LAST POSTING FOR THE YEAR

Started a poinsettia for the last painting of the year.  I prewet the leaf shapes and the dropped in the colors, letting them bleed and blend.  

After that dried, I went back and put in the black using Lunar Black by Daniel Smith (it granulated so I added some dark red to it in places and made sure it was pretty solid around the leaves).  


I let that dry before going in with Sap Green and Bismuth Yellow for the middle buds, and put in the hint of colors in the red/green parts behind other leaves.

Finished up by wetting and dropping in more color in the leaves and letting the black bleed into the red in places to push some leaves back.  






After this, I’m going to ruin a month’s worth of paintings and see where it takes me :). 


Have a wonderful holiday season and I’ll see you in 2019!!!

WINTER MOUNTAINS

Still working on wet-in-wet and sticking with it.  This one wasn’t so great and you really had to do the mountain shadows using dry brush, but it’s okay.  Not every one will be a winner.

FROZEN AUTUMN POND

Just a frozen autumn pond.

TEENY TINY

This is a little scrap, just bigger than a postcard.  I was trying to copy a painting in the book and it’s supposed to be paler yellow mountains and a misty look at the bottom using blue, but it didn’t quite work.  Oh, well.  

I received a recent newsletter post from an artist who said take a month and ruin a lot of paintings as a way to explore and grow - maybe this is painting number one? ha ha. 

ODDS AND ENDS

Still playing with shapes and blending colors.  With the pots, you lay down the shadow shape only and then, using clean water, you move out and around to create the shape of the pot.  I like the bottom left one the best.  The top right bled out too much creating a feathered edge and the bottom right just looks dull.  So - fun to try and play with.  

The red/blue is just laying down colors with white space in between and then bleeding them together with clean water without touching either color again.  

Just a pear and leaves, lifting the white veins, trying to keep the pear highlights soft.  

A LITTLE STUDIO?

Come into my studio, it’s very wet outside!

IT LOOKS EASY BUT IT’S NOT

This simplistic cup and saucer looks so easy, but it’s really not.  The technique is, you lay down the color on the whole page and then, before the paper dries, you start lifting off the color.  Your goal is to get the shape right and to get back to white (or close to white).  So don’t use a staining color!  In the book it says to try this 10 times and then, if you haven’t gotten it yet, try again :). Isn’t that always the way = just keep trying.


I didn’t get the saucer right (can never seem to master those ellipses free-hand).  But I like the cup well enough.  

And this little flower on a scrap piece of paper is pretty saturated and full of color (not too much lifting here), but I do like the way the Bismuth Yellow (Daniel Smith) dropped into the center created the little star-shaped stamens.  

LAST TOMATOES

No more tomatoes at the Farmer’s Market, but I can still paint some.  Very wet and loose - I may just be getting the hang of this technique!

LITTLE LEAF EXPERIMENT

Trying to work on the iPad and update some blog posts.  I’ll be talking to the local tech guy about the photo all disappearing from the desktop and what can be done to try to retrieve all those - I hope!!!  

Until then, this isn’t as quick and easy (or familiar) to do on the iPad but it’s do-able, so...

Hope you all are having a better November than I.
I’ve had 4 migraines (which means 8 days) of pain or aftereffects of pain so far this month :(. And that was before I lost all the photos on Sweetie’s computer!!

This is another small scrap of paper wet-in-wet trying to vary the colors of the leaves.  This could be a fun experiment, just playing with any colors, doesn’t have to be found in nature :) 

AUTUMN SEEDPODS

Autumn seedpods.

SOFT LANDSCAPE

Long and soft landscape.  Lots of green

Still practice practice practice to get it right.  Sometimes I think I've got it, and then it eludes me again.  

Watercolor takes a lifetime to master!

GREEN LANDSCAPE

Square landscape. 

Lots of wet-in-wet and waiting for the right time to darken (and getting it wrong and trying again).  
When this wet-in-wet style is done well, it looks so easy and beautiful and fresh.  That's what I'm aiming for with this practice practice practice.

YELLOW

Just  playing with yellows and what works to shade them without getting too green or brown.

What do you use to shade yellow?

