Painting # 8 in 100

11 x 14 watercolor
completed today! 7/18/2010 - this took me about an hour

Reference material: the sketch below done during dinner at a restaurant near the Blue Ridge Parkway and from the window where I sat I could see the bridge. Perfect composition ready and waiting to be sketched! Now of course, the bridge is not really cobalt violet - but my version...is.

Fauvism - thanks Dan! I like that! Matisse. I love Matisse's work!



Doesn't this little messy work area look like fun!
I am loving painting watercolors at my easel. It's been very freeing to be able to just walk over, my palette all ready to go and paint.

# 7 in 100 -- The Long-awaited Barn!

11 x 14 watercolor and white gouache


I did it!!! A barn that makes my heart sing! I've never been this bold with strokes and color! I have pondered how to do this for days - how to paint the barn so that it makes my heart sing...I woke up from a nap this afternoon and suddenly... I knew! I knew exactly what to do. I can't explain it, but I got right up and went to the easel and finished the barn!


It started out with this sketch...done in about five seconds in a car (with someone else at the wheel of course). Notice the date is 2002.


And here it sat on my drawing board for about a week getting little washes here and there.



And then I took a nap... and when I woke up I knew exactly how I would finish it.



This barn has a story behind it and is a very special scene to me. I used to see it at the stoplight every day when I would go out to lunch from work. This scene always made me gasp with its beauty, changing with the seasons, but always a stunning view. I can't tell you how many times I have sketched this barn with the range of trees behind it, nestled in the green hill.

One day I noticed they were tearing it down! No! Not my barn! Yes, my barn...they are building a new corridor to the highway and the barn was in the way and so it had to go. I have mourned its departure ever since. Nothing about the view draws me without this barn there nestled into the green hillside with the trees behind it. I wonder if anyone else felt the loss. I still feel the loss... progress... I'm not so sure. Everything changes.

#6 in 100 Paintings

Number 6 in 100 Paintings

5" x 5" watercolor

# 5 in 100 Paintings

It just occurred to me that I’m missing my happy art. The crazy swirls and bright colors, the expressive but not realistic paintings. I’m feeling a sense of loss and a sort of mundane-ness with the realistic sketching and painting, the disciplined painting. The learning, the rules… Today I feel out of sorts, sad, dull. I think part of the reason is I miss the bright colors, the coffee cups, the teapots, the crazy flower shapes and swirls.

I had dreams last night that were very disturbing – reliving the past, that sort of thing… and I thought, the therapy I need is to paint some “heart songs.”

I’m trying to fit my art into a mold that says “real art” to me. Real art is art you have to work hard at and be disciplined about, right? Play is not real art. Playing around with bright colors and images that are not realistic – that’s not real art. I realize right now, this moment, that I’ve made yet another mistake. Why do I make it so hard? Why do I make it so hard on myself?

I don’t want to paint barns and trees and realistic vases of flowers; I thought I did. Art minus joy. I have a painting on my easel now of a barn and trees. I like the painting, but it doesn’t make my heart sing! It’s a good painting (or a good start to one), but my heart doesn’t sing when I look at it. Knowing what it feels like for my art to make my heart sing; how can I go back to just the feeling of, “I have created a good painting.” There is no comparison.

I’ll still do the 100 paintings – but without any restrictions; maybe they won’t even be done with watercolor, maybe I’ll use several different media. 100 joy-filled pieces of art. Now wouldn’t that be better... My paintings do not have to sell! Why is it that in my mind art that doesn’t “sell” isn’t art! I compare myself to others, that’s what’s wrong. Art is an expression of the individual. It doesn’t matter what everyone else is doing! Art is therapy for me. The best sort of therapy. So, while it may not be art, per se, the above painting sure did make my heart sing AND it was done on cheap student grade watercolor paper!

Now I may go home and "liven" up the barn painting...

100 Paintings # 4

11 x 14 watercolor and gouache in Aquabee Sketchbook

My daughter Grace asleep on the couch

Paintings 1-3 in 100 Paintings - Yep! I'm taking the plunge!

Before:

I reworked the shadow that I thought was way too dark (top) by wetting it with clean water and wiping the color away with a paper towel.
Then I repainted the shadow in places only lighter.  I am much more satisfied with the after version (left).

I'm thinking I might just take the plunge and do this "100 Paintings" idea that others are doing.  Ann said something in a comment to my last post that made so much sense. The 100 paintings frees her and gives her a focus. I need to have focus in my work; rules, no - focus yes.  My focus lately has been going back to basics. I used to sketch from life or photos in my sketchbooks and then do finished paintings.  I've gotten away from that in the last few years with all the emphasis on making mixed media journal pages.  I've grown tired of those in terms of my own work.  I like to look at the pages of others, don't misunderstand me; it's a great art form.  It's just that I need to grow in my ability to paint finished paintings.  I feel myself slipping in that area.  That is the reason for the Charles Reid books and the need to study and practice. Not that I want to paint like Charles Reid or Robert Burridge, or anyone other than me.  I think over the years I have developed a style of my own, and I certainly don't want to lose that.  For me it's all about the bright colors!

I've been thinking a lot lately, I mean really thinking about my art. No matter what I'm doing it seems my mind is on my art - turning over and over the ideas and insights. It's like I've got this incredible energy and passion lately.  I love it when that happens :-)  I got out my old sketches and it seems that my art is sort of coming full circle...I got away from realism a little and did the "doodles" aka "heart songs", and I'm sure I won't give those up entirely. They freed me and helped me to learn to loosen up and break all the rules. They helped me see who I really am as an artist.  Now though, I'd like to refine those and create more "fine" art - finished paintings.  I'd like to go back to my still lifes and landscapes that I did in the past, incorporating the bent toward abstraction and expressionism that I've grown to love in my work and in the work of other artists.

