MY UMBRELLA (AFTER MARIE BASHKIRTSEFF)

 Somehow I signed up for a newsletter - I am always doing this and then find I don’t spend time to read them so unsub from them later on.  But this one was interesting and I read it.  It’s by the artist, Dan Scott, and he was talking about the painting, The Umbrella, by Marie Bashkirtseff.  Her painting was in oils and it was gorgeous - the skintones against the darks were luscious and pale.  So, in the newsletter, Dan talked about hard and soft edges, darks and lights, and how Marie lived a very short but prolific life.  

And I just had to try myself with watercolor but…

I started with Daniel Smith Lunar Black which is a VERY granulating color…could not get the deep, rich darks I wanted (first painting in watercolor).

So I tried again, using a mix of Lunar Black and Indanthrone Blue to get the “blacks” in it.  

Of course, this looks nothing like the painting by Marie, but I kind of like it.

NATURAL GREYS

 An artist who has videos on YouTube shared how she does shadows on her nature paintings and I liked it a lot.  Her name = Kelly Hoernig.  You should check her out.  She does a lot with sketchbooks and nature.

Here is my version on her lesson.  She uses Daniel Smith German Greenish Raw Umber added to Daniel Smith Lavender.  I used Holbein Lavender (which I had) and then tried out the Umber with Verditer Blue.  Both the Lavender and the Blue are opaque colors and I liked both mixes.

I added the little bit of driftwood at the bottom for my own…the single acorn and the bud was from her lesson.

GRANULATING COLORS ARE SO COOL

 Still playing with granulating colors, but not for landscapes - you can use granulating colors for everything!

READING ABOUT AND PAINTING MERMAIDS

I’ve been reading while recuperating from the flare up of the back pain…mostly escapism about mermaids.  

And that made me want to paint mermaids more.  Here are two I did prior to the back pain..

The first one is trapped in a glass container and not happy about it; one just sunbathing.  But neither are the mythical mermaids of song and sea shanty…no beautiful girls here with fish tails.

First painting on watercolor paper 140# cold press.  Second painting on YUPO paper (the plastic paper that makes your paint just slide right off if you don’t control the water).  Watercolor and gouache on YUPO - a lesson in patience and letting go of too much control!

OUCH

 Somehow, I’ve caused my back to be in some serious pain.  I have no idea how I did it or what I did (nothing out of the ordinary), but I’ve been taking meds, keeping heat on it, resting (just sitting and reading or watching t.v. while sitting with heat wrapped around me), and some mild stretching.  Not getting better so…to the doctor to see what’s going on (x-ray, maybe?).  So no painting this past week.  I can share what I’ve done before the back issue, though.

Remember when you were in school and the classroom was decorated for Lincoln’s and Washington’s birthdays in February?  I do.  And we made Valentine’s cards for every kid in class, had our own little cardboard mailboxes put up on the wall so kids could put cards inside the box and you could take them home.  I think that kept any kid from being embarrassed if he/she did not get a card from everyone in the class (which did happen, of course). I think I was somewhere in the middle - I got some cards but my mailbox was never full of cards.  I think this happened 1st - 4th grade and then ended.  

I also remember the whole class making cards (it was a requirement and was done in class - probably get them out of math or social studies time) when I was sick from school with the measles…and the teacher brought them all to my home for me, along with any homework I needed to do to catch up.  I think I was in 2nd grade, maybe 3rds, when this happened.  Do kids still do these kinds of things or is this just too uncool for kids now?  

Not sure why I’m thinking about these things.  Guess I’ve got too much time sitting around.  

Hope your week finds you well.

SOME MORE EXPERIMENTS WITH GRANULATING PIGMENTS

 Whenever I take a workshop/lesson online, I learn something - sometimes quite a lot.  But I love granulating colors so played with some more paintings of my own after taking the lessons from Yesim Gozukara online.  Isn’t it wonderful that we can take lessons from anyone anywhere in the world?

ANOTHER GRANULATING LESSON

As I posted before, I took a 2-session class from Yesim Gozukara several months ago…and learned more about this wonderful technique of allowing the granulating colors to flow…

Now, my mess looks nothing like her beautiful painting did on the video, but I did it…and I will use this technique more often on other things because I am in love of granulating colors.

Here are my versions.  (Top painting was just cropped to show the part I liked…the top 2/3; and the second painting was a total redo where I went a bit crazy with the granulation at the bottom…but I still like it.)

Will definitely do more paintings and remember to grab my granulating colors and granulating medium (Winsor & Newton) on various things in the future.  

 

TAKING ART CLASSES ONLINE

 I discovered the artist, Yesim Gozukara, from a Facebook post someone shared about workshops she did and what the artist learned there.  She didn’t give much information, but suggested we go to Yesim’s site to get more info - which I did.  

I love granulating colors and the look of her work with all its flowing, blending, melding pigments so I asked about workshops and she was having one in the next few weeks so…I signed up for 2 of the classes (she had a set of 4 at the time and I thought I’d take 2 and then the others if I thought I’d learn more or want more later).

The classes are done with especially WET paper, back and front and tilted on a board (the wet paper sticks to the board when it’s that saturated so no problems with moving the paper around while working to get the flow of the pigment.  Also, she used a lot (mostly) granulating colors - which I had to try.  I already had some but not all of the delicious colors she used.

We did mountains and seascapes as the first 2 classes and I learned a lot and also learned to get this look you really need good granulating colors, even adding granulating medium, and patience (something I lack).

Here are mypaintings from the class of the mountain scene.  

The first is the finished mountain, the second is the start of it.  I added more white (not lifting off back to white but adding white pigment - a white “ink” illustrator’s use to cover over places which is more opaque than gouache, and I kept drizzling water and granulating medium over it to get the look.  

Last Ones

 Last little sketches…

My goal this year is to really hold back on painting every inch of every painting and retain some whites to give things more energy and pop.  But I’ve been painting in watercolor since 2003 or so and haven’t learned this yet.  I don’t mind going back in with white gouache or something but I’d rather remember to leave that white untouched…

A Few More

 Just a few more from my Stillman & Birn small watercolor sketchbook.  

I’m Back

 I just looked at my blog, which I have not posted to since 2022 (?) and saw that some of my favorite artists are still posting to their blogs.  I miss them.  And Facebook just makes one rush through without reading much or doing anything but glancing and Liking something…so I think I’ll try to get back to my blog again.  I have been creating since my portrait class but no one here sees that if they don’t go onto Facebook.  

So, here’s my first post:

While looking through Youtube videos, I saw something interesting by Kelly Hoernig.  She took the idea from the book, Color In and Out of the Garden (by Lorene Edwards Forkner), who (I think) took the idea from the book, Local Color (by Mimi Robinson) - yes, we “steal” from each other and make things our own as we go (I hope).

So…got out a small Stillman & Birn watercolor sketchbook and some natural things I’d collected in my little art room…and did a few of these.

Hope you like them.  A few more to come next post.

And, after being away for months, I still remembered how to post to Blogger - yeah, me! Ha ha.