Alan Winter 5

 I spent some time working on this alcohol ink that was boring and dull. I didn’t like it at all but now I think it’s kinda interesting. 

Someone sent me a plethora of black and white pictures about life in the 50’s. I remember doing something like this myself. Entitled “A Routine Repair” it’s very like me as a kid. I had to invent my own colors though so I had to go far back in my memories to choose them. Always have trouble with tires.  I believe that’s a bucket hat on the car seat, but I don’t remember them as a 50’s thing. 

I’ve been looking at Christopher Stephan’s wash videos on YouTube. This was a ghost wash which is painted extremely wet. Still pretty wet in the photo  

After thoroughly drying…… paint!  I’m torn between explicit and gestural.  But I love the idea of different washes as the basis for the painting.  I’ll use it more often but especially landscapes.

Lotsa paintings…

 Done.

Done.

Done

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Done. But I’m going to do maybe a couple more of these. I like how this turned out.

Still working on this. Looks kind of apocalyptic but really it’s just a sunset…there’s something I like about all these paintings…maybe it’s the combo of orange and blue!

Plant stuff

Here is a morning glory leaf.  If I did it again, and I probably will, I would pay more attention to the minor veins,

And here is the Lurie Gardens.  I am thinking of those big Chinese landscapes that I think are pretty abstract.  So far I have only used my Flavor of the Month, olive green, and I am thinking of doing it all in that one color, though I may add some color highlights when I am done.

Ss: Angel and the Hanbok

 This was inspired by a Hanbok fitting session by my apo (granddaughter) Angel with a Costume assistant during a family tour of South Korea (SK) last December 2024. My nephew Paulo & wife Donna, whose family of 4 kids reside in Melbourne, Victoria, Australia, sent me copies of of their 2 week vacation photos thru my Instagram account. What drew me into the intimate scenery between 2 ladies, of different heritage, age, circumstances was the face of my Apo filled with insecurity and apprehension as reflected in the fitting room mirror while the costumer assistant (CA) who is much older, appeared sure and confident in her work. The Hanbok is the top portion of a native Korean woman's blouse made with dainty flimsy material with puffy sleeves, V neck line and with a ribbon sewn fitted to hug the breast. Native SK costumes are rented for US$7 for 1.5 hours of usage or souvenir photo session. This is the second painting of mine based on the Hanbok session. My last week painting was a closeup of Angel's face without background! My fellow artists favorably commented that I leave the face alone & paint the background to complement the 01.18.2025 Angel face!For this 01.25.2025, I felt the bamboo forest framed the ladies in the hanbok. The CA's hanbok was just the white of the watercolor paper. Happy Painting all!

January 25, 2025 — Elaine O.

I think I need to get more familiar with the dragonfruit. They are lovely, but I don't know if the inside is their best side. On the other hand, the stark black and white against the hot pink really gives it a pop, graphic quality that I tried to match in this painting. 

14" x 11"

Ken’s Next Door Neighbor

 From a FB photo by Derek Poznanski. Every time I look at this there’s something else to fix. 

Lurie and a leaf

This came out pretty well.  I like all the grasses and the kind of mysterious plants with the incredibly skinny stems.  That red spot in the distance just didn't work as I planned it.  Damn  you perylene maroon. 

 This is one of those leaves from an earlier series.  Kind of plain now but I intend to add reddish spots.  No perylene maroon though. 

I’m a little teapot…

 

I have a million teapots so why not paint them? This one is on an orange shelf unit and there were some nice shadows on it. The first painting is a quick sketch — I really like the teapot but nothing else. The second one is somewhat confusing, even when I was painting it. The third one I mapped out and added a water pitcher. I don’t like how the pitcher is painted, but I like the teapot and the shelf. Maybe I need to simplify the shadows more…

While I’m waiting for the teapots to dry, I paint this. Looks a little ominous right now. The tree isn’t painted, I just took the masking off. Mostly I’m just trying to stay warm and not think about the future of our country…

January 18, 2025 — Elaine O.

I started with a quick sketch to warm up. And I realized I've inadvertently been playing with color schemes in these still lifes. First the warm monochrome/analogous, then the complementary palette, and here, the split complementary. And now that I'm aware of what I've been doing, I wonder if I should methodically try all the other color schemes—or would that just take away the fun?

8" x 5" approx.

