Summer of Color #3

My first reaction on learning this week's colors was 'How on earth will I do this'. I just couldn't get my head around 2 purples and a yellow; I felt that I had never worked in those colors before.

Anyway, I went off to my studio and started my assignment. I began working on a card because until the pieces are glued they are just a number of separate elements that can be used for other things if they don't work together.

I used one of my home-made stamps and my own painted papers for the flowers and the quilling. Okay, not bad, but I just wasn't satisfied!

I glanced at some reference photos that are lying on my table to be used in another painting and thought, "oh no, that will not look good in purples and yellow'. BUT I decided to try it anyway.

Sun Shadowed 5 x 7 unframed watercolor

All right that worked out okay, AND before I had worked 5 minutes I realized that I had painted this color combination before - more than once! The colors are, of course, compliments and so work together quite well.

I often work wet-in-wet and I wondered what would happen using that approach. Would I end up with a muddy gray mess?

Purple Mists

 As you can see, I added another shade of purple just to make a change. I wet the paper, threw on my three colors (in no particular pattern) and left it to dry. I really liked the end result - no gray mess - but added some misty trees to give it a more finished look.



So, there are my results for week #3 of the SOC. What will she have for us next week?

If you want to know more about this challenge go to http://www.twinkletwinklelikeastar.blogspot.ca/2015/06/the-summer-of-color-5-week-three.html

Summer of Color #2

The second week of the Summer of Color got off to a much better start - I got the color choice on Monday so I had lots of time to plan. Here is what I came up with:

The Protector

Sticking with the fantasy theme, I decided on a Unicorn. The painting is a 7 x 10 unframed watercolor with acrylic ink.

The colors for this week were 2 pinks and an orange. After looking at other people's work from last week and a few from this week, I judged that it was permitted to use ink and that it wouldn't be classed in the color selection. Many people use stamps, words and sometimes drawings, so I thought it would be OK to draw a scene in ink.

I had my sketch done quite quickly but spent a few days deciding on an ink color. Some of the inks I used where not water-proof and the effects when I added the watercolor paint are interesting.

Solitary Fir

On Mountain Slopes

I did four examples  - little 5 x 7 sketches - and it is a good thing that only two turned out to be worth framing because I painted on both sides of the paper. I should know better as you never know when something is going to turn out; even if you are just playing. Here are the reverse paintings:

This last piece helped me decide to use the blue ink. If I had used the brown ink it would have been more in keeping with the colors I was supposed to use, as diluted it was very orangy but I liked the contrast the blue provided.

I can't wait to see what next week brings - On With the Challenge!

Summer of Color #1

After the "30 paintings in 30 days" challenge that I did in January I didn't expect to take on something similar but the "Summer of Color" sounds like fun, so here I go again!

For some reason, I thought I was registered but I never received my instructions so I guess I wasn't. Fortunately, I am on the SOC group page on Facebook and got a notice yesterday about posting our work so I was able to go the blog (below) and find out this week's orders.

The organizer of the Summer of Color is Kristin Van Valkenburgh and you can find out how the whole challenge thing works on her blog - http://www.twinkletwinklelikeastar.blogspot.com 

(I admit that I find the posting instructions for this challenge a bit confusing: you get the chance to win something if you do some other things but I don't know what those are or how to do them. It really doesn't matter as I am in it for the painting not for prizes, although I won't refuse if I should win) 

At any rate, this week's instructions were to create something using 2 blues and a green. As Faeries have been on my mind recently that is what I started with and here is where I ended up.

Magick Garden

Magick Garden is an 8 x 10 mixed media on a gallery wrap canvas. I used some painted paper towel to make the flowers, my own hand-made stamps, some sliver glitter glue, silver thread and finished the piece off with a pottery piece by a friend -  http://bluemoonpottery.blogspot.ca/

I look forward to participating in this challenge and, hopefully, next week I will get notification of the colors we are to use early enough to actually plan a painting - lol!