Paint Along

 Everyone in class was given the same B&W photo and time to draw it. Then teacher had us all watch as he painted. He’d paint for 10 min then we’d paint for 20, etc. until we finished. 

Still working on mine,  Trying to get my subject to be the correct gender. The luscious shirt color is DS Perylene Maroon. 

I think that I shall never see...

Sepia and Prussian blue.  5x7

More of the same. 9x12

 

Now for something a little different.

May 24, 2025 — Elaine O.

Oh, no! Can you see it? We have sizing issues on the paper edges! I'm still going to finish this still life, but remember, boys and girls—DO NOT SAVE YOUR PAPER "FOR GOOD!" Use it. Use it now. They keep making paper. 

14" x 11"

Just to be clear, I think this block may have been water damaged—I noticed it on the Dave at Versailles painting, stopped using this block and forgot about it. So, it's not totally the fault of the paper sizing, but my advice still stands.

The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly

Sorry, no cats this week.   

I had thought this one was done, but apparently it was still wet when I put it in the notebook and parts got blotched out when I put it in a notebook so I had to fix it.  I made the tree much lighter and less red and filled in the interstices with those featherly little branches and I think it looks better.  9x12

I was putting paint down and adding water and blotching with a Viva towel, repeat and repeat, and at some point it looked like that, and I thought that looks pretty good, so I stopped.  5x7.

I took a cropping of the previous image meaning to apply the same treatment as above, but you never want to repeat yourself, and I think I have gone astray, but I haven't given up on it yet. 5x7.

Reached The Goal

 Value sketch then drawn directly on watercolor paper then painted. Photo has a turquoise background so holding back on that. 

It’s large ….11x15.   Too large for the paper. 

Then a small one 4x6. My daughter’s friend taken many years ago. 

May 17, 2025 — Elaine O.

I'm back in experimentation mode. I sketched this from an old B&W photo and toyed with using only three colors—with a catch. I mostly used just two of them, saving the third as an accent to define the focus of the painting. I'm not sure this worked. I can't decide if I needed the background to be even less colorful or if that would look gimmick-y. Or maybe the background needs to be lighter in value or less contrasty? I'll have to give it some thought and keep playing.

12" x 9"

Meanwhile, this is for Pat and Ken. Pat, because she wanted to see these side-by-side, and Ken, because he always questions the value of explorations with different media. Here's the same subject in watercolor and oil. The watercolor (left) is on aquaboard and sized 6" x 6". The oil (right) is on canvas board, sized 8" x 8".

My thoughts? Besides the differences in speed (weeks vs. months), the oil feels more formal and the watercolor feels livelier. She looks like she sat for the oil, while the watercolor seems more like a moment in time. On both, I do love that sweater! I don't think I have the inclination or the patience to do it again in oil pastels or colored pencil or even mosaic, so I'm done here.

Sketchy stuff….

 Working on this sketch to figure out values and proportions etc. …otherwise spending my time teaching 2 month old Claire to laugh!

cat and two trees

This is a bigger version,9x12, of Daisy Katt, in her pink cat bed. 

Well this is another one of those dit, dit, dit, texture heavy, sort of a tree.  Not yet done, just an exercise at this point, but I may be able to stitch it together. 9x12

 Here's another, more treelike, on 5x7

Georgia On My Mind

 From a 1918 photo by Alfred Stieglitz.  Proud of this because I actually DREW it.  However, I did not draw it directly onto watercolor paper which is supposed to be my goal  

Ignore other pics….don’t have a discard icon anymore  

1918 

Alan Spring 6

 Still can’t paint sitting down and I don’t like painting standing (but artists have been doing that for hundreds of years) so I did these two sketches sitting back in my recliner and drawing and painting that way. Greeta got me some watercolor pens for my birthday so I put in the color with those and used the wash brush to blend the colors. I just wish they labeled the colors with real labels. Like house paints they invent names like golf green instead of perylene green and even crazier names. 

Here’s a bowl of oranges, grapefruit and bananas that was on our kitchen table. Sketched in graphite. About 6 X 8 on 140# coldpress. 

And this is one of those Trader Joe’s orchids done with ink and watercolor on 5 X 7 140# coldpress. Had a difficult time blending watercolor pen colors on the page. 

  

I think I can draw a larger pic of something even though the backer board is cumbersome. I’ll try that next. Then, when I can sit down like a normal human being again, I’ll have something to paint. 

Not much

This is starting out as a tree, but it could end up as anything.  I need to flow untrammeled on something bigger than 3x4 

Thought I was done here, but I see I am going to have to straighten out her head.

I should probably just toss this and start again.
 

