EARTHY TONES

Some earth tones.

Quinacridone Gold




Quinacridone Burnt Orange




Permanent Brown

GRANULATING COLORS

Granulating Colors:

Rhodonite Genuine
and
Cobalt Blue

Making a nice violet.

A ROSE BY ANY OTHER NAME?

Rose of Ultramarine






Quinacridone Red



French Ultramarine Blue

STUDYING COLOR - ORANGE AND BLUE

COLOR STUDIES

Pyrrol Orange


Perinone Orange






Organic Vermillion



Scarlet Lake (Holbein)

MORE STUDIES STARTING WITH ORANGE

Perinone Orange

Cobalt Teal Blue



Putting down the Orange first and then the Cobalt Teal, the blue tended to push into the orange.
Putting down the Cobalt Teal first and then the Orange, the orange held its own and stayed in place, neither seeping into the blue or letting the blue seep into it.  

Unless I say otherwise, all the pigments I am using are made by Daniel Smith. 

COLOR STUDIES - ORANGE AND OTHERS

Lunar Red Rock

Indigo

Perinone Orange

2020 = COLOR STUDIES

Last year, I purchased a new watercolor sketchbook.  The paper inside is Indigo artpapers, cold press watercolor, 300 gsm (which is 140#).  It has 4 natural deckle edges, has slip-papers in between each sheet (24 sheets) of the watercolor paper.  It's a bit soft and absorbent (more so than other papers I've used).  So I decided to use it to do some color studies this year.  These are not going to set the world on fire - but it's what I'm doing.

I paint a study on the watercolor paper and then write on the slip paper behind it to talk about the color or my thoughts on the color.

If I remember, I'll date the writing/thoughts.  But I intend to do this throughout 2020, just as an exercise for myself, and to get back to color after working in black and white for a while.  


Here, the first study is Perinone Orange (transparent) and Bismuth Yellow (opaque).

  

HAPPY NEW YEAR

Here's wishing us all a very happy and creative 2020!

AMI SKETCHBOOK

Picked up some mangrove leaves that had fallen on the dock outside our house, brought them in to save for a quiet day.  Painted on the counter in the kitchen while Sweetie watched a U.K. basketball game.

Didn't see any mermaids this trip, but did read about them in a very cool book by Christina Henry called Mermaid.  If you like interesting historical fantasy, you'll like it - and it's great to take to the beach with you.  

SKETCHBOOK PAINTINGS AND MANATEES

A couple of paintings in my sketchbook - the whole sketchbook is filled with trips to Anna Maria Island and nothing else - from 2014 to 2019.  Time to start another!

When we arrived at the house we were renting, we unpacked and put things away, put away groceries, and then walked out to the canal and sat on the dock for a while.  For the first time ever, we saw 2 manatees swimming right by us!  It was great to see them.  But that was it for the trip, as we had a bit of a cold spell that chased them into warmer waters after that.  

Because of that visit by the mama and calf, we were inspired by manatees the whole trip, Sweetie even getting books on manatees at the library to read up on them and I, of course, had to paint a few.

So we met up with a friend who moved to Bradenton/Cortez from Kentucky and she told us about a spot that had manatees.  We drove over there and, sure enough, there was a mama, a calf and big daddy swimming in a little area where the locals keep their boats.  Amazing!!  

Now, you really cannot get great photos of them, but you can see their cute noses coming up for air and see, through the water, their big bodies, as they glide along.

This is mama.

And this is big daddy - he didn't come in as close as the mother and baby, but we could tell how big he was by that head coming out of the water.

And this is the mama and calf swimming together, coming up for air.  

AMI AND MERRITT ISLAND

Beautiful weather and beautiful sunsets on Anna Maria.

The Palma Sola Botanical Gardens are beautiful any time of year and this gorgeous banana plant was showing off for us.

This was the Explorer Tower at Cape Canaveral.  From the 7th floor, you walked outside and could see the bay with the huge cruise ships, the other boats, and the water all around.  Exhibit included about Kennedy Space Center and the astronauts.  (We even saw the launch of a satellite from the Kennedy Center from the yard at the house we rented.  It lit up the sky and soared across the sky.  Pretty cool.  We just happened to be there on a night it happened.)

RECOVERING

Getting over the ear infection and cold.  So felt like downloading some photos from the trip.

Our annual December trip to Anna Maria Island...

Walking to Bean Point to see the sunsets and catch photos of shore birds.

A short drive up to St. Petersburg to visit friends and to see the Chihuly Museum of glass art - and walk across the street to see the glassblowing exhibit.

Well worth spending an hour there seeing his work and seeing the recent exhibit on display of other glass artists. 

See glassblowing demonstrations right across the street from the Chihuly Museum - included in the price.  















More later...

I'M STILL STANDING

I think that's an Elton John song?  I'm still standing.  Well, I am.  But it's been a rough few days this December.  In fact, it's been a rough few months this year, but I won't go into that.

Returning from 2 1/2 weeks of vacation and rest/relaxation in Florida, I had a slight cold but, apparently, a whopper of an ear infection.  Thought my head was going to explode on the plane as we landed (both times, since we had a 2-plane trip from Orlando to Cincinnati through Atlanta this time).  Also, I HATE the Orlando Airport and hope to never have to go through there again.  Another story.

