesting so I rented the movie to watch it again and see if I could get some more visual information on the house.  It's hard to paint a house when I haven't seen it and photos don't show all of the details.  

Before I decided to watch the movie, I tried searching Google Street Maps to see the house but this one and the main house in the movie are blurred out.  Apparently, tourists still drive to the street and take pictures of the houses.

It is a bit stressful to paint commissioned house portraits because it's so important to capture the feeling of the home for the client.  I'm very happy with this painting and am excited to send it off to it's new home.

Roiling Surf

"Roiling Surf"

Image Size 6" x 6"

Encaustic

I'm getting ready to do an encaustic demonstration in about a week so I've been concentrating on this medium lately.  This week, I wanted to do a painting of water.  Encaustic is such a perfect medium for this subject and it's fun to try to get a feeling of movement.  I thought I was finished with this several times and then decided to add some color and then the heat gun would move the wax in a way I didn't like so I would add more color and heat it again.  I love the way the white breaks apart and was trying to get more of that effect but was having trouble with that today.  I splattered the white to get an effect of water spray.  I did that by flicking the brush with my finger - probably not a good idea with hot wax but sometimes, we have to suffer for our art.  Ha ha!