Painting Day #2

Last week my friend Linda came over again so we could paint together. When we painted in March, Linda supplied the subject; this time I did. I found a tutorial in an old Watercolor Magic magazine - 'The Elegance of Untouched Paper' by Tony van Hasselt and we both were keen to try the vignette idea.

It doesn't seem to matter that we work from the same instructions when we follow a tutorial -  we always end up with very different paintings.

Linda's Painting

Linda chose to loosely copy the subject from the tutorial while I chose a different building.

My Painting - The Old Red Barn

  Most of the elements are the same in both paintings; a barn type building, a silo, a crooked fence, a few trees and bushes and, of course, the same palette of colors. But, our approaches are quite different. Linda often uses a layering effect with blended washes on top of dried washes while I mostly use wet-in-wet techniques. We did try to follow the guidelines in the tutorial but I am not sure how good a job we did.

Here is a synopsis of the vignette guidelines:
-Between 30 and 40 % of the paper should be untouched
-The painted area should touch the edge in 3 or 4 places but not in a sustained way.
 -The untouched areas should have and interesting, interlocking shape - not proportional or equal
-Hard edges should dominate ( I think Linda was more successful with this aspect than I)

We had just started thinking about doing a second painting when I realized that I needed to start dinner so Linda went ahead and painted a second piece.

Linda's Tree Silhouettes

I think our total painting time that day was about 2 1/2 hours. Between eating lunch, visiting, checking out new home improvements, doing dinner and just talking about our lives we don't have a lot of time before Linda is on the road back home.

It doesn't matter how short or how long the time is, painting with a friend is great and well worthwhile.

Rainy Day Painting

The last few days we have finally gotten some much needed rain. While enjoying the cooler weather and the sound of the rain on the roof, I managed to get a new painting done.

In the Eye of the Storm

Last week a friend gave me some old art magazines and as I looked through them I was struck by the paintings of Michael Atkinson. His ability to showcase sun-lit subjects is wonderful and I decided to try my hand at something similar. My painting is based on his painting "Abiquiu". I did not manage to achieve the look I was aiming for unfortunately so, although I am reasonably happy with my piece, I will be trying for this effect again.

"In the Eye of the Storm" is a 10 x 21 unframed watercolor on Arches 140 CP paper.

For those of you who followed my posts during the Summer of Color, here is my painting 'Feathery' completed (remember that I left the bottom right empty and wasn't satisfied?).

Feathery

Let me know what you think of my paintings AND what YOU are up to in the studio this week.

More Summer Color

I don't just get my summer color from painting, I get it from the world around me. My home in the country is surrounded by forest so every day I see the bright greens and the dark shadows of the forest as the sun moves across the sky and the patterns change.

my front yard

In contrast to the forest, my yard is filled with flowers in pots and gardens giving me a show of vibrant colors and offering birds, bees and butterflies natural nectar.

the view from my kitchen window

I start most of my flowers from seed I harvest every fall or purchase from seed catalogues.  Once summer hits I spend about 2 hours every day watering, deadheading and weeding. I try to get all the gardening done before the weather gets too hot.

self-seeded poppy

This style of poppy has been in my garden so long that I don't know where it came from. It seeds itself every year but when I harvest the seeds they never seem to 'take'.

a salvia

I will harvest seeds from everywhere; friends gardens or flower pots I pass in the town of Creston. The small pink flower in the above photo was harvested from one of the town's pots. I don't know what it is called but I think it is a salvia. I have it in red too and the hummingbirds love them.

In my courtyard

 From spring to late fall my gardens are a constantly changing delight - lots of work but worth it to me.

Summer of Color #6

I can't say that I was very happy when I saw this week's color choices. Two oranges and a blue? I love this combination - I wear it quite often.

one of my orange & blue ensembles

But, it is not a combination that I would use in a painting. I am not saying that I haven't used it but the subject has to be right, like this painting that I did back in '02.

Orange & Blue 5 x 7 watercolor

At any rate, with nothing coming to mind I decided (once again) to just play and see what happens.

Feathery - 11 x 14 acrylic

Although I have signed the painting, I am not sure if it is finished. I rather like the effect but I think I will have to live with it for a while before I decide if it needs more work.

This has been a very interesting 6 weeks - where has the time gone? - and I have enjoyed the color prompts that Kristin gave us. If you want to see some of the latest submissions check out Kristin's blog - http://twinkletwinklelikeastar.blogspot.ca/

Summer of Color #5

Once again the participants in this year's SOC were set a considerable challenge. Two greens and a pink - where does she come up with these combinations?

Because I had more time this week, I decided to paint some fabric. The colors weren't really inspiring me so I just played. I used some GAC 900 and fluid acrylics, mixing cyan and yellow to get two different greens and just going with primary magenta for my pink.

painted fabric tote bag

other side of tote with pocket showing

I painted two pieces of fabric because I mixed up too much paint (I still have some left - lol). I made a nice large tote bag: perfect for carrying a couple of 11 x 14 paintings or some binders. The bag is lined with a pocket inside and one outside.

painted fabric in greens & pink

I will probably make another bag with the second piece of fabric but who knows?

While I was thinking about greens & pink, I decided to try something with my watercolors. The best thing about painting is being able to mix your colors so I started experimenting until I got some shades that I liked and then I did a simple little landscape. It is hard to believe that I just used the three colors stipulated - hooker's green, thalo yellow green and permanent rose.

At the Lakeside 5 x 7 watercolor

There is just one week left in the SOC challenge - what will Kristin come up with next? You can read more about the SOC here - http://www.twinkletwinklelikeastar.blogspot.ca/2015/07/the-summer-of-color-5-week-5.html

Summer of Color #4

I made it! I really didn't think that I would be able to find the time this week to do a piece for the SOC #4 but I managed to find a few minutes here and there in the last two days and was able to complete a mixed media painting on a 7 x 14 gallery wrap canvas.

Red & Gold

The colors for this week were two reds and a metallic. The reds were no problem, of course, I used Cadmium Red Medium and Alizarin Crimson, standard colors in most painters' boxes. The metallic was a bit more challenging. I hunted through my stash of mixed media materials and came up with a few things that I thought would work together. The butterflies are from a gossamer thin napkin so I stuck them to a piece of gold paper and cut them out. The cross was a gift from a friend: it is made out of thin wood and I painted it with some gold gesso. I added some branches and leaves painted with the gold and voilà!

Here's another photo that makes the gold look a little more gold. As Kristin mentioned in our instructions part of the challenge would be to show the metallic quality of the art in a photo. I am not sure how well I accomplished this but I tried - lol.

If you want to check out some of the other art in this challenge, here is the link to Kristin's blog - http://www.twinkletwinklelikeastar.blogspot.ca/2015/06/the-summer-of-color-5-week-four.html

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