Anyway, a major ear infection (the first one I've had in my life), a visit to a nurse practitioner since my doctor was not going to be in for days and she gave me whopper antibiotics to fight it and said the cold would just have to play itself out.  After two days on the antibiotics, I was no longer contagious (not sure how that works since the cold can't be helped by antibiotics and I was just taking Dayquil and Nyquil to kick it and drinking lots of tea with honey).  But glad of that because my amazing cousin finally lost her battle with metastastic breast cancer and died while we were in Florida :(  And her services were Friday and Saturday.  A strange affair because she said she didn't want a service so...no one spoke or no one said a prayer or no songs were played.  Just everyone talking with everyone else.  There was a nice selection of photos of her showing on two screens.  She was cremated and we had the grave-site interment Friday afternoon before the memorial service on Saturday.  She was placed in the grave of her mother (didn't know they could do that).  

So...also needing to get all the presents ordered and, hopefully, delivered in time - and wrapped - and...well, it's been a long few days and it seems like a month since we've been home but it's only been a few days.

I did paint while I was gone and will share those few things and the photos taken of the warm, sunny beachy days we were gone.  Here, not too shabby = 50 degrees today and 55 tomorrow and 59 the day after!!!  I hate that this strange weather is caused by global warming, but will take the warmer weather for a while in December and January as an effect of that.  I really am not a fan of winter.

I'll return soon with paintings and photos and, hopefully, drawings I still have to complete from my online course (Val's gotten a bit behind in her postings, too, so I'm not too far behind!)

I hope your holidays are warm and wonderful
with family and friends galore.
I wish you all the best in the New Year to come
with days and nights full of fun.

Take care, my friends.  Hug a friend, call a relative, send a card...you never know when it will be the last time you get to say, "Hi!" to that special person in your life.  My cousin had just turned 70.  I don't know if that's too young to die or just the right age, or whatever, but I will always miss her, her sense of humor, her wit, her intelligence, and her memory that held on to our family history better than I ever could.  

HMMM...

The flower is too dark.  Didn’t follow the instructions completely to find out the flower was to be done with just a dusting of the graphite/carbon black on a tortilla so went in and drew it, as usual.  Then, to make it look better, I needed to add the really dark carbon pencil background.  

Oh, well.  I’ll do the next one right - and may redo this one later.  
I like my little bug, though :).  Maybe I should just do little insects!?!

Hope you are having a good December leading up to Christmas and all the presents, family gatherings, etc.  

GRAPHITE AND CARBON PENCIL WITH A LITTLE WATERCOLOR

I admit, I was missing some color in the Val Webb online course using graphite and carbon pencil.  So I just had to add some color to his leaf :)


The goal for this drawing was to make the little beetle look shiny.  


I am having some issues with my neck and shoulders so taking more breaks and moving through things slower.  And haven't really worked on the gouache any so need to get back to that!  And then I hear there's a holiday season coming!!!

GOUACHE ON BLACK

Still working on the gouache on black painting - slowly building.  I think gouache is a slower process, but probably more like acrylics and oils in the slow build up to colors, shapes and values.  

This is on the Strathmore black mixed media paper.

FRUITY - SECOND TRY

I didn't add the plant, just drew this little guy.  I am happier with the lighter touch on the wings, giving them more texture without overpowering them with strokes of pencil.  

I'm calling this one Fernando :)  


These drawings are all on a block of Arches 140# hot press, 10 x 14 inches.  

FRUITY

I did the next lesson in the Val Webb online course.  A fruit bat in a banana plant.  I have seen fruit bats in trees in Australia.  They are called flying foxes because they are really cute with fox-like faces and are a reddish color.  There were hundreds in the trees in a park we visited in Cairns and when evening came, they all starting flying around - amazing!  Really cute little things, too.

As per my usual, I got too heavy-handed with this little one and the banana.  So I decided to try again, with just the flying fox and keep my touch as light as I could - not easy for me!  I think we all have our own artist touch and that could be light or dark or in between (Sweetie says I even write with a heavy hand, so I guess that's just me).  

But I will try this one again.  Isn't he cute, sleeping there beside his favorite plant? 

TRYING TO FIND FALL COLOR

Just some photos from a short trip we took to try to find fall colors - in General Butler State Park in Kentucky.


We watched the ducks and geese hang out around the pond - there are cabins in the woods on the opposite side.


Then we took a nice hike in the woods around the General Butler family home.

This was last Monday, before the weather turned so cold and windy.  Our last warm, sunny day, I think.

I'll get back to the pencil work and the gouache work soon.  

PLAYING WITH GOUACHE

Decided to take out some of the black all media paper (Strathmore) and try gouache on it.  Doing a fall scene of leaves and acorns from a photo I found in a magazine (so just for play and learning).


It's a bit harder to get coverage over the black but it's a learning experience.  

BUMBLEBEE AND IRIS

After watching Val demo the iris, I did this one, trying to keep the flower soft and delicate.  Not too shabby and I like the little bumblebee on the leaf :)


Our next lesson is going to be about drawing fur texture - on a honey possum!

Just a reminder, we are using 9XXB graphite pencil and a Wolff's Carbon Pencil set B, 2B, 6B for the class.

BUMBLES AND FLOWERS

Val was having some time constraints last week so we didn't get our 2nd video for our lesson on Bumblebees and Flowers until Friday.  So I did a bee and then put in a flower, using a photo Sweetie took at a local nature center (he went there when he was mentoring a high school student in photography).  So I had some bumblebees and flowers - just not the flower Val was going to have us use.  

Again, pretty dark, but I'm getting used to the fact that it is the way I do my line work and carbon pencil work - we don't all have to do it the same way!

After I got the 2nd video, I did another bumble and the iris Val sent and demoed.  I TRIED VERY HARD to do the iris pale and delicate...you'll see if I succeeded in the next post!