What a weekend—cold and rainy all weekend. You'd think it would be perfect for a watercolorist (being so full of water and all), but NO! Those of us without family commitments and trips spent a lot of time and effort trying to protect our paintings from the elements. We also spent a lot of time revisiting sunny vacation trips of yore. Here, Madeleine finishes her bird, perched on some rocks in sun-drenched Spain. Aren't they beautiful?
And then, Madeleine painted this simple graphic travel painting. This would be a great travel poster—we love the use of black and white, the minimal color blocks and the expressive sky.
Bill has also finished his painting of rooftops in Spain. Notice the bright, hot colors and the inspired use of complementary colors (purple and yellow) for shadows and highlights.
From the rooftops above, Bill switches gears (and perspective and colors and temperature and mood) for this cool layered scene. The distant skyline is lovely—well worth the viewer's trip through the trees, across the foreground and the water.
Susan has also begun a painting using the device of looking through a veil of flowering trees towards a stairway. Of special interest here is the way we can see how she plots out the bones of her paintings. Look at the perspective lines of the background keeping place as she begins to develop the branches.
Of course we're painting flowers! It's spring, after all! Susan painted this grouping of potted flowers. Especially interesting is the way she leaves white space to make the lacey flowers sparkle against the colorful background.
What would our "flora" section be without corn? Ken is beginning the painting based on the study we saw last week. We like the blue stripe defining the center rib of the leaf. It adds structure—and an interesting shot of color.
Not content to wait for Saturday to paint, Sara continues her daily painting. Here's an orchid from her sketchbook. Even in a sketch, she masterfully blends colors—just look at the leaves, dirt and pot.
Moving indoors, Sara brings the same color sensibility to her deep perspective painting. Get closer to marvel at the Bonnard-like patterning.
Steve is letting his materials dictate color for him. Moving along on his Hawaiian painting, he's ground up more Hawaiian mud for the sand. In a brilliant touch, he's achieved the texture of sand by the way he ground his pigment. Ingenious!
Elaine added some finishing touches to her portrait below... and then spent a good bit of time pondering the background. Specifically, what kind, what color and/or if she should add one at all. While she'd love to use a dark background to bring out the light edge of his face, it feels like anything more might be too much. Feel free to comment with suggestions.
So, instead of continuing to stare at an empty background, Elaine began another of her People I Don't Know portraits. So far, she hasn't gotten much farther along than a sketch and a light wash of color, but come back to see how she progresses.
See you next week!
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