Friday, May 18, 2007 - Landscape Group Painting

I joined a Watercolor Landscape group on Yahoo hosted by Donna Elio (check out http://groups.yahoo.com/group/landscapestudygroup if you're interested).

We are doing copies/pastiches of the masters of watercolor. Our first one was a copy of Alexander Cozens' (British 1717-1786)monochromatic landscape and we all were to do it plus any other landscape or seascape or cityscape work we want to do to share. Below is Cozens' work - all I can find is that it is 18th century and is called Mountain Landscape (grey watercolor on brown paper). Below is my version (not finished yet). The goal was to get that sense of distance by keeping the bg lighter and lighter and the foreground dark but we didn't have to use the same palette. I, unfortunately, chose yellow to start - must be a masochist because how do you darken yellow without adding other colors? So there is Aureolin (I don't normally use this but have almost a full tube I'm using up on just studies like this), Ultramarine Violet to brown it and then some Quinacridone Gold and Quinacridone Burnt Orange and Burnt Umber. Need the foreground to be darker and the bg isn't light enough to get a real sense of distance (I see other things I need to tweak a bit, too) I may have to do this one again to get the feel of it - although I like the brightness of my colors much more than the grey and brown of the Cozens version.

Wednesday, May 16, 2007 - Tuesday Night Figure Studies

Sandy missed the figure study group last night - off to a workshop. But I went and did these. As always, short 10-minute poses to warm us all up and then a longer (1 1/2 hour) pose to work with. I had trouble with the short poses - he used a large pole/walking stick as a prop and I think it threw me off a bit - he folded his hands over the stick which made it hard for me to get the hands right. Oh, well...posted just the long pose - did these only in graphite in my 9 x 12 sketchbook - didn't feel like doing anything larger. I think having a headache didn't help but I'm glad I went. Next week we move to Essex Studios and it's twice the size and new and light and air conditioned and heated and will seem very luxurious after the grungy warehouse experience :)

I think the second one looks more like him in facial features and body shape (I thinned him down in the third too much). I need to really work on hands and feet for improvement or else always work from the model's back!

Monday, May 14, 2007 - Can the Rose be Saved in Class?

Sandy said to bring the UGH rose to class and I did. I didn't think it could be saved and she thought it had potential. If it had any, I killed it! But she also said I had to show it - not sure why but you can't always has success and sometimes the failures are pretty darned spectacular! ha-ha This thing has watercolor, texture medium, gouache, collage pieces, watersoluable oil pastels and inktense watersoluble pens - tried everything and just couldn't get it to look like anything but a mess.

Now, the other rose painting I'm still working on is still looking good - need to go darker in the bg area. The misket is off to some whites still to blend and not sure how much I want to do to the rose itself - I like this look so far but more to come later...

Sunday, May 13, 2007 - Happy Mother's Day

Happy Mother's Day today to all biological, step, adopted, and surrogate mothers today!




Put another light coating of the pearlescent glaze on the bathroom walls. Better. Maybe Jerry won't hate it when he comes home from his trip to the Smoky Mts. It has a shiny, pearl covering over the base paint of Tahitian Blue (which is a sea-green). Looks like the pearly inside of a shell. And the shelves and doo-dads back on the wall and around the room so it looks finished. The item in between the two shelves is an acrylic painting I bought from Robin Pushee (she lists as pretypleese on eBay). She does tons of mermaids and after watching and bidding on several, I finally won one that wasn't watercolor (wanted acrylic because I always intended to hang it in the bathroom). This one is on wood and is a collage piece - a pretty pink and blue mermaid with a 3D look. I just checked her work again and she's changed to more a child-like mermaid series.

Saturday, May 12, 2007 - To Paint or Not to Paint

Weeding and mowing and putting a glaze over the bathroom paint job - which now needs more work for the spots I missed :( This is why I never make changes to the house - a small job always takes days and days to get it right. The glaze is a clear pearlescent and it makes a nice shine unless you missed spots because you can't see where you were and were not with a clear glaze - must be a trick to it I don't know...have to fix it before Jerry gets home and hates it too much.


