A long story

 Here is a photo of an ofrenda for the Day of the Dead at the Mexican Fine Arts Museum

 The Trib included it in an article which became the newspaper that I laid down underneath my paintings.

I gussied it up a bit and cropped out the surrounding newsprint and displayed it last week.

Then I added the surrounding newsprint area and made it my Work of Art.

Of course the Work of Art itself was painted on top of newspaper and when I looked at the original precrop photo I thought that don't look half bad.  I reckon you know what is coming next.

Alan Winter 1 2025

 I thought I would show you this process. I used it with my last failed attempt. 

This is the view down my street  

I liked the yellow maple halfway down the block do I cropped it to reflect my interest in that big yellow branch. 

So I painted that. The trouble is that I used 5 different kinds of yellow and that I saw it moving horizontally. I tried to scrub out some yellow but there was too much pigment on the paper and it came out like a big blob of yellow. So that’s where I was stuck. 

So, remembering my recent attempts with ink resist and getting ready to make it sacrifice sheets, I decided to make some adjustments to leave some black and use gouache on certain leaf groups, and just cover the whole thing with India ink. I waited for it to dry and then washed it off. Everything got washed out so I went back in with watercolor and repainted it trying to use more vertical groupings along with the horizontal.  I used straight gouache to provide more resistance to the ink, so that might have been my issue with the hibiscus painting. It has more drama than the original so it might be worth all the extra effort. It was fun painting all the leaves though. 

Just foolin around

 As you know before I paint my masterpieces I put down a newspaper which is handy for rubbing off excess paint or water from the brush,  I usually leave that paper down there for oh, maybe a month's worth of masterpieces and it gets pretty beat up.  No, wait I meant to say it becomes a masterpiece itself.  Am I right?  

3 Horizontals

I painted this two weeks ago but when I got home I couldn't find it anywhere and figured well chalk it up to that thing where the monks make these elaborate mandalas out of sand and as soon as they are done they take a broom to it to complete its arc through the cosmos.   When I finished the Christmas tree I pulled up the sheet of yupo and there this was on the other side, so, you know, you know. 

Kind of a Lollapalooza crowd?

 Either a close up of a Christmas tree or a slice of spinach and pepperoni pizza.

Having a great time in the lab.

Alan Fall 25-9

 Thought I would be done, but I don’t like it. Problem with the yellow leaf swath. I’m looking for inspiration about how to fix it. Otherwise I’ll just start over. But I’m not really sure about why it went off the rails in the first place. 

The yellow maple was what I liked most about it. The rest is fluff. 

Chillin’

 

Overall, this winter scene turned out pretty well. Really like the snow and the background. My fall tree paintings were not too successful, so I have to think about them for a while.

Class of Fall 2025

 

Here they are, the intrepid painters of the Fall 2025 Old Masters Class. Unfortunately we are missing two members: one, who had a valid medical excuse, and another, who said it was too cold to come to class.  [Ed.note: Is he a true Chicagoan? It was at least 12 degrees…]

SS: Sop Hee Ya @ 9

Fall into winter…

 Another view of my backyard birch tree, this time thru the window. It had so many interesting colors this year, a dirty yellow, bright orange and red, some purple, all with the white branches peeking thru. This is just a beginning layer; the blue is the mask fluid.

And we jump right into winter! The sun caught a few remaining leaves on my rose bush while most of the scene is in blue shadows. I really like this so far, altho the shadows need to be deeper and I haven’t really painted the leaves yet,just rubbed off the mask.

Merry Christmas to all and to all a good night!

working in the lab

 These are three bookmarks (1 1/2x6) as I was painting them I became more interested in that swirly stuff (like on the right side of #2).  I will be in the lab for awhile investigating the path of the swirlys.  

And I guess you know what this is. 9x12

Alan Fall 25-8

Following Sara’s advice, somewhat, I tried to increase the values in this smoke bush and definitely made it better. 

I also painted our hydrangea bush in the late fall. I tried the ink resist technique that I’ve done before but it’s been awhile.   

First I painted the work with gouache using what I felt was a fairly thick layer of gouache with gum Arabic  figuring that it wouldn’t wash off along with the ink.  I thought it was a nice little piece.  I watched several videos about how to do this and they all said don’t be afraid to cover the whole thing with India ink.  So I did. 

And someone said to let it dry overnight and then wash off the ink in the sink. So I did that. This is what I got.

