Sara’s experiments

 Here’s a couple of tree out the window studies. Not thrilled with either, altho the second one is closer to my original idea. But to me it looks like the tree is underwater.  The first one kind of hurts my eyes to look at it. So much going on.... I don’t know why I’m so enamored of the window frame - not sure it adds anything to the composition.

So I went back to something more familiar- portraits! I did both freehand from a photo & like the watercolor better than the drawing. Who ever thought I’d feel more comfortable drawing faces than trees — not me! Oh but hands are another challenge...

I don’t know if anyone else feels this way, but lately I find great comfort in drawing and painting. It’s like I see everyThing as a learning experience instead of a finished piece. It’s like a little getaway from the craziness of the news and the unanswered questions about the future. Just go put some color or marks on a piece of paper...see what happens...

Elaine O.—September 26, 2020

 I'm still working on the portrait. It's 9x12 and I've been slowly working around the subject. Seems I'm back to my usual MO, avoiding the face until the very end. I'll get there, though!

Not much else happening. I've been working on our front door. New paint... new hardware... and now I'm waiting for supplies for the address numbers. I've been sketching and photoshopping styles and colors, and also wandering the neighborhood, just in case I get a better idea before the actual install. Also, I got a new pen...

... and used it to sketch a morning glory blooming in a tangle of weeds by the telephone pole in our alley. It's gorgeous! The color of the morning glory in the sunlight was what originally caught my eye, but as I sketched, I was really amazed by the variety of weed shapes and colors, not to mention the way it all naturally shaped like a floral spray.

Rockies Redux Hockney

 When I saw the Hockney inspiration painting this morning.  I felt I have done the same layers of foreground, middle ground & background plus the pine trees. Thanks Sara for noticing unintentional similarity! So here goes, I dug up the 2017 Rockies watercolor! Happy painting, fellow artists! Am still trying to have confidence in blog posting! 

Bream 3.1

One of the ideas I was fooling with in this painting was how to incorporate watercolor pencils into a painting,  It doesn't show up well in this photo but there are a lot of squiggly lines around and in the tiles that I like,  It's been a process of scribbling in the lines with a wet pencil, putting water over the lines, then coming back with a with a different colored pencil, letting it dry a little than adding some watercolor then more watercolor of a different color, blotting with a paper towel, and then maybe doing the whole process again.  With the eye and those dark tiles around it, I was doing a completely different idea and now it sticks out like a sore eye, but maybe I can yet integrate it. 

Kitchen QuartetTest

 Hello this is Susan trying to enter blog with pencil sketch of Kitchen Quartet of 4 women preparing vegetables for lunch! Just followed Ken's advice on drawing  photos copied from black & white photocopies. Will draw tone & texture later. Also trying to enter blog on my own. Fingers crossed!

Susan S.—September 19, 2020

 Two from Susan today:

Title: Phangnga island, Thailand. The original sketch was done plein air on Valentine's day, 2 years ago. This is the James Bond Island which I painted before with bikini beauties. This time, I painted over the sketch lines of my travel book & tried to recapture the tropical heat & the blue sky & the green ocean! Upside down, it looks like a mini volcano ready for lift-off! 

 

Title#2: GOOD MORNING FEET! My husband Tony was diagnosed with elevated hypertension in May. Among his medical protocols is the reduction of sodium or fluid to regulate heartbeats plus vigilant checkups for swollen feet. So our nurse cousin told us to greet our lower extremities every morning & check for "dimples"! This is my attempt to start a value drawing. I am just a starter! I do not know how to differentiate the black color of  my leggings with Tony's red shorts. And the shadings of the legs are inadequate! It is easier to paint in watercolor. Thanks for any advice!

Elaine O.—September 19, 2020

I didn't get much done this week. I added a little to the portrait today but I was mostly restless and distracted by the shocking RBG news. I'm deeply saddened, grateful for all she did, and energized to continue the fight. We were truly lucky to have been touched by her presence.

No further work on the Sargent project either. I was distracted with another painting project. We are going to paint our dry, sun-grayed front door. Spent a lot of time walking around and looking at doors, sanding, wood-filling and sanding some more. Then, we chose a color in less than 10 minutes. It's pretty similar to the darker parts of the swatch at the bottom—but flatter. (Hmm.... I wonder if you can watercolor an actual door?) We'll be doing the actual painting next week.  Maybe I'll do another sketch then.

Sara Starts Fall...

