KENTUCKY HORSE PARK

To celebrate our anniversary, Sweetie and I drove down to Lexington, KY to the Kentucky Horse Park. 

It was a good visit.  I love seeing all the horses in the Breeds Show (Welsh Cob, Lippizanner, Norse Vann, Romany something, American Quarterhorse, etc.).

I liked seeing the ferrier shoe the horses and talk about how it works to do that - just like trimming and filing your nails only with larger instruments.  Takes a big guy to shoe a big horse!

Draft horses, pleasure horses, two museums, a small art show and plenty of horse sculptures around the park grounds kept us busy most of the day. 

The grounds are nicely done outside the barns and show rings with a stream running through the front of the property and some stone walls and arches.

Here's me, doing my Edith Ann impression.  If you don't know who that is, then you are too young to remember the old Laugh-In show and Lily Tomlin's skits.  

Wildflowers allowed to grow.

See you next time...

GREATER CINCINNATI WATERCOLOR SOCIETY (GCWS) SUMMER SHOW

The Greater Cincinnati Watercolor Society will be holding their annual summer show at The Barn (the Woman's Art Center of Cincinnati gallery site in Mariemont) this June.  The show begins with an opening reception Sunday, June 5 at 1 pm.  

Come and see it if you are in the area.

Here 
is the link to read about dates, etc.

I don't think I put anything in the show last year, but I will have 2 paintings in this upcoming show - one full sheet and one fourth sheet watercolor from my Plant Series paintings.  Most of the paintings in the show will be watercolor.  All paintings will be from members of the GCWS.  

PORTRAITS IN CLASS

The students continued to work on their portraits.  I had them do a monotone painting (like David Lobenberg does - and I showed them some of his video, Painting Portraits in Payne's Gray).  Then we moved on to color...

Here is mine.  
(David's photograph of the red-haired girl so this can only be used as a demo for my students and to help them learn.)  And I definitely don't paint as loosely as David does!

BEES

Drawing bees (on tracing paper) to add to the honeycomb background...will figure out how to best place them over the honeycomb and trace them onto the painting, then paint them.  A work in progress that is progressing slowly.  

But in the meantime, I am working on some single flower paintings on dark backgrounds.  

BEE MY HONEY...

A few weeks ago, Sweetie and I went on a walk with a few university folk.  The walk was about Birds and Blooms so it was in a nature area looking at spring flowers and birds nesting.  Also, there was a downed tree and inside the tree - a honeycomb that had been deserted.  I brought a large piece home (there was a lot inside and one other woman took all the rest for beeswax candles) - it looks like a heart to me.

So that got me thinking about bees
and honeycombs
and possible paintings.

I had a couple of small (6 x 6 inch) stencils I'd purchased somewhere - one has a honeycomb pattern and one has numbers.  I also carved my own honeycomb stamp from materials I'd gathered earlier this year.





Drawing the shape, stamping the honeycomb stamps and number stamps, I am thinking about the bees and colony collapse and what will happen if we don't save the bees...how much of what we eat on a daily basis will just be gone?

Now I'll take some time and draw a few honey bees and trace them onto the paper - or maybe paint them onto watercolor paper and glue them onto the honeycomb?  

Obviously, I'm still at the thinking stage on this one and unsure where it will go.  But one cannot just disregard such a great reference as the honeycomb (and it smells so wonderful in my little art room, perfuming the air with the scent of honey and flowers).

FRUITY STAMPS

Using fruits as stamps for watercolor stamping on paper.  Then cut out the shapes.  Makes a cute card or small painting to send to a friend.

You can try apples, pears, even the base of a celery stalk - use your imagination and see what you can create :)

GREEN

Another older, small painting.  Thinking about landscapes as the land becomes so green (from all the rain).

CHAINS

Rusted Chains




Another oldie.  
Watercolor on gessoed paper.

WATERCOLOR INKS

Just using the 3 watercolor inks I have (red, blue, yellow) to make pseudo-flowers that will get pasted onto cards.  One even made its way to a Mother's Day card...

And while these were drying, I saw this mystery bird who had shown up from just ink drips and wipes on the foamboard.  I guess the birds are still calling to me (we have been having a few pretty ones coming through to the feeders lately, including 5 male rosy-breasted grosbeaks and 1 female).

NATURE

Fiddlehead Ferns.  




Another oldie until I paint something new that's good enough to share.

WOODS

In the middle of this road we call our life
I found myself in a dark wood
With no clear path through.
      --- Dante Alighieri (Divine Comedy "Inferno")

A LITTLE CARD

Using the popcicle drawing, I put this onto a blank watercolor card.  I changed the colors around a bit.


So now it's a birthday card for my stepdaughter, Jenny.  SWEET!!