One More Go With Edith

 

This is large and a lesson in going back and forth with changes to just about everything. I’ve managed to paint a different woman in each of my versions. Where the highlights were lost, a damp paper towel brought them back. 

Spring colors…

 

In class I started the “good” portrait.  I’m Working on hot press, not sure if it’s going to be my friend…

I started this little quick sketch in class and finished it at home. It doesn’t quite have the drama of the previous window sketch —see last post—but overall it’s a more interesting painting imo, however the darks need to be darker to make it pop. I’m going to do another version of this —cause I think I have a frame this size…!

May 3, 2025 — Elaine O.

I've finished and waxed this little portrait on Aquaboard and I'm happy with it. For some reason, I'm especially fond of the shirt. It's a particular favorite of the subject and I think I've done it justice.

6" x 6"

Because I haven't been able to find decent transfer paper lately, I've had to resort to actually drawing. Imagine! I did a direct watercolor and a pencil sketch of an old B&W snapshot. I love the photo—there's something quintessential about her stance and the way she holds her pocketbook. Now to figure out the background and do some color studies.

A4 sketchbook spread

SS Sisters Dance 5.3.25

 One of the bonding moments of us, 3 sisters, is to dance together as a trio, in any social affair, formal or informal in the greater Chicago community. My youngest sister is disabled and was born with Cerebral Palsy & her greatest joy in her physical limitations is to sing and dance, which is quite ironic, but we addressed in our family as just Life! So every time, a familiar tune is played by the music deejay in every get together, the 3 of us, would dance as a group, amidst the dancing couples and the line dancing crowd, with gusto and appreciation. My Watercolor painting done during the last class of the spring term showed us with eyes looking at each other, moving with the music and being grateful that we could create happy memories together at any moment physically and free!

Painting like Van Gogh….

 Well, I didn’t cut off my ear, but I can’t hear out of my right ear b/c of an ear infection— same difference!

This girlie is done, I think, altho I wonder if the colors are strong enough. Sometimes I put a painting behind glass and the colors seem to fade. FYI she’s not behind glass yet…

This is a pre-painting of my next project. I’m trying to work out colors, shapes, values before I do the real thing. I cut down the volume of her dress….Her dress will be a lighter blue and all her party hat will show. I like the top background but the rest I’m not sure of. So much for working out all the details…

These are sketches I worked on while waiting for paint to dry.i like the color saturation on the top one, although i was really trying to think about composition…the second one I was trying to capture my lovely dogwood tree in bloom, although i really over worked it. The interior part of the sketch is nice tho…

The Lost Smile

 This is Jack Wallace, Chicago actor. The photo had him slightly smiling with a twinkle in his eye.  Worked  to retrieve that but not there yet. Rest him on the piano and see what will happen  

New Kitties

 So this is my atelier these days while waiting for Amazon to deliver a new 6' long table, sometime late this week.  All I can paint in this tiny space is 3x4's.

I did a little one of those catalpa trees, which got closer to what I was trying to do with the previous one, and I think probably enough said on this subject.

And here come the kitties.

And here they are, and actually they are here also, although they are still hidden away, casing the joint as it were.

I didn't do any kind of gridding or preliminary drawing and it shows, but if you put that aside I think they have a kind of casual air that lends them a kind of charm.  That's what I think anyway.

April 26, 2025 — Elaine O.

I'm still working on finishing up supplies, so I chose a 6"x6" aquaboard for this intimate little portrait. I'm not finished yet, but I'm questioning the wisdom of painting such a shadowed subject on this support. It's hard to go dark and VERY hard to get smooth shading without sharp edges. Oh, well, I'll keep going and remember that it's only paper (actually aquabord, but you get the idea). 

6"x6"

And knowing that aquaboard isn't conducive to fine tuning and endless adjustments, I did some sketches and color and value tests first to really get to know my subject before I started.

11.5" x 8.25"

Burnt Umber is Fun

 Using archived photos from my phone. All 9x12. 

The first one,  my youngest grandson at a younger age, looks like him  

I got nothing

 All kinds of things going on this week, rug cleaning, tiptoeing through the Arboretum on the cusp of spring, boiling eggs, and the Eggstravaganza.  Oh and the table I paint on had a leg snap off.  So I only got to paint one day, and all I have to show is a little more work on that catalpa tree, well not really a catalpa tree, just a dark shape on a foggy night. I think I livened it up a little bit.

Alan Spring 4

 I decided that there were things I could do to my bayou painting to make it better. A lot of scrubbing to bring out the light and some other little touches. I kinda like it now. 

After my successful hip replacement I decided to concentrate on drawing. I can draw without pain. Later I’ll go back and paint it. This is sunset on a bay and has some beautiful blues and yellows in it. I like drawing and maybe should have used larger paper. It’s only 8 1/2 X 12.