CAW GIRLS DEJA VU

 

A few years ago, I was painting my Caw Girls series of paintings.  I found this first one that needed more work so painted and shaped a bit of that.  But wasn’t that happy with the outcome so...

Do over.

But this time, it looks like instead of a crow on her hat, it’s a raven because it’s so big.  

Still works.

First painting = Jester’s Pet/Caw Girl series

Second painting = Darkness Loves Company/Caw Girl series

Both are on 1/2 sheet Arches 140# cold press paper.

Did these before starting the Turner’s Apprentice book and exercises.

A LOT OF SMALL PAINTINGS IS GOOD PRACTICE

 

These are very small - one of the things the artist leading the Turner’s Apprentice demos/exercises says is that it’s more important to paint a lot of small paintings than a few large ones.  So we are told to tape off a sheet of paper (I used a block of Arches 140# cold press) and did 4 on each sheet.  I liked the one I enlarged at the bottom the best, using lifting with a razor to get the whites, lifting out the sun and reflection with clean water, and adding the darker reddish clouds on the gold-red sky.  

A MOUNTAIN CASTLE?

 

Painted this one first.  Then decided the left side didn’t do much so...cropped it off.  And look at how that changed the way my camera showed the color?

I also went in and took off some color in the “castle” and added some windows by just scraping off the color with a razor blade knife and leaving the white windows.  Muted some of the greens down, too.  

Not sure I did myself any favors by continuing to fiddle with this one.  

NOW WE’RE TALKING COLOR

 

Back to my regular color palette.  Still working through the Turner’s Apprentice book and enjoying the demos/lessons and suggestions on brushwork.  

These are both small - 1/8 sheet Arches 140# cold press paper.  

WATERCOLOR GRAPHITE

 

The color in the Japanese watercolor/graphite palette is very muted but you do get some color - esp. that reddish black!  I can see taking these out in the field and doing pre-lim sketches.  Nice quality.

THE LAST FEW MONOTONES BEFORE COLOR COMES TO TOWN

 

The last three small monotones before I start in with the muted color from the Japanese palette of watercolor/graphite mixed colors (like Derwent graphitint colors but less expensive). 

The paper makes a difference - the middle painting was done on an Arches block of 140# rough paper and you get more texture on that surface.  

GRAPHITE/WATERCOLOR MIX IN A JAPANESE PALETTE

 Ordered a set of the Derwent graphitint watercolors with graphite - and it took forever - and I kept getting notices that the order was delayed.  So I finally cancelled that order (from Dick Blick) and found this Japanese set on Amazon for half the price.  

Since I am working in monotone, I thought these would also work well to add a little muted color in the future to studies.  Lovely muted colors and you get 6 different colors in the palette.  

As you can see, you get reddish black, purplish black, brownish black, bluish black, greenish black and yellowish black in the set.  

They come in small cakes and you just wet them and go!

LITTLE MONOTONE SKY STUDIES

 

Another small one from the Turner’s Apprentice book demos.

I’ve been doing these on Hahnemuhle 140# cold press paper and think I’ll switch up the paper and see how I like them on something different - but I do like the Hahnemuhle paper and will order more.

A FEW MORE LITTLE SKY PAINTINGS

 

More colorful.

And back to monotone to get the shapes - layering until the darkest darks are there.