My art teacher graciously asked me if I’d like to paint some pictures to hang in the Tumwater, WA Starbucks for December 2011. The requirements were that it be “holiday” themed and use “Starbucks” colors – meaning dark green, dark red, purple, and then some usual colors such as black, blue, etc.
I started with a little tree which took longer than you might imagine. I first painted three versions and tried to use highly granular paint, salt, and even some Zentangle techniques to add ornaments to the tree. None of them came out well. I think I was aiming for over-kill or something. I finally settled on the simple version you see below. It’s a small painting but took forever to paint the layers on the tree and wait for them to try. Typically I’d do the first and third “branch” in the morning, wait until lunch and then paint the second branch. Wait until dinner and repeat. Each branch has 5 layers of paint. I wish now my frisket “snow” had been a little larger.
There are only 3 paints used in this painting, a blue, a green, and the bit of gold for the star.
Next a co-worker mentioned snowmen and Starbucks and one thing led to another. I sketched this quickly and painted it just as quickly. I’m disapointed in myself because this photo is not the final version! I added a purple scarf to snowman #2 and darkened the large Coffee sign. Oh well. It was great fun. I almost never give paintings titles, but this one is called “Totally Worth It”.
I’ve had two fabulous trips to Ireland, and with each I’d planned to journal, but of course never did it.
However, after a recent watercolor journaling class (an Imaginary Trip to Paris) I decided to pull out some of my photos and try a few fake journal entries. The wheels fell off on one of these, but still, it’s SO MUCH fun to plan and paint from my own photos.
This was a delightful course. I signed up for an online, imaginary trip to Paris – with the focus of watercolor journaling. More info here. The gist of the class is that you set up a palette, grab maybe two watercolor brushes, your paper (I used a small watercolor bound journal) and you’re off to Paris. Our teacher led us to some interesting places and provided lessons along the way. LOVED IT.
I thought one of the most interesting ideas from the class was time. At some “stops” along our trip we had time limits (as if you were on a trip and the bus was leaving soon). We set a kitchen timer and then painted until we ran out of time; then posted our pictures in a private blog all the students shared. Fascinating technique and really forced me to use some of the lessons from the teacher: Elliminate, find your Center of Interest, etc.
Without belaboring all the paints I used for this and that… here are my journal paintings from this class:
Back to my evening watercolor classes! Thank goodness. It’s been a long dry spell for me…
In our first evening we experimented a bit with color and multimedia. We “drew” echinacea flowers with white acrylic paint, let it dry, then put watercolors over the top. The effect is pretty nice, but waiting for the acrylic to dry was time consuming. We were also working on “triangle” composition – and that was a lot of fun – rapidly sketching out all kinds of triangles and filling in with flowers – all while using crayons on huge sheets of paper.
Here’s my first try. It’s on 300 lb. Kilimanjaro paper, acrylic drawing first, let it dry, then soak both sides of the paper (!); add watercolor while trying to keep it all wet. Phthalo Turquoise, Quin. Rose, some Neutral Tint, some French Ultramarine… a bit of Quin. Gold… I think I got out of control and used too many colors. And despite the soaking, the paper dried out too fast, I kept splattering on water… which I think just added to the cluttered look of the results.
I was intrigued by the colors I got with the Neutral Tiny and Quin. Rose (got a nice purple!) so decided to try another with the same technique. This time, same 300 lb. paper, free-handed some flowers with acrylic, let it dry, then just brushed water on top (no soaking). The paints were the two I just mentioned, along with little touches of Hansa Yellow Medium and three specks of Quin. Gold.
After two years, I still have problems getting a sprinkling of salt to work reliably when applied to a damp watercolor painting. I think I may now have a hint at what I’m doing wrong.
I saw a fabulous picture on the internet and wanted to try the technique. I used D. Smith Undersea Green (great paint!), Naples Yellow, Olive Green and Cerulean blue – oh, and some Burnt Sienna. Lots of frisket goes down first – experimented with a “ruling pen” – not too bad! Then paint, then salt. Remove frisket, add pen work. I thought my first experiment came out *very* well – but it’s in my journal, 140 lb. cold press paper. Look at all the cool effects from salt in the upper left and right areas!
I was so pleased with the results, I tried it again. But this time I got out my good 300 lb. Kilimanjaro CP paper. Same paints, same technique. I did try adding a New York skyline in the background, kind of a 9-11 tribute. Notice – no salt effects? What tha…?
The only difference I could see, between #1 and #2 was the paper. So I tried again. This time I got out my 300 lb. Arches HOT PRESS paper. Same paints, same technique. Notice the great salt effects in the two upper corners again. All I can say after this brief experiment is – I think it’s the paper (or the sizing?) that makes a huge difference in how well salt works.
From a Ready-to-Paint book that provides drawings you can trace, as well as step-by-step instructions. Pretty sweet for practice.
I used 300 lb. paper. Of course I changed the colors a bit. I used Quin. Gold, Quin. Magenta, Cobalt Blue, Cadmium Orange, Transparent Yellow and Indigo. Funny too – the list of paints in the instructions did not include indigo, but the step-by-step instructions did.
This came together very nicely and easily:
This one cracks me up. From a photograph in a WDE for WetCanvas. I decided to try and paint this loose like Jean Haines and while I did not succeed, I love the hair on this rooter. He looks like a wild man!
On 300 lb. paper. Quin. Deep Good, Indigo and Quin. Rose.
I tried some fancy stuff on the body of the rooster with salt, but it can out incredibly ugly and hence is cropped off!
I have a fabulous book I bought that’s about using watercolor to create botanical illustrations. Now I’m certainly not a formal “illustrator”, but the instructions and colors used in the book are great.
This is my attempt at painting a Rosa chinensis ‘Mutabilis’.
Transparent Yellow, Quin. Rose, Aquarelle translucent orange, and French Ultramarine. BTW, the Fr. Ultra and orange made a wonderful gray!
I think one of my biggest mistakes in this one was giving in, and using a fine gray marker to draw the lines on the petals.
This was a lot of fun. Again, based on a photograph from a WetCanvas Weekend Drawing Event. I could just “see” this cow as a Zentangle, do I dove in.
I think the best part may be the barbed wire in the background. The penwork was all done with Micron Pigma 01 pens – mostly sepia, but a little black too. All in a watercolor Moleskine journal.
It’s been a while since I’ve posted and although I haven’t painted much, I have painted *some*. One of the Weekend Drawing Events on WetCanvas.com had a photo with a bundle of asparagus in the corner. I decided I’d paint some stalks of asparagus. Orignally I thought about creating a Zentangle design so I tried drawing some spears:
I think anyone that looks at that sketch will see that I have a ways to go! I decided to not Zentangle the design, but instead started playing with watercolor paints, as you can see above.
Finally, I just decided to dive in and paint. Below are the results using Hansa Yellow Light, Quin. Magenta and Olive. The spear on the right was the same colors, but instead of Hansa Yellow Light I used some new MaimeriBlu #409 for the background – but couldn’t resist splashing in some Hansa Yellow Light after all.
Of course, since I wasn’t pleased with the results, I figured it couldn’t hurt if I added sone pen work… I think this is what folks call an “exercise” rather than a real painting…