We met her for lunch today to celebrate (even though it's belated because everyone is always soooo busy).

EVEN A STONE

I once had a book called
Even a Stone Can be a Teacher.

I don't remember anything about the book except the title.  I'm pretty sure it was coming from a Buddhist perspective. 


This is a little bit of a painting (about 5 x 7 inches) and I'm calling it
Even a Stone


Sometimes it's fun and invigorating to just play with textures.  

SOMETIMES STOPPING DOESN'T HELP

Remember this one?

I asked what colors to add to that final popcicle and got mostly comments on my Facebook page to use purple.  

So that's what I did.  


But I wasn't crazy about and and then I went in with the shadows and made ugly shadow shapes.  UGH!

So I used a strong spray bottle and washed as much of the color off as I could.  

Then it had to sit and dry before I could go back and try to "fix" it.

I reapplied the paint, changed the napkin color a bit and cut it down a lot.

Not great, but it is what it is.

BREAK TIME

Time for me to take a little break away from the computer and blogging and posting for a while.  Spring has sprung.  Maybe more time outside or in the art room playing with new printmaking supplies or techniques just to see what comes from that.  I'm going to practice a little voluntary simplicity.


"I practice saying no to keep my life simple, and I find I never do it enough."
           Jon Kabat-Zinn in the book, Wherever You Go, There You Are

TEXTURED BACKGROUND FOR FLOWERS

Worked a bit more on the whites - bringing in just a little color to shape them and make them more dimensional.  

SWEET

Almost finished - a small painting.  
Now, what color should I make that unpainted popcicle?  Any good suggestions?

When I finish the last popcicle, I'll put in the shadows.

FINISHED THE TEXTURING TECHNIQUES PAINTING

I thought it was finished, but I think the white flowers need a bit more work to bring forth the shape.  I'll save that for class to show them how to paint white flowers, I think.

ON THE WINDOWSILL

Begonia blooming out after cutting it down to the soil in the pot this winter.  Why are they so leggy?  When this was in full bloom it was scraggly and leggy and blooms were falling all over the table and floor around it.  But right now it's pretty so I'll see what happens - it may need a bigger pot?  Or supports?  Or...I don't know, I don't have a green thumb at all!

Happy April! 

TEXTURING TECHNIQUES IN WATERCOLOR

During watercolor class Tuesday, I had the students trace out the photo printout I used (from a watercolor book by Elizabeth Groves), and then had them put that aside and we played with learning some new texture techniques.  I showed them how to use salt, sea sponges, plastic wrap, splattering with a toothbrush and other ways to create texture in a background.  That took up the 2 hours.

Next time we meet, they will paint the background using any of the techniques they liked and then they'll paint the flowers.

Here is my version so far.  (Can you tell the two texture techniques I used?)

The photo in the book had yellow crocuses at the bottom, white in the middle and purple at top - but I wanted to change that so I'm going to do purple and white only. 

The book I used for the photo reference is 
Exploring Watercolor 
by Elizabeth Groves.  

PALM BERRIES FINISHED

I finally got to the shadows on these berries!  Done :)



This is a half sheet (15 x 22 inches) on Arches 140# cold press paper.


AMI Palm Berries

CARDMAKING

Here are a few of the cards I made for Easter and Spring - to mail or give to family and friends this year (or next).  

Once I got started, it was fun to cut and paste a lot of the watercolor paintings onto the printmaking cards or paint directly onto the watercolor cards.  

If you think you don't have anything painted for cards, look into your sketchbooks or small art journals and cut out some good things to glue onto a card = easy!

WHERE DID YOU GET THOSE WONDERFUL TOYS?

Remember that old Batman movie where Michael Keaton was Batman and Jack Nicholson was the Joker?  And at one point, the Joker asked, "Where does he get those wonderful toys?" 

Well, I got some wonderful toys last week in the mail.  We had a very belated birthday celebration with the family in March (the birthdays were in January and February but the family is BUSY), and I got 2 more gift cards.  One from Dick Blick and one from Cheap Joes.  So...drooling over the catalogs, I picked out some toys for printmaking.

Watercolor cards, Printmaking Cards, a Speedball Lino Cutter, 2 easy-cut blocks, a heat gun and moldable foam stamps (which is why I wanted the heat gun - you heat the block then press a firm stencil or item into the block which leaves an imprint that can be used again and again OR you can reheat the block and start over with something else).  Also got a couple of small stencils although they seem fairly flimsy - hope they work out.  

I need to do some planning for class so my students can make watercolor monotype prints without a press - we'll see how it works.  

Have you purchased any new art supplies this year?  What did you get?  How are you going to use them?  

MY PEEPS

I finally got off the sofa and painted a couple of Easter Peeps cards.  


