I DID IT!!!! Here is WBO #20

I did it!

Yesterday was our last class for Watercolor Beyond the Obvious. We had a potluck and art show for the class and anyone who wanted to attend. We had a ton of people! It was so amazing to see all the paintings we did! I think there were something like 400 paintings in all! I was nervous about taking this class because I knew it would be a lot of work, but I also knew I would learn a lot. As you can see from all twenty paintings that I've definitely tried some different ideas with my still life series! Thanks Mike!

Here is #20!!! It has some fine "gold" lines that you can only see if you click on the picture to get a larger view.

WBO #19

Number 19 is done! I drew this design a while ago while sitting in a waiting room. Can you see the "coffee pot" shape? Leaves? The shapes are hinted at rather than drawn completely. That little round circle on the left (center) represents the "screw" in the handle of the coffee pot!

WBO #18

I spent so much time working on #17 that I had to just whip something out really fast today (Sunday). My thought behind this piece was repetition and glazing. I used Primary Yellow, Rose Madder Genuine and Cobalt Blue. I think the Primary Yellow is a bit too strong but I was out of Aureolin. I started with the background thinking it was just to be a sort of ghosting of the image. Then I moved on to painting with yellow, followed by pink and then blue. Only the foremost image has all three colors. I was painting really fast with a big, drippy brush and my my board tilted. I wasn't aiming for anything frameable, I just wanted to play and experiment. See Mike! I'm taking chances! :) I ended using a black marker to help focus on the main still live and crisp up the edges a bit, but still keeping it loose.

I think I prefer it as a value study in grayscale.

WBO #17

This is my homage to Mike Bailey's style. I kept thinking "don't worry about what the objects are" but I always draw the pear like a pear, etc. So this time I was doing a bunch of sketches, goofing around, playing with shapes and I said to myself, "what if I invert part of the pear here and and twist it over there? I took that idea and decided to run with it by duplicating my objects. Can you find my original three objects - a pear, French coffee pot, and a potted plant? Hint: They haven't changed from their original set up. The pear and plant are repeated several times. My color scheme was an attempt at the Old Master's style color palette. I used Quinacridone Gold, Yellow Ochre, Burnt Umber, Red Iron Oxide and Ultramarine Blue. I planned to use a mouth atomizer to add a fine mist of color around the edges to soften them so that they wouldn't detract from the center but I couldn't find a store with one in stock so I'll save that for later.

I'm finding that I am getting bored with my still life objects, but that's what is supposed to happen. I spent 2-1/2 hours playing with design ideas in my sketchbook but didn't really hit upon anything amazing. Originally I had the idea to use design #15 twice with different color variations. We were learning about color theory - pure hue vs. tone - so I decided to start there. I knew the two corners were going to have too much pure white and that I'd need to splash some color there so at the end I splattered paint to soften the corners. The design wasn't really working for me so I abandoned it for a new design for painting #16. I kept thinking - "what if" and just starting drawing swirls in my sketchbook. By now it was Friday and I knew I better get moving so I just decided to go for it. The new brand of mask I bought pulled up half of my pure hues and ripped up the tooth of the paper so I had to add more color, but it just wasn't the same. I figured I'd might as well go for broke and play with the new watercolor crayons I bought the day before. I mean, how bad could it really get?!! Here are the final creations. Not exciting to me but, hey, at least I'm taking chances!

WBO #14

I know, I know...I never got my second painting posted last week. We went away for the weekend and I had to do my painting without some of my supplies. I had planned on using liquid mask to protect the white areas and then flood the rest with two colors, Alizarin Crimson (a favorite!) and Ultramarine Blue. Since I forgot the mask I had to do my darnedest to paint around the white areas. With the design sort of abstract I found myself getting lost and painted over a critical white space. At home I used a Mr. Clean eraser to try to lift the color but Alizarin is pretty stubborn. Here I cleaned it up a little in Photoshop (upper right corner).

WBO #13 Flower Explosion

After playing with my value scales I ended up going in a totally different direction. I decided to focus on the flowers and have them explode across the page. The pear and the French coffee pot are only barely hinted at with a light blue sweep of the brush. I was trying to approach this very loosely, using wet-on-wet, dropping some paint and water for some splotchiness.

Value Madness - is that a REAL disease???

I don't know if it is frustration or desperation but it is sinking it's teeth in. I'm struggling to finalize an idea for painting #13 (and #14 for that matter). I've been doodling and playing with value study ideas. Here are my cells of value studies so far. Hmmm....what if.....?

WBO #12

This week was quite a challenge trying to get either of my two paintings done but I'm relieved to say they are finished. This second painting was my second attempt at #2 and I just decided to go with whatever came out of the end of the brush! I chose a delicate palette and then later decided I needed to darken the background dramatically so I added some Prussian Blue - what a beautiful color!