The gators painting is done done done - no more on this one. And no painting this weekend so far...so just sharing the progress as this one was completed.

Friday, May 11, 2007 - Flowers for Mom

Well, I didn't paint today - but did lots of errands, including getting some annuals for Mom for Mother's Day (this is what she said she wanted so she'll be overrun by annuals from all of us this year).

As you can see, I have a color theme going on here...

Everyone had the same idea as I did today: get those flowers today early before the rush! ha-ha So the garden center was packed with people. Coming home with these little beauties made me want to plant something, too. Unfortunately, I don't have a green thumb and things are usually put in the "window" boxes around the back deck rather than in the ground so I remember to water them when I'm out there.

Thursday, May 10, 2007 - Finishing Things

I'm calling Deb's Chevy done. The foreground is darker IRL than it shows here - don't know why. But I did get some shaping of the fenders and rounded parts of the truck done and put the metal parts in with some tinted gouache which worked okay - not shiny but then an old truck's metal parts wouldn't be too shiny. Anyway, done. On to the next unfinished painting...

Worked on the Rusted Rose Design painting - using granulating/sedimentary colors, I worked the "grate" and the bg: Lunar Earth, Goethite, Lunar Red Rock, Hematite, Moonglow (all Daniel Smith colors). My intention is to leave the rose and leaves/buds smooth.

And, unfortunately, I ruined the GWS rose - put collage on it and then some texture medium to sculpt the petals and buds. After that dried, I really didn't know what to do with it - so let the 5-year-old out to do her thing - and this is what happened :( Oh, well. Sometimes you succeed, and sometimes you fail. And this one was a failure - so it will be torn up and tossed in the "round file."

Wednesday, May 9, 2007 - Tuesday Night Figure Studies

Last night we had our 2nd figure study meeting in the 18th Street Ironworks building - a male model this time, probably in his 50's, lean but not overly muscled. The weather had turned warm and it was hot in the 3rd floor studio but once you got working, the time flew by and you forgot you were hot and sticky! Here's just a few of the ones I did - short, 10 minute gesture poses to warm us up go by so quickly and you're just to catch the gesture of the pose - not detail. Then the model kept a long pose for the rest of the night. I worked on 3 of that pose, deciding to put some color in one (I'm working my way up to using my watercolor washes at some time but don't feel quite ready for that yet).

Grrr - hands and feet must be the hardest things to learn. Can you see where I thought I was doing a good job - but count the toes! ha-ha No, he didn't just have 4 but that's all I drew in :(

The first color was just putting Caran d'Ache (watercolor crayons) on and blending them together. The second color was adding water and blending here at home. I have to say I think I overdid the tummy pooch more than it was or else as I kept working it, it got bigger and looser.

Tuesday, May 8, 2007 - Roses Roses Roses?

Going back to some things that are 1/2 finished to get them done and move on without piling up too many 1/2 finished paintings! So the gators were revisited. I put some bold cerulean blue in it and I like it BUT it needs to be incorporated now into the rest of the painting - not just in the foreground. So will do that next and call it done. I'm not happy with the background and how dark that is - not sure what I can do to soften it right now but I'll try. I like this but maybe I like the idea of it more than the finished piece now? Hmmmm...something to think about. Not much more I can think to do with this one and I have the one on hotpress drawn out and ready to start after I finish up several rose paintings I have started and unfinished...and Deb's old Chevy car...

I am calling the Rose n Fence painting done now. I won't do more to it. The fence really isn't tilting - that's the way I took the photo. I like it and it shows you can save a really bad, boring, ugly background if you think about designing something there. Thanks to Sandy for suggesting the hint of fence there!

Next, I need to add collage work in the blue rose with the bruised middle :( but it can be done. Choosing some papers that might work there and thinking about oil pastels or my Inktense water soluble pencils to see if I could work on this one. It won't be pure watercolor with the collage so you can add anything that works at this stage - or just toss it! ha-ha Sometimes it's fun to just play but it also helps to have an idea before letting the 5-year-old take over! So will think about this one before fiddling with it. I can see some parts that are nice - now just to work around those without losing them in the process...