RAINY STREET

Rainy street in autumn.



We certainly are having enough rain.  So much that the little Halloweeners were few and far between last night.  Now I have to eat all this leftover candy!!  So sad! ha ha  

WET-IN-WET BERRIES

Wet-in-wet.  Light and washy.  Need more variety in the greens but not too bad on the berries.

BULLY PUMPKIN FINISHED

Glad I got this one finished by Halloween.  He was really giving me fits until I finished it :)

Now on to something else...

BULLY PUMPKIN

Well, he grumbled so much, I had to do a portrait of him, too.  Just a light wash and shaping of the crooked features before finishing.  Not sure why the blue background looks violet here - maybe something to do with the orange against the blue?

WATCHING YOU FINISHED

A grumpy old pumpkin.

BLOGGER GLITCH?

I have been following and commenting on some blogs without the comments ever coming up.  Not sure what the problem is - a blogger glitch?  So if you aren't hearing from me in the last week or so, it's not because I'm not watching and trying to comment.  My comments just aren't getting through for some reason :(

Sorry, Chris, Jennifer, Bruce, Laura, etc.  I haven't forgotten you all!

WATCHING YOU

Started a little pumpkin painting, using an outdoor ornament as a model.  This guy wants his portrait painted too, after I finish the first one.  He's such a bully (as you can tell by his gruff expression), and he's not too impressed with my small pumpkin painting - or maybe he just wants to know why I started with the small one and not him?!? ha ha

VASE AND MUG

Vase and mug.  



Almost through the Ewa Karpinska book on the wet-in-wet style of watercolor painting.  Still have a few books to go to get me through the autumn.

LEAVES IN THE WINDOW

At the window.  Still wet-in-wet and shaping the leaves after they are more matte dry.  

ROSE LEAVES

Third time's the charm with this one.  I think I'm finally getting it.

CHICKENS

Blobs of color become chickens.  
Just playing with shapes and colors.

JUG AND FRUIT

Began with the background, very wet and letting the colors flow.

Dropped in some more color in the background "cloth" and then made blossoms for texture by dropping in clean water when it was drying.

Painted the jug and fruit wet-in-wet, leaving some whites on the fruit.

LITTLE WOODEN BOAT

Wet-in-wet, background sky first.
Foreground wet on dry paper.
Boat painted last.

LEAVES

Still playing with wet-in-wet style of watercolor painting.  A good time to play with leaf shapes and colors.

LIFE IS JUST A BOWL OF CHERRIES

Very wet-in-wet start and then waiting for the paper to dry to a semi-matte finish to add the cherries inside and shape the bowl; then put the last three cherries outside the bowl when the paper was almost dry.

FLOATING?

All it needs is a shadow shape underneath so it's not a floating vase of autumn foliage and berries.


Still slowly working my way through the Ewa Karpinska book and still have to go through the Jean-Louis Morelle book, too.  So much to learn!

JEAN-LOUIS MORELLE'S BOTTLE ON TABLE

A homage to Jean-Louis Morelle, who must be, like Ewa Karpinska, a true master of this wet-in-wet technique.

Apparently, Jean-Louis liked to paint all the things around him, including this bottle on a table.  The painting is my version but it's from his painting of the same thing (and he uses some great blossoms in the background which I did not create as well).  I do like the misty look, though.

TIMING OF WATER

I could do more with this one, but am going to keep it as is.  I like the misty look and the way blotting the leaves created some see-through areas and some dark areas.  


In Ewa Karpinska's book, she talks about the importance and timing and learning when to add pigment and when to wait.  Yep.  It's definitely important!





Happy October!

LEAVES WET-IN-WET (TRYING)

There is a definite learning curve to this wet-in-wet style with lots of patience playing into it.  You can't just go in and paint and watch the pigment diffuse and lighten over and over.  At some point, you have to wait until the paper is more matte dry (not dry but drier than when you first put down all that water and pigment) and then sharpen some areas.  And if you don't wait, you just get blurred, muddy stuff.  Like this one became.  A mess, really.  

So...I started over, following the directions in the Ewa Karpinska book more carefully and this is the start of the new one...