I didn't put popcorn salt on these - just let the granulation of the pigments work - but they don't have as much of a sugared look.


I will probably do a couple more before Easter rolls around...if I am going to mail this out this year.  

These are quick, easy, and fun.  Not sure why I kept procrastinating about doing them.


I have done these in the past, but if you want to see some really creative and fun peeps paintings, go to the blogs of
Chris Beck and Pablo Villacana Lara 
and type in peeps in the upper left search feature of their blogs.  

PEEP AT THESE CARDS

On Tuesday during class, we set up some Peeps as models and then drew and painted them on a Strathmore watercolor card.  Both students set their own up and painted them - choosing the same Peeps but in a different order (neither chose the Peeps that were bunnies). 

I didn't get a photo of the finished cards (they both left with cards ready to send to someone), but did get the start-up of each.


This one belongs to Joy.  She made a green-yellow background around the Peeps before painting each of them.

This one belongs to Linda.  She did a pale wash of yellow behind her Peeps before painting them and putting in Happy Easter in red.




I hope the recipients of these cards are glad to get hand painted Easter cards this year :)

Me, I still haven't done my own!  But will - those Peeps are sitting in a plastic bag, waiting for me to set them out and paint them.  I did compose another set-up, using some cut out eggs from an old acrylic painting that failed...

IT'S PEEP TIME!

It's that time of year again.  Peeps in boxes in all colors at the stores.  Sweetie picked up some for me to use in my watercolor class Tuesday so we could set up our own compositions and paint peeps :)  They are so bright and colorful and fun to paint.

I set up some models and took some photos of my own before the students arrived Tuesday morning and then had them set up their own compositions on white paper, choosing what colors and types (chicks or bunnies) they wanted.



If you want to see previous paintings of peeps I've done in past springs, just type in "peep" in the search bar (top left) of the blog and they should all come up.  

PALM BERRIES CONTINUED

Slowly building up the colors.  
The reds are
Permanent Alizarin Crimson + Perylene Maroon for the dark cool reds
and
Pyrrol Red + Hansa Yellow Deep for the lighter warm reds
(all Daniel Smith Colors)

Now just need to get that strong shadow shape in there with some reds and blues and...

PALM BERRIES

Began a new one - half sheet.  Drew it out on tracing paper and then traced that onto Arches 140# cold press paper. 


 Started with the stems...

There'll be lots of reds in this one and I want to go slowly, building up the colors a little at a time.

LITTLE PINK PIGGIES

Painted the second little piggie and the stone wall.  

Because of the lights around the piggies, they look cut out and pasted on the background - just a little softening around some edges (not every one but those we want pushed back into the background more) will take care of that.  

I wonder if the left piggie is singing and the right piggie is a critic? ha ha

By softening the edges, I had to lay in some more color so darkened the greens to play off the pinks.  


Not Everyone Liked Hermione's Singing



And don't forget it's the month to paint Peeps!!!  I need to find some photos - or buy more and take new photos.  They come in so many colors now.  Remember when there were only 1-2 colors?  I don't eat them but Sweetie does (after melting them a bit in the microwave).  And I've been thinking about pomegranates.  I'm sure they have some at the grocery.

THIS LITTLE PIGGIE

Did you know that Tuesday, March 1 was National Pig Day?  I didn't either.  I was watching the news (checking weather) before class and they said it was NPDay.  They had a cupcake maker making the pigs from Angry Birds.

So I figured if the students didn't bring anything to work on, we could all do little pink piggies.  I drew out the piggies on tracing paper, traced it onto a fourth sheet of Arches 140# cold press paper, and turned the photo and the paper upside down to paint it, doing the background first.  

And I softened some areas of the ginger plant - it looked too cut out and hard edged all around.  I think it works better now.  Sometimes just a little pushing back works to make a watercolor read better when you don't want everything to look pasted on.

AMI GINGER MORNING DONE

A little tweaking and it will be finished!


I like it but...(there's always a but, isn't there?)...

I think it looks a bit stiff, especially the ginger.

PEPPERS ON WATERCOLOR BOARD

I wasn't in love with the firecracker peppers although it had lots of energy so...began another, more traditional wet on dry Arches watercolor board, but still a few drips and drizzles to come before I finish it.  


Linda worked on her painting of the peppers and finished it.  Joy worked on her truck, lifting some heavy paint on the truck, and then playing with colors on a scrap piece of paper (sometimes you just need to play!).

And I finished my peppers, giving them a little bit more movement and energy without the drizzles = 
a softer explosion! ha ha

AMI GINGER MORNING

More work on this one, bringing it closer to a finish.




Next steps = the greenery and the ginger corm (?) if that is the right word.