By now, I ate all the clementines, so I bought a dragonfruit and started a sketch...

approx. 8" x 5"

...before cutting it open. Here's a start to a painting, but I've also taken a few photos so I have reference material for one or two others.

14" x 11"

At this point, I may have lost the color theory theme—although maybe rainbow for the sketch and triadic for the painting? As I said, though, it was kind of an after-the-fact observation to begin with so we'll see what happens next week.

Little Val

 A long time ago,  I met Val at the Y in weight training class. She has the most engaging smile and positive attitude. She is a skilled seamstress and over the years made slipcovers for furniture that I still use. She moved toWisconsin and now I only see her on Facebook. This is her granddaughter, an absolute clone of Val.  Here she is looking forward to a day of skiing. 

SS Angel Apo: Beauty Brain

 My Apo Angel of Melbourne, Victoria, Australia was granted a 2024 Exchange Scholarship in South Korea. Her family of my nephew, niece in law, a brother and 2 sisters visited South Korea for 2 weeks in Dec 2024 to pick her up on the way home. My relatives spent the Christmas & New Year's holidays in SK touring the local food & festivities. One of the highlights was the renting of SK local costumes & posing for souvenir photos of the family looking like South Koreans, assisted by local make up artists or costume artists. This inspiration photo of my granddaughter Angel looking apprehensive at the mirror attracted my attention & I saved it as Screenshot from Instagram photos of my nephew Paulo. On Jan 17, the night before my Saturday Art Class, after a worrisome night, my cellphone saved it in the Trash section. So happy, I was able to restore it. So I painted Angel from the grid prep up to final hair stroke in 2 hours during Saturday art class! Hallelujah!

Alan - Winter 4

 OK. So I took an alcohol ink work that I did on Yupo that started out like this:

But I missed the “quin gold” of the original watercolor. Since the middle was alcohol ink, I could paint over it with watercolor without bleeding. So I tried a graduated wash with the quin-gold bleeding into lemon yellow. It might not have worked but if it didn’t, I can just wash out the watercolor paint. What do you think?

Then I got more serious with the inks and did a couple of abstracts. 

These are fun. It’s interesting to get some of these effects on purpose. You can imagine many different things in these. 

Alan - Winter 3

This is 12 X 14 on Rough. I was trying a little graduated wash and I always have trouble with that. But I liked it overall  

I’ve been looking at an artist using alcohol inks on Yupo lately so I thought I’d try an abstract of the above sunset. It’s pretty complicated but I thought it was a good start. I also used some different India inks which didn’t work out like I expected. I might clean it up some and do regular watercolor on top of that. We’ll see. 

Another tree…and a chair…

 

So I’m really working on wet into wet color mixing on the paper because I’m reading one of Hazel Soan’s books and she says it’s the secret to vibrant watercolors. It’s all about the ratio of pigment to water. So far I like the arm of the chair best…

LaSalle Street

 Possibly the most interesting cul de sac in Chicago. 

My architecture is wobbly. Those colors upper left are some sort of reflection that appeared in the photo. If I learned one lesson here , it’s that I never have any luck using ultramarine as a block of color …  never smoothe. This is small … 6.x8. Might do again larger. 

Still on vacation

Just fooling around,
 

Slow week for Uncle Ken

One of the lovely tomato flowers from that lovely summer 

Probably the less said about this the better.  I started out with that galaxy thing in the middle, but it didn't have inertia enough to reach the edges of the paper so I divided it into sections, but then I could never get them to play well together,  Just a sacrifice sheet for now, but maybe someday I will get a Eureka moment.

January 4, 2025 — Elaine O.

It's a new year and I think I've started a new series. Here's yet another still life—this time, I made the entire background cool and blue with the intent of making the clementines pop.

11" x 14"

Alan Winter 2

 I got a lot of ideas one cold late fall afternoon down by the lake at the end of Addison around the golf course. Since our painting area has been disrupted by Christmas stuff, I’ve been working in my sketchbook with my minimal urban sketching tools  which includes brush pens so I don’t have to worry about water.

Here is a more than quick sketch of the clubhouse for the golf course. The perspective is a little off and the clock should be higher on the tower, but the overall look is what I was looking for. 5 X 5 on hot press  

After golf I often stop in at the Clock Tower Cafe. 5 X 5 on hot press. 

If you look to the west from the parking lot you will see Lake Shore Drive across the athletic fields. 5 X 10 on hot press. 

These are a lot of fun requiring only a small space to work and a good light source.