The idea was that the ink would stay where there wasn’t any paint and wash off where there was but that’s not what happened. They all warned me not to scrub too hard, using light strokes with a soft brush, but I still damaged the paper and no color remained on the paper. After watching more videos, I decided that I should have used colder water and maybe I shouldn’t have let it dry so long. Anyway—-this is what I was left with.

So I carefully redrew the composition and painted over it using gouache over the inked coldpress.  It kinda looked interesting but not anything like I planned.

Ss Parade

December 6, 2025 — Elaine O.

I loved the bright glowing colors and shadows as the autumn sun hit this corner storefront. And the colorful signs and foliage just added to the scene.

10" x 14"

WIPs…or maybe they’re done…

 This little lady is done for sure although the background looks a little blotchy. This was a double challenge: a baby in a cream colored outfit!

This one is pretty much done too. I’m not crazy about the cropping at the top. I might try this again with more of the window showing at the top.

This is a backyard snow scene I just started. The green and red makes it kind of Xmas-y. It’s actually just the sun hitting the leaves of my rose bush in the foreground and the rest is in shadow. The leaves are covered with masking fluid right now…Well it’s cold and snowy out…good day to stay home and paint!

Alan Fall 25-7

 It’s amazing what you can find in your yard. We have a little smoke bush that turns some glorious colors in the late fall. It’s our first or second year with this in our yard and I decided to paint it a few different ways. 

Here is what I originally saw.

So I zoomed in and got this image. 

And then I cropped it to get the image I wanted to paint. 

I painted this on the polypropylene uncoated medium. I drew it using watercolor brush pens. There are a ton of colors in this set and I used about half of them. I also used a big Tombow marker and filled in negative spaces with watercolors. I finished with my “sctatchin” stick and a wet Q tip. I did the wrought iron fence with the water soluble Tombow and went crazy painting the leaves with the brush pens. It’s very colorful and fun to do. 

I went back to regular  8 1/2  X 12 140 # coldpress to do the next one.  So…it’s pen and ink with watercolor paint.  Each leaf was coated with water and I just dropped color in like real painters do.  Got some interesting effects here  

The last one is on 5 X 12 Yupo; real Yupo. I cropped the original some more and just painted it freehand and wet. I never did get the darker colors that I saw on the actual plant but I did get the colors in the reference photo.  

More autumn coming.  Trying the next autumn painting with the India ink resist technique.

Finished But Still Wondering

 

I’ve lost the chubby shape of her face making her older than she looked at the time. Shortly after this she went full “Goth” and has never fully emerged from that even though she’s in her 30’s. 

To see what would happen with a darker background I taped dark paper around the image. What do you think?

I know she “pops” more with the dark but then the shirt is too light and that summery feeling goes away. 

Two new horizontals (That's what I am calling them)

Like the top of that ha ha fence, not so crazy about the vegetation or the trees, but I am learning.3x12

Learned a lot on this one. and hey, I don't think it looks half bad. 3x12

These two are both 1 1/2x6.  Just something I'm fooling with.  Nothing to see here, move along.

 

The Old Wine Box Delivers

 I ran into Kelly recently and remembered that I had once tried to paint her…like over 20 years ago. We were at an outdoor party and I had my digital camera.  she was 14 or 15 and her back was to me.  She had used the leaves of a weeping willow to make a crown.  When she turned I snapped the photo cutting off the top of her head.  I throw the images I use for paintings into a wine box in a closet…really pleased that the photo printout was there.

Looking at the really good notes I took from the class I took last year, I went through the process, thumbnail sketch, one  color value painting, then the painting  then noticed that the last sentence of the notes said never to take up all of the paper with the head…which is exactly what I had done..so I got out a larger better piece of paper and began again.  Still working on that …can’t decide what to do with the background .  Will post when I resolve that.

This is the one from 20+ years ago.

Ho-hum paintings…

 

The first one is sketchbook size, the second one 9x9 on good paper. But I just feel the second has lost the sense of light. And the wall of ivy continues to stymie me— how to suggest it without painting every frigging leaf…

Finished tree. This one is not so ho hum, I like the blue and yellow, the shadow on the building. Kind of a wonky composition tho…But I like the saturation of color here — that’s what I feel I’m not achieving in above paintings. I guess I just have to go in with more paint in the beginning. I don’t have the patience for painting a million

 layers…e

It’s a baby! She’s 8 months old and I haven’t painted her once! And she’s so cute!