Monday, May 7, 2007 - Class Work: Rose Times 3

We had to have the rose drawn out again today on wc paper - then Sandy taught us a different technique for painting the flower. So this is the third try on this, which means we are working "in a series," that dreaded saying so many of us impatient artists hate to hear! ha-ha

So today we put a piece of tracing paper over our rose sketch and then created a design to work with the rose and bg without being "rose + background" in any sense. This was more about integrating the parts and working with shapes without doing a Great White Shape. More design oriented and less thinking "foreground vs background."
Here is what I came up with and I like it so far (Note to self: Use those big rounds you have instead of painting with little No. 10s all the time!! It helps you loosen up.) The white areas will be the darkest darks later.

Sunday, May 6, 2007 - GCWS Show

The Greater Cincinnati Watercolor Society show: ColorBurst
opened today with a reception from 12 - 4 pm at the Evergreen Retirement Community on Galbraith Road. It was a good showing with lots of folks wandering and looking and commenting (note to self: If you don't want to hear the truth about your painting from non-painters, then wear your name tag that says you're an artist! ha-ha)

Out of 53 artists (each artist could have 2 paintings in the show), I think one of my top 10's was Shirley Knollman's acrylic macro flower painting called "Enchantment." It was on wc paper and it was done in a watercolor style - and it was just lovely. I also liked both of Valerie Bernardino's paintings very much, and Sandy Maudlin's "Power Surge" was a powerful painting of African women in their finery that made everyone take a double look and stand and stare - Jerry said it was his favorite (after mine, of course - he's so well trained!).

The show runs through June 3.

Friday, May 4, 2007 - Back to the Rusty Car + Gators

Played a bit more with the rusty car I started in Deb Ward's demo/lesson Wednesday. It still needs a little more oomph in the darks and then it's done. I like watching the granulating colors do their thing. I don't have a photo of this to see where I need to go from here so just faking it so I had to add the door handle in dark (forgot to put one there so didn't leave the shape light).

I got a delivery from DickBlick today: 5 sheets of Arches hotpress 140# paper. I am going to start a 1/2 sheet on hotpress of the gators using only granulating colors on the critters and keep the bg/ground smooth. I liked how the little study sheet went and will work larger this time.

Thursday, May 3, 2007 - Spring Show + Figure Studies

Took 2 paintings to hang at the GCWS spring show: ColorBurst. It starts Sunday at the Evergreen Retirement Center on Galbraith Road. Stop by Sunday from 12-4 if you get a chance - or any time after while the show runs (from May 6 - June 3). This is an all water media show and I think you'll find something you love. I took a quick peek at what was being dropped off and there are some beauties in this show!

On my way back home, I stopped in at the Cincinnati Art Museum to see the Andrew Wyeth exhibit (the last day is Sunday for this show) again when I had more time. This collection, from a Japanese collector, is an amazing grouping of graphite sketches, pen and ink, watercolor, gouache and tempera paintings by a living master who turns 92 this year (according to a docent).

Posting the few sketches I did in the 2-hour figure study session Tuesday night organized and run by Manifest Gallery in Cincinnati. The model, Lauren, did several gesture poses for 10 minutes each (boy, was I flying, trying to get something down on paper - and this being my first experience of this I was thinking: I sure hope the poses all don't go this quickly! ha-ha Then she held a long pose for about 1 hour or more with one short break - she was a pro and had an angular look that was interesting to try to capture. This is the first time I've done this other than a 3 session class once last year and it was anxiety-producing until everything kicked in and I just let it be. I am hoping to get better - to see better - to create something more beautiful and more "right" as far as the angles and shapes truly are. I guess that's the point! I have a lot of work to do - but that's what it's all about and I'm hoping to end up with some watercolor portraits/figure studies from these sessions at some time.

Not sure if we'll have the same model next week or not but supposed to have a live model (as opposed to a "dead" model?) each week.