I'll darken and shape this one more.  I'm not crazy about that lime green background but blame myself for not thinking enough about that (I was concentrating on the leaves and rosehips).  Maybe I can go in and drop some more darker and varied color in the background later?

I guess what I'd like is somewhere between the top and bottom painting - not so soft but not so hard-edged, either.  Ugh!  OK, keep trying...

FEATHERS

I tried to paint a few feathers without having any feathers in front of me, either real or in a photo.  It didn't work.  Turns out, I was painting them upside down!  Why didn't I know what a feather looked like until I drew it out and then saw what I was doing wrong?  Oh, well.  Those got tossed in the bin and this one survived.  


Then I remembered, I have bluejay feathers collected from the ground around the feeders.  (I have a family of about 7-8 bluejays that visit every day.)  Took those feathers to my art room and put them on my paper, traced around them a bit and then painted while looking at them.  Much better - but a bit stiffer because not done wet-in-wet.  I will do some wet-in-wet later after practicing more feathers - and doing some in other colors.

PLAYING WITH ALCOHOL INKS AND FLUID ACRYLICS ON YUPO

Just playing, pouring, tilting, moving and pigment around and letting it dry.  Walked away and returned to see something - a whiter shape to work up in the middle = another angel watching over us all (we can use it these days).

WET-IN-WET STYLE A LA EWA KARPINSKA

Wet-in-wet painting from the Ewa Karpinska book.  You can try to paint it like the photo in the book, but it never turns out the same.  I remember doing paintings in watercolor class where we all painted from the same reference material the teacher provided - and each painting was different.  We all have our own take on things, our own style showing through, and our own choice of colors.  



I'm not unhappy with this; it just doesn't look like her painting.  Of course, she's a master at wet-in-wet painting.  

The last few wet-in-wet paintings have all been takes on her paintings in the book and none of them look like the painting in the book :)  


Happy October!

MORE WET-IN-WET STYLE PAINTING

Looks like a windy day after rain.


These last few paintings are all after looking through the wet-in-wet style watercolor books (2) I have to learn how to do this and not overwork.  The trick is saturation of the paper but also waiting until the paper is matte dry until adding the last, darker bits.  Since patience is a key ingredient, maybe that's why I haven't mastered this style in the years that I've been painting.  

WET-IN-WET WITH MY EWA KARPINSKA BOOK

Wet-in-wet using my least favorite colors (green), but not too bad.  Working with a book of techniques by Ewa Karpinska (she is fabulous at wet-in-wet style and very saturated paintings but still amazing).

WET-IN-WET IS MY FAVORITE STYLE OF WATERCOLOR PAINTING

Although the wet-in-wet style of watercolor painting is my favorite style, I often don't do this naturally.  So I have to remind myself - and do a bit of practicing - to get into the wet-in-wet groove.


So...taking out a book I've had for a while (by Ewa Karpinska) and a new one I purchased recently (by Jean-Louis Morelle) to play and test the waters (no pun intended!!).  There are some step-by-step works in both of these you can try and I recommend both if you really want to delve into this style of painting.  But be warned that the book by Morelle is 1/4 part about color theory.  You can skip it, if that's not of interest to you, and get right to the demos and talk about water, paint and paper.

WET-IN-WET LANDSCAPE SCENE

Wet-in-wet technique, landscape with water and soft trees.

Copy of Ewa Karpinska painting in her book (she only has one in English) about the wet-in-wet style she uses.  Very saturated and soft.

SIMPLE FLOWERS WET IN WET

Just playing with some wet-in-wet watercolor painting.

Not as wet on the greenery this time.

MAGNOLIA

I like it more since I pushed back the background a bit.  


Half sheet
Fabriano Artistico 140# cold press


Cotton Candy Magnolia

COTTON CANDY MAGNOLIA

Named it the cotton candy magnolia because that's what it looks like to me right now.  I'll change that as I continue to work on it.  

Half sheet, Fabriano Artistico 140# cold press (has a bit of a tooth to it as you can see where the cerulean blue separated in the background).

Better, but still going to push that background back a bit using a glaze of cobalt blue.