January 20, 2012

Here we are with the January YOP. I chose to paint a setup that I had done. I must have taken 50 photos of different types and fruits and crystal bowls after one of my painting friends had challenged us to do so. I scoured Goodwill as I don't have many crystal bowls and this particular setup I photographed out on our deck one day in the fall when the sun was actually shining here. Here is the photo I chose.

I loved the fresh colors of all these fruits and gave me different colors to work with. I tried with and without a cloth, like the cloth better; also tried many angles to get the reflections in the crystal.

I transferred the painting to 10 x 14 from transfer paper. I really tried to get all the crystal bits in it but....not so easy. If I did it again I would transfer larger so it wouldn't have been so difficult to do the crystal.

I tried to take my time and have been working on this slowly for two weeks. Had some hiccups along the way but worked through them. Paints I used were gamboge, perm. red, C. blue, sap green, lemon yellow but also mixed some of my colors mixing gamboge and lemon yellow; blue and red and for the dark background I mixed prussian blue and magenta; grapes I mixed the sap green with lemon yellow. And other dips and daps from my pallette. Had some struggles with getting a shine on the apple and orange but did my best on that. In the end of am quite pleased with the outcome.

Don't know what the challenge for the month of February will be but meanwhile I have quite a few possible paintings drawn out and want to try a few different things.

January 10, 2012

Well, I'm doing okay so far this year.  I am trying to do a little 15 minute sketch every day, only started this week.  It is supposed to be of things around the house or plein aire.  Well it's too cold for outside right now, that will come later but I will try all kinds of different things.  Here are my first two.

Need to do mine for today.

Another thing I was working on was smushing.  Don't you love that word?  My roomie from a get together last summer who also gave several wonderful demos, shows us different things on our Painting Friends site.  The latest is smushing.  You kind of move the paint around after applying on dry paper adding water and smushing it so it blends.  It is a kind of fun way to do this.  We worked on pears.  I wasn't very happy with mine at first so I sent it to Mollie and asked for advice which she gave willing and cheerfully.  I took much of her advice and here you can see the before and after using her advice.

I guess I'm just too impatient and in a hurry to finish something.  I find though having another's eye on what you are painting is extremely helpful.

Well, I'm off to find something to draw for today's sketch.  Keep your brushes wet!

JANUARY 6, 2012

HAPPY NEW YEAR FRIENDS

Making all kinds of resolutions to myself including doing something art related every day preferably putting paint to paper but maybe just some drawing practice which I desperately need since I don't draw well or watching DVD watercolor demos. 

 I finally finished a painting I started for the December challenge for the PF site which was an entire rose.  I changed it up by cropping it, just because and used unusual colors for me.  Only used 4 colors mixing bluish purple with cobalt blue and a red (not sure but a bright red) produced a lovely violet with enough water added.  Then I mixed a peachy color with gamboge and the same red.  I was fairly pleased with the results.  At least I have been working on this since the beginning of the year to finish it.  Size is 11 x 15 on a paper that I'm not sure what it was.   Still love my Arches paper but happen to have this piece of paper so used it.

Thanks for looking.  I hope to be more productive this year.  Have lots of ideas not just need to put them to paper.