The weather is hot... and so are we! We seem to be especially interested in portraiture, from a single subject to a cast of thousands. We begin with Tony's homage to Anthony Bourdain. One subject, but notice the three faces he's combined? Tony is trying to examine the various aspects of his subject's personality. He's using his water-soluble pen technique and revisiting his abstract/cubist paintings for this perfect memorial.
Elaine's also painting single portraits. She's finished this painting, based on a small black-and-white photo by Vivian Maier. It fits neatly into her
People I Don't Know series and is another attempt at direct watercolor... painting directly without drawing first.
With a little time to spare, Elaine began another small direct watercolor (below). Again, it's someone she doesn't know, but it's a relatively good likeness. Just goes to show the value of practice!
Steve's another prime example of the value of practice—and studies. In this merman portrait, Steve added some finishing touches to the water and concentrated on the hair. It looks great! Again, we admire the texture of the natural elements (sky, water and rock) and the subject's body... especially the hands.
Sara is another proponent of doing studies and sketches. In this year's birthday self-portrait, she's moved to a dual portrait, including her new grandaughter. Is it any wonder she looks so exuberantly happy? She begins with a sketch....
... tweaks the composition and expressions....
... before tracing off a cartoon of the major lines....
... so she can begin color studies. This may not be the final, but isn't it incredible how much better each incarnation gets?
John does Sara one better, adding a third person (okay, it's a statue of Buddha) to his dual portrait. This is colored pencil, which builds up slowly. Still, we can already see the difference between the real people and the giant carved sandstone face. This is going to be a gift, and we know it's going to be treasured.
Susan is another prolific sketcher. This is from her sketchbook. It's a fashion show from her Asian vacation cruise featuring colorful cheongsams. We see the color notes and the cruise ship against the sea and sky. (We're betting the models are hoping for a glimpse of Steve's merman, too).
From that, here's the painting! Susan's painted ten models and placed them atop a floating stage. This festive painting makes them look like they are on a cake, with colorful fireworks in the background. It made us happy.
Alan is also looking at portraits... and multiple studies. He's doing a scene from New Orleans, featuring many distinct character portraits. He begins by doing parts of the scene on Yupo...
... and again, on Yupo....
... before painting on watercolor paper. Each time, he solves a new problem and discovers something new he really loves about the painting.
Another group portrait for Alan. These are the Purple Dragons, his grandson's soccer team. Even without faces, there is a lot of personality in this painting.
But that's not all. While he was on vacation, Alan painted landscapes...
... and architecture. This is another of his adventures in perspective. Also, each of these paintings had a study or two before the final.
Greeta's back with this lovely painting. You can consider it a single portrait... or you can zoom in and look at the incredible job she's done of the crowd. We consider this a stellar group portrait.
We're glad to see Greeta working on another architectural painting. This is her front door.
While the door itself is beautiful, we are enamored of the way she handled this subject. We love the way Greeta described the sunlight with the shadows and the dappled glow on the stairs. We especially love the shadows cast by the railing!
Greeta (along with Alan) is one of our worst enablers, always finding some new and wonderful supply to tempt us with. Here, she's painting on a handmade Indian paper called Khadi. Greeta found it surprisingly pleasant to work on—the paint flow was much different than the texture would lead one to expect. And we're including the elegantly deckled edges in our photos.
Here's another painting on Khadi. You may be seeing more of us trying this paper.
Isa is starting a new painting with a pencil sketch. Notice the classic composition. The landscape is divided into thirds, with a brick wall in the midground separating the road in the foreground from the flowering peach in the background. This is going to be interesting!
Ken is also painting portraits as part of his tomato mosaic series. He's added the tomato, carefully modeling it before adding grout lines. He still plans to add a flower and background.
We're thrilled to see Marva back and we notice she hasn't lost any of her touch. Still a master of foliage, she's turned her hand to a Tucson landscape. The dry greenery was all done today and will be backlit by an amazing western sunset.
Our newbies are amazing us. Just look at Rabia's plaid. She's managed to incorporate gradations, drybrush and scrubbing in one of the most painterly plaids we've ever seen. And at the same time, it looks like a spectral chart of some element.
And then, Rabia moved on to begin this tree. This trunk is more detailed than the photo shows; zoom in and see. But take a look at the leaves. Not only do they suggest movement (it seems like the wind is blowing them), but they move along the color spectrum. Beautiful—and carefully thought out!
Here's one of the most scientific explorations of color mixing we've ever seen. Douad has taken each primary and combined them in the next column to create the secondary colors. Then, he did the same to create the tertiary colors in the third column. It's a color wheel in graphical form.
This is another color wheel by Douad. He's using trees as a framework and it's like you are on the ground looking up through the branches. And each tree is a different color. Done in pointillist style, each of the colors blends and merges with the others. Seurat would be so proud!
This is what happens when science meets art! We love our newbies and are going to learn a lot from them. Come back next week so you can, too!
