Big day-lots going on

My view: another sunset

Vivi and I Go to Mass Moca

Our friend Vivian has been visiting from NYC and she and I went to Mass Moca yesterday.

I really loved the exhibit on the first floor. They were made of graphite and gold chrome. Beautiful. Here's Vivi with the brochure. 

Fresh flowers 7/27/14

What's this?

Part of my clean and tidy work space! It was such a mess! Thanks Deb for being an example!

Just noticing...

Painting for transformation

I found this technique online and have found it to be very effective. It uses a single sheet of watercolor paper, but I took photos of the three stages to show the process.

1. Wet the paper. Drop colors that express your negativity onto the page. I also scratched the paint with the brush handle.

2. Then drop your idea of healing colors, letting them surround the negativity.

3. Paint the colors into a flower, to change the energy.

Everything's medical

Breathe in those woods!

Fresh Flowers

Millie enjoys having a flower painting on the table, so I decided to provide a new one each week.

Curvy tree

Where have all the bloggers gone?

Woods in the late afternoon

Out of the paint box...

Good morning

The paper made me do it

Started to doodle on this paper called Shizen. Very rough and thick. It feels like fabric. Wanted to try it out. Fun!

Still at it

Still stuck in cone flower hell. Not at all happy with this picture. I'll give it one more try after this.  

Maybe there will be a. Shift in the planets.

PS OK I get it

I'm focused on the painting, but I see now that I need to fix the drawing!

Georgia O'Keefe I'm Not

oil pastel 6"x9"

So it all started with this little cone flower pic I used for the blog. It had started out as a doodle in watercolor and ended with oil pastels on top. My sister, Myra saw it and liked it. She wanted to hang it on her wall in the bedroom. She loved the autumnal colors. First off,  I explained that the petals were pink; not what she was seeing.Anyway, it was only 6"x9". Too small for the space she envisioned.

Back and forth we went. She sent me photos of her bed spread--not the colors of my pic. She sent me a photo of her walls. I saw coffee and cream, she saw white. She found a photo in her phone of an old painting of a flower of mine with the colors she liked. The colors were not that of the original! I found the original photo of the pic in an album on Photobucket. The colors were different! Tech-NO! Corruption and miscalibration!
This is what designers face every day. So, OK. I offered to do a painting, of cone flowers in autumnal colors, big-18x24.

Now comes the fun. I have been doing very small watercolors for the blog and for our Saturday class. Fast, impulse, gesture-type pictures. 4"x6" approx.
How to enlarge this little pic to 18"x24" and keep the integrity of the original?
I already agreed to change the colors as well as the size; and what about the background? There's sooo much more of it to fill in.

soft pastel 18"x24"

I looked at images on line; photos and of paintings of cone flowers and lazy susan. I made sketches of different layouts. I did small ones and large ones, with pencil, colored pencil, watercolor pencil and oil pastel.

I decided to use soft pastel. I feel comfortable using them and have gotten good results, especially with flowers. There was so much background to fill in, and they're so messy.
 
I tried again with watercolor, but expanding the flowers to giant size felt unsettling. They lost their delicacy and they came out looking very heavy handed and like spiders. Yuk.

Seeing this latest version at night, I also realized that this picture is going in a bedroom and will probably be viewed mostly in low light. That's an important consideration for the choices I make.

watercolor 18"x24"

Hmmm. Since the request is for autumnal colors, I'm thinking now of changing the type of flower, or maybe doing something completely different, like leaves. I'll have to talk to my sister and see what she thinks. So it's back to the drawing board for me.

Gorgeous day!

It's getting better

Emerging

A better day, but not quite where I want to be

Shirley, you jest?

Feeling like the punchline of a joke today...got good news and bad. Good cause the medical tests were negative; bad 'cause they don't know what I've got. Oh well. I'll just sweat it out.

Materials, girl

I had drawn some cone flowers the other day, using watercolor paints and oil pastels. My sister loved it and asked me to do another, for her, much larger. This one is only 6" x9".
Well, I've been out of watercolor paper for a few weeks, using multimedia instead. It worked well enough for sketchy stuff and quick washes. For the blog and class I cut it into small pieces. The piece my sister asked for is 18"x24". I had some that size but it's made for acrylic. I figured I'd try it. Maybe I could get something interesting out of it. Ouch. It buckled, dripped, stained. You name it. It made the brush drag and gave me a neck ache. So I grabbed some oil pastel to see what I could do. Blech. Better look for the Michael's coupon. I hope paper is on sale.

Rain outside, sunny inside

Foggy morning-sunny day

Experiment-Texture

Watercolor and ink on crumpled rice paper

Forest Stumped

OK Here's my challenge:
I lOVE trees, forest, ferns, etc. I love the darkness, dampness?, tangle of forest litter, branches, shrubs and wildflowers. I love the complexity and the details, the quiet and the mystery.

OK so how do I paint all that, with watercolor...? Watercolor is best with light and white space. With a definite stoke, but a light touch. It's not forgiving and cannot be worked without turning muddy.

I'm asking myself how to capture the scene so it 'reads' well, how to paint a more complex picture, yet retain the beauty and lightness of the medium.

I've tried several approaches, a few which are shown here. I switched to ink in order to try to focus more on the forms.
I question my reference...not a lot of contrast. Perhaps it's not the best model. Thoughts are welcome.