 Worked on this painting most of the week. It’s a second try after I did a few more sketches.I like it and I’m learning a lot about color mixing etc. it’s on 300 lb paper, which takes a lot of water and pigment. Also lets me scrub out a bit, like her neck, which was too dark. The hardest part is the bathing suit - trying to suggest the folds in the fabric as well as the light and shadow. I know, they’re both the same ... and hard to do...not sure if she’s finished, but not sure of what to do.

Here’s another sketch I did before the painting. And two more morning sketches.

I’m thinking a lot about trees thru the window...it might be a series some day....

Bream 3

 

I had like seven different ideas for this and none of them are working out.  I think I will set it aside and work on that oddity that I posted earlier.

elaine t., Sept. 19

 (I'm posting early because I have family coming in tomorrow.)

I've taken Elaine O's example of doing quick direct studies of other artists' portrait work. I didn't want to copy her by doing Sargent, so I used Gustave Courbet for this week's studies. I hope I can bring more spontaneity to my paintings, and have the finished work show some transparency, rather than looking like gouache. 

I may not have anything to post next week--I'm going up to my sister's new home in Wisconsin for a few days! I promise to post some quick paintings of her house and the woods surrounding it.

an oddity

 I cut my old sketch papers into four pieces and use the back of them as sacrifice sheets.  I turned this one over, and I was like this is interesting.  It was for the background on the first tiger and I don't know what the purpose of the green blob was, but it suddenly looked like a monk on the edge of a forest facing out to a misty morning.  Probably just me, but I'll pass it along for what, if anything, it is worth.

another fishy in the sea

 

It looks balanced to me.  I don't know if some stranger looking at it would have any idea what it is or if that would matter.  Sorry for the lateness, had the doldrums.

Elaine O. — September 12, 2020

I'm finished with this. I was afraid to lose what I had in terms of likeness, so I kept everything else light and simple. I didn't go as dark with her hair and eyes as I normally would, and, as a result, I think this has a more typical watercolor feel. 

 

From there, I sketched and began work on this painting. I'm trying to get beyond "a pretty picture" and go for an expression or a vibe or an action. Here, she's ready to spring into action; I let her fill the frame so it feels like she's going to burst out. We'll see how that works.

 

And here are a couple more sketches in the Sargent project. I can see what he's doing far better than I can replicate it. Still, I'm hoping that way of seeing filters into my own paintings. What I like is that he seems to look carefully and then paint only the minimum necessary, laying down the fewest number of strokes and letting them be.

Sara’s Rainy Week

 

When it rains, I paint. I think this is finished, but I’m not sure. Looking at it now, I see I’ve sort of emphasized the baby and left everything sort of faded. Violet is just a weird color to work with. I expect it to be dark in value but it really isn’t. Fortunately in real life the dress is black and gold — so much more hippie chic...!

I love these 2 sketches—I feel like I’m getting more adventurous with the pen— a Coptic .03 — a little thin but it does the job. 

So here’s a project I started yesterday. I actually did the small sketch first, then the freehand value study, then the bigger sketch, then the painting. You can see in the photo below the beautiful colors in her face, but the values are very dark, much darker than I achieved. I’m going to do another one on heavier paper, so I’m open to advice for improving it. I just love the look of determination on her face that says “Can’t you see I’m working here?!”

Happy painting!

Sara’s Summer Fades....

So, I worked on this quite a bit last week, but I haven’t really looked at since Friday. I must say, that break was good - I like it a lot more than when I last worked on it! I need to darken the values of the blouse and do more work on the skirt and put in some trees in the upper right. But I like the faces and skin tones — I’m going more for mood than resemblance. FYI everyone knows when you look at images in the blog, you can enlarge them onscreen with two fingers — at least I can. It’s a helpful feature imo...
 

Relocated Farmers Houses at Yangtze River

 While cruising thru Yangtze River, I was fascinated by cute charming houses hugging the mountains guarding the river. For a brief moment, I envied the owners of these " vacation houses" as having reached the creme de la creme of housing as having a second house to spend their weekends and holidays. This illusion was shattered by the late explanation of our tour guide who told us that these houses on the mountain sides were relocated farmer houses who lost their neighborhoods, source of income & farms by the construction of the massive Three Gorges Dam. First Impression sometimes are like Pandemic Face Masks! 

 

Inversion.1: Dragon Gate Cruise

 Hello this is Susan resubmitting Dragon Gate Cruise as Inversion 1.1. When the original painting posted to wall by artist tape, fell on the floor upside down, I was thrilled to see a fresh viewpoint of the piece: the river became sky & cruise ships seemed coming down from sky thru a rainbow! The mountains became farms sliding pointed down. For past 6 months, we are immersed in a new reality, a new dimension! Let us enjoy this journey!