At last! The roses are finished...I think. I'll look at it over the next day or two to see if any small tweaks are needed, but it's basically finished. Quite an exercise in patience...and a prime example of complementary colors in nature.
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| 15" x 10.2" |
We went back to the original exercise this time—we take 5 minutes to flip open a magazine to the first photo we see and paint it. Ken starts us off with a toast...and lovely, rich colors.
Jet's reference was easily the most complex of the lot, but she made a great start with the brightly colored vehicle.
Martina and Karen shared a reference—and they were the only artists not to use a National Geographic reference. Martina (top) began with bold color, while Karen (below) went for the details. Isn't it interesting what different artists emphasize?
After the Pandemic, we were blessed to celebrate a family reunion in Feb 2023 with our paternal relatives from Southern Ph. I was raised with my nuclear family in Northern Ph, that it was a pleasant revelation to enjoy the company and savor the multi talented skills of my numerous Cousins, Nephews, Nieces and Grandchildren from other parts of the World, most of them, our first mutual encounters with each other. During a mini get together, prior to the big party, when we were trying to decide our reunion theme song, the guitarist who was my cousins' neighbors, accompanied us with such low energy as if he was in need of a liquid picker upper, that one of our elder female cousins, grabbed the guitar from the neighbor & played with such gusto and enthusiasm, that it jump started our first musical group song to a high level until we settled on a local love song as our reunion song. Then and there,I felt the loss of not having met my female cousin when we were both younger yet I felt grateful that we still have time to enjoy each other, after surviving a huge calamity, like the pandemic. I painted a younger version of Elisa as if she was in her prime with an attitude of showing off to the male guitarist and with the confidence of a talented musician whose artistic talent has not been show cased by a lifetime of farming and hard work! May She enjoy more creative moments! I painted her audience as bits and pieces of our admiring relatives surrounding her. I painted her nail polish red! And I showed the porch of our get together as a performing stage. The green color of the guitar and the chair is also the same color of the venue, the tiny house of my other cousin Annie, Priceless!
Making slow but steady progress on the spill of roses. So much pink! It's almost like walking through the Barbie aisle in the toy store. But they'll soon be toned down by the cool green leaves, so no need to worry about pink overload.
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| 15" x 10.2" |
We tried something a bit different for today's warmup, based on Ken's suggestion. We still began by flipping a magazine open to the first image we saw. We took a minute to just look at it; after than, we turned over the reference and took five minutes to paint the image as we remembered it, without looking at the reference again. Ken's added color to his landscape, but remembered all the important features.
Sara also got all the features and positioning of her landscape (although she thinks it looks like a crocodile).
Elaine got all the elements of her seascape, although the colors are more vivid than the original.
Susan's warmup has all the elements of the inspiration wooden sculpture...
...while Jet concentrated on the colors of her reference, particularly the green of the eyes and the blush of her lips and cheeks.
Dan chose a single tomato, and seemed to remember every fold and wrinkle.
Our last warmups got us moving with abandon; this warmup works on visual memory skills. I think we did really well, don't you?
During our recent February vacation in the Ph my husband & I were visited by all branches of the family on a daily basis. One mini reunion consisted of the Nephews and Nieces who recently became parents during the pandemic. The young kids visiting with their younger parents were all frisky and running all over the place with unlimited energy and unqualified joy that their laughter
I worked on this one a lot this week too, and I think it’s done. It’s spookier than intended, but maybe it needs a person looking out the window…or something. It does capture the starkness of the tree against the blue sky, but I wish I could make the sky more uniform, like a wash. Of course that would involve a lot of masking….
These are for Bryan in case he’s contemplating a gnome series….
This is a Watercolor Painting of a Senior Couple, long time married, who took a Swiss vacation with college friends, after a pandemic pause. The husband & wife seated face to face with knees interlocking and dressed for travel with face masks, hats, walking shoes, bottled water, backpacks,colorful jackets and cell phones, felt safety in a foreign land that in complete fatigue and jet lagged conditions, snored their vacation away, oblivious to Alpine scenery, transparent lakes, majestic clouds, efficient trains, towering bridges, never ending tunnels, Swiss Alps and noisy fellow travelers, one of whom recorded the nap break! It was fun Painting a No Memory Experience!
Ahhh I see my own shadow in lower left of all 3.
#1 is a scene from Ohr O’Keefe grounds hard to depict Gehry stainless pods which is that light to the right. #2 best honey ever. #3 painted my birthday bouquet sans drawing
It's spring and thoughts turn from garbage bags to these lovely pink roses. And now, I'm wondering if it's more of a challenge than I want to take on. But it's already sketched, so I'm determining to see it through. Admittedly, this is just the beginning and there's not a lot to see...yet. But come back and see how it progresses.
We did the five minute warm-ups again! Same as before — we have 5 minutes to paint a hitherto unseen reference photo. The purpose? To get us loosened up, warmed up and ready to paint. Ken finished his moonscape in only 4 minutes.
Sara did a portrait.
As always, the five minutes went by all too quickly, but we had fun.
I like this version of the Orr-O’Keefe museum in Biloxi. It’s on 140 with a graphite base and a watercolor wash.
I thought that I was done with this Graceland painting but our teacher informed me that I was not. I added some definition to the weeping willow at the left so that it read as that.
I finished the quick painting of Greeta in Vicksburg. No drawing and fast painting.
Both my pad of panorama paper AND my painting of trash bags are finished! There's something I really like about the way the bags march through the tall slice of paper. I see more and more possibilities to explore (compositionally) with this paper. I don't think we've seen the last of it!
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| March of the Garbage Bags 18" x 6" |
