LAST WEEKEND IN MARCH ALREADY

Wow, time is just flying by. We actually had a tiny bit of sun. Our daffies were happily nodding in the breeze and lifting their faces to the sun.

Yesterday I actually got to paint a little bit. Joined the WDE (weekend drawing event) again to spur me on and worked with my inks again. The photographs offered to choose from were from the Bahamas and I couldn't resist the gorgeous waters.

So here is "Under the Sea", you may all start humming now. He, he he

This is on YUPO paper and I first put the colors (two blues) on the top, sprayed some water on it and then started on the bottom part. I mixed some yellow, green and a little orange and did the same. But here I tried to blotch it a bit. Then I used a sea sponge and started dabbing different colors with it, let that dry and went at it again. I put another layer on and this time dried it a bit with my hair dryer and kind of blew the blue around swirly. More dabbing with sponge, different colors, something blowing around with a straw and so on. Was pretty pleased with it. Since it was such a gray day yesterday these colors made up for it.

The next item I am working on is a portrait of a little girl that I did quite a few years ago. She has now grown up to a young teen lady and I am attempting to paint her again. This is just the start and have a lot of work to do on skin tone, everything but we only have 2 hours to work and then post. This is as far as I am right now. Will add when I finish, maybe.

WEEKEND AGAIN

Had quite a bit of transcription this past week and today but I managed to do a couple of my inks and am also working on a couple of WDE but they aren't ready to post.

This first abstract I did with the acrylic inks on YUPO and did kind of strips of saran wrap lengthwise in two pieces on top and let it try mostly. After that was done enough I added a little sea salt to the remaining kind of wet bits and here was the result. I kind of liked it.

Then I took a previous acrylic ink with blues and had dried it with the YUPO had actually forgotten it but really wasn't thrilled with the results of what happened. So I thought well, I'm just going to drop blobs of inks in a couple of colors over the blues, spray them a bit with water and let them kind of mix and mingle and let them dry that way and this is what I got. I was really kind of thrilled. To me it has a lot of delicate plants underwater and I'm wondering if I can add sort of some whispy strings on the red blobs to look like jellyfish kinds of that's what they remind me of.

Well back to some painting so I can try and finish a WDE that I kind of like. Later

Sunday Play Day

Well it's been a coupled of days for me that I was doing other things that weren't as fun as painting. But hey it's a little bit of work. So yesterday I tried my normal WDE. I ended up choosing the wrong thing to paint for me and my style. Guess I will show as much as I did just to show that things don't always go right. So I chose the photo as I just love shells and the delicacy of their colors and the variety of them. Well this phot had all of that. What I didn't think of is that I am NOT a meticulous painter. Some of it is fine but phew not so much. I painted on YUPO which is hard enough in itself and then I tried to use watercolors. Then I had just gotten some acrylic inks so used them a bit but finally gave up and moved on to other things.





















So into the bin it went and I start on something else. Lesson learned, I hope.

So on to the next which was to get my inks out and see what a mess that I could made and what I mess I did. I first did a couple using the ink on small little canvases 4 x6" Then after I put on the ink by dropping it and moving it around with a spray bottle I covered them with saran wrap to let them dry. On a couple of them I used dried moss and stuff I have found on a walk. Need more practice on using these types of things and also puttin on the saran wrap. I was trying different types of colors to see what I might like. They didn't turn out too badly.


























Next I tried using different types of watercolor paper. Some was inexpensive paper that I had and I found the inks went right through the paper. I also used some Aquarello Fabriano and the result was not too bad again using saran wrap and a variety of colors.

























The last thing that I tried was on Clayboard textured. I used a variety of colors again and this time used cheesecloth on it and a bit of salt, and added a tiny bit of gold pearlesque. Pleased also how this turned out.




















What was great was how much fun this was. My hand and fingernails are full of ink and I had to do a lot of scrubbing to remove the ink from my painting table but I HAD A GREAT TIME. And after all isn't that what art and painting is all about. What a great day!