Wednesday, May 2, 2007 - GCWS

The Greater Cincinnati Watercolor Society met today. Winsor/Newton had a rep there to give out goodies and everyone went home with something from brushes and the new pan paints and the anniversary tube Smalt (Dupont's Blue) to tee shirts and mugs and travel kits. All of these goodies were donated by Bill Powell at Wilson's Art in Cincinnati.

After the meeting, Deb Ward gave a demo/lesson on "How to Make Ugly Things Pretty with Paint," which she does so well (she paints old trains, rusted trucks, etc.). Today we did a rusted old Chevy truck. Mine wasn't finished, by any means, in the 2 hour period, but here's what I had to bring home and finish:

Deb's work often reminds me of the quote by Degas:

"Art is not what you see, but what you make others see."

Taking some nice granulating/sedimentary colors, she attained the rusted look in her truck. I still have a ways to go but I do like the granulating colors of Lunar Red Rock and Lunar Earth and a touch of Tiger's Eye Genuine.

Tuesday, May 1, 2007 - The Great White Shape

The Great White Shape is what my teacher, Sandy Maudlin, calls the technique John Salminen taught her in a workshop. A way for us to see shapes, not things. The rules are:
Find a shape within your sketch that runs off 3-4 sides of the paper. The shape must be:

Irregular - Interesting
Connected (you can't start and stop but make it like a maze a mouse can run through from end to end)
No more than 30% of the overall painting surface

So - you do your sketch, then you take a piece of tracing paper and place over the sketch and find a great white shape - where would the whites normally be - use that space and extend and elongate and exaggerate it.

So you see we had a rose to work with (photo by Sandy Maudlin):

Then we traced the photo (we all traced over Sandy's sketch):

Then we put our tracing paper down and created a Great White Shape:

This is the sketch on wc paper and the Great White Shape I saw/created. The sides run off 4 sides, the shapes are irregular and interesting (I hope), and the white runs through the whole painting, no more than 30% of the whole painting surface (or there-abouts).

Only when we have something that works and looks good can we pick up the paint brush. And what do you paint?

1. Taking a pale value and multiple colors, paint around the GWS (GreatWhiteShape), allowing for some hard edges and some soft edges. If you want your area around the GWS to be cool in temperature at the end, you will paint using warm temperatures for this first pale wash. You do this so, in the end when you paint over the temps with the opposite temp, you get greyed colors that aren't bossy and fade into the background.

2. Think about where you want some darks and using a 7-8 value, put in darks around the GWS taking up about 10% or less of the whole painting surface.

3. Looking at your photo, start incorporating more of the GWS into the painting, losing some here and there to create your main focal point. Don't use anything darker than a medium value.

This is where I'm at right now. Needs work - maybe more than I'm willing to give it but it's supposed to be done by next Monday's class. I definitely need to do something about that center petal of the rose that looks like a purple-red bruise :( And yes, I did want the rose to be blue! haha

Monday, Apr. 30, 2007 - 1/2 Sheet Gators Still

Still working on this although the study sheet is done.

In class today, we worked on the same rose.

1. trace the drawing on wc paper

2. create a "Great White Shape" on tracing paper over the traced rose

We were supposed to come out of class with a decent rose painting - NOT what I had! haha Several in class did get a good painting but I futzed too much - Sandy said, "HOW are we going to get you to SLOW DOWN??" I know it's true - how does one slow down - stop - look - think - rest the eyes and hands??

So did a small one on 1/4 sheet coldpress Fabriano Uno (the last sheets I have, I think). And then did a 1/2 sheet on coldpress Arches, working on an abstract, not a rose.

So now you're saying, "What is a Great White Shape?" Well, see tomorrow's post and I'll write some stuff out for you. It originally was called the Good White Shape by John Salminen, who taught my teacher, Sandy Maudlin. It is supposed to help our minds break seeing Foregound/Background/Thing and see SHAPES! Now that's what we all want - so we've been trying it off and on for a year or so (ever since she took his workshop). I still haven't gotten it, though...

See tomorrow's post for info (I may even share the "interesting" shapes I got trying to paint the rose without thinking of it as a rose!).