Monday Musings

Well, late yesterday I took off the saran wrap from the YUPO painting, it was nothing like I thought it would be.

My eldest son stopped by with our granddaughter (he had taken her to a Father-Daughter ball and he felt it looked like a rain forest. So I'm going with that. I think I will add some judicial darks, although kind of difficult with YUPO and see if I cannot make a mess of it.

The other one that I did yesterday I really messed up by trying to paint over what I had done. If you remember it looked like the one on the right side. But then I tried to add leaves in an orangie red and it became a messy mess.

So Today I redid the blues but I also put in the reddy-oranges to form some leaves later. Then I put salt over some of the orangie red and put a separate blob of saran wrap over the oranges. Then I covered the blues with separate saran wrap. Now I need to let it dry thoroughly and hopefully form more recognizable shapes. If not, "it is only paper and I will try again.

SUNDAY 3-1-09

Well it is the weekend and that means it's time for the WDE (weekend drawing event). I have participated in this for years but not so much the last year. Getting back into it as it's fun and it pushes me to do things I might not otherwise do.

This is the first one I chose, combined two photos and made this my "Gallery on the Beach" I have decided that I would totally love to build on to this Gallery and have my studio in the back. What more could one ask? Water, sand, art, oh maybe a small frig and something to cook in and I would be set. He he he.

Ah, the painting, well didn't turn out exactly like I wanted, very wonky, liked my dunes and grasses but all and all a fun experience.

So now I'm starting on something different. There was a photo I just loved and decided to try it a couple of different ways. First I used my colors and dropped it on YUPO paper (photo not up yet as it is still drying). Then I put saran wrap on it and put it outside to "dry".

The next one I used Arches 140# HOT pressed paper, also added saran wrap and put outside to "dry".

Went shopping, came back, unloaded groceries and put away and then my DH said, "Do you know it's raining outside"? Arrgh. I grabbed this first one that was on the hot press and it was okay. The other one is up for grabs as it really got wet (WC and water = ? maybe a mess?)

Time will tell. I will add the photo later after it dries. BTW this is a WIP (work in progress) as I plan to paint something on top of these. They must dry first so I don't make a total mess.

NEW DAY

I will try and post again. I spent time writing and then "poof" everything froze up.

Well today I worked on a very miserable file for transcription, wasn't the subject was the quality of the audio, horrible. Back and forth with the guy I was doing it for, trying to download a video which came in upside down (how often does that happen?). And finally by some miracle have been able to get it into my system (audio quality is much better on the video) so will start again tomorrow on it. So to reward myself for my frustrations I continued painting on what you see at the left.

This was a technique lesson. Kind of fun. I dropped paint from about waist high onto a dry piece of watercolor paper which made the centers for the flowers, then let it dry. Then put a light yellow wash of color and let it dry. Then the technique is called negative painting where you try and carve out shapes. These are supposed to be flowers althought I haven't grown any that look like this. But forging on then you use different colors, mixes of yellows and blues to make greens and try to make twigs and leaves. Well again, it was an exercise. It started out 11 x 14" but I cut it to about 10 x 8 as I liked it better that way.

All and all satisfactory to let out my frustrations. Now will move on to something else to paint. I have a painting I started (actually I have many) but I think that I'm going to work on my rose one, however, it might be a street scene that I'm redoing. We'll see what I fancy to do.

WELCOME

I'm a newbie to blogging but thought it would be a fun way to keep in touch and to share what I am doing.This is one way for me to share my art, either photography or painting or other types of art.Recently (for the last month and a half) I worked with my husband and daughter on compiling TWO memory books for 40th birthdays. One for our daughter and one for our daughter-in-law. Quite a project.

Now I am back into watercolor painting and would like to share my journey. I belong to several painting web sites and enjoy something from each one. Some it is like interests but smaller so that I feel part of a larger family. Others have wonderful techniques or challenges that push me to paint even when I don't feel like it.

Art is a constant learning experience and I'm hoping that having this blog also will help me learn and grow. One can never been too old to keep learning.