The sketch  in the plastic sleeve protector at bottom left of the photo below is a crayon (Crayola!) sketch I did as a demonstration in a class I was teaching in 2000. I was demonstrating complementary colors in a drawing.  Today, I used the sketch as reference and painted the watercolor above it.  I like the way the pitcher in the back turned out, the bottle laying on its side was a bit of a disaster. So much so, that I washed it off and wiped it all out and started over on it.  Still it's not very good, but I like the total outcome of this painting. I like the energy and color in it.  Expressive.  That's what I'm after - not realistic, but expressive.

The flower (close-up at left) is an attempt to leave the flower fresh - I was reading Charles Reid's Painting Flowers in Watercolor.  Not overworking and trying to paint every detail, but getting the essence of the flower.  I think I accomplished this here.  It's not the most interesting composition mind you, but that wasn't really what I was after.

And now, some sketches while enjoying the bird feeder this morning.  We had a yellow chickadee visit this morning! I was so happy - he stayed long enough for me to sketch him too.  How accomodating!  I changed my bird seed to a more expensive blend that attracts songbirds.  It worked!  A cardinal came over too and he fanned his tail out like a peacock - and of course we had a squirrel and a chipmunk on the ground getting the scaps.  Wildlife of all kinds outside my window this morning! I love it.

And lastly, a contour drawing!!  My daughter took a nap this evening and I had a great opportunity to practice my continuous line drawing.  It's not exactly continuous, but it is a contour ... I plan to develop it into a painting - maybe tomorrow!  That will be painting # 4 in my 100 paintings.  Focus - I think I can do this!

Where I'm Headed Now

I started this painting several years ago, and finally got up the nerve to finish it.  I was attempting to be loose like Charles Reid, expressive like Robert Burridge, and I'm not sure what I ended up with :-)  I do know that my cast shadow is WAY too dark - I wanted the white to pop, but the cast shadow should be much lighter and should reflect the white from the pitcher.  The washes to the right of the pitcher got very murky and muddied.  Too much water, then too many layers while the paint was still wet.  Does anyone else have this problem?! I just can't seem to lay down the brushstroke and then LEAVE it.  I just keep noodling and mushing into the wash which is of course against all known rules of watercolor. Then I get uptight and tired and make an even bigger mess. 

Okay, so this is practice - not a failure really - I do like it, but I've got far, far to go and many improvements to make.

I just bought Charles Reid's Watercolor Solutions and I'm also reading through his Pulling Paintings Together, Flowers in Watercolor, and Watercolor Secrets.  I'm very interested in learning and practicing the continuous line contour drawings he does. I love the expressiveness of his paintings.

I've come to the conclusion that the top three artists I most admire are Cezanne, Charles Reid, and Robert Burridge.  I've also decided that what I most need is more practice with watercolor - sketching and painting. 

Right now I want to concentrate more on finished painting.  Using the sketchbook to gather ideas and for day-to-day recording what I see and feel and then going to the easel or my large Aquabee and painting in watercolor...and then painting some more...with no anticipated goal except for improvement and enjoyment. I've always had a tendency - a bad habit - of producing a painting I was satisfied with and immediately putting it in a show or selling it.  I want to have a stack of paintings completed and be able to go back and see my progress, then maybe choose a few to have in a show or to display for sale.  But I want to live with them for a while and just absorb the process and the progress and assess where I'm going next. After tomorrow's efforts I hope I will have more to show you... Maybe I should do the 100 paintings project that some are doing...no...that's too overwhelming - I'll just paint and then paint some more and see what happens. I hate rules. LOL

Happy Fourth of July

Fireworks last night at the park...

America...One Nation Under God



I made this page in my Handbook Journal - drawn with Pigma Micron Brush pen, colored with watercolor and colored pencils.

This page has many, many layers.  I can't seem to just make a drawing in this Handbook Journal. I layer.  First I sat outside on the swing and drew a realistic drawing of my zinnias in Design Ebony pencil. Then I added watercolor, and then more watercolor, and then more watercolor, and then colored pencil and more watercolor...then salt, which didn't really react very well... and then white colored pencils to pop out the flower more from the background...then the border with Cool Gray # 20 Prismacolor...and here is the final product. Which amazingly enough, I like.

And lastly here are some pages of just notetaking - seeing things in nature and recording them.  The first is in my Handbook Journal and the second is a page in my lined journal.  I still have too many journals, but what better problem can one have...?  The point is, I'm writing and sketching, and then in my Handbook Journal I'm doing more finished pages with lots of different mediums (by the way, when you're referring to a bunch of different art supplies, do you say "Mediums" or "Media"?  I'm feeling a bit confused about this...)

 

Beach Journaling, Painting, and Other Meanderings

This was my perch for an entire day. The breeze from the ocean was great and I painted and read and drank tea and ate biscotti. Perfect.

This painting is the result. It's on a 5x7 piece of Winsor & Newton 140lb. CP watercolor paper. I used Inktense pencils and watercolor and then had to have some glitter glue for the roof.  The white foam is oil pastel resist. I also used white oil pastel resist for the porch banisters and the window and door frame. I love how this technique works! I'm using cheap oil pastels, which obviously work well, but I would like to invest in the Sennelier brand, just to see if there is a difference.

Now I'm going to try and go in some order with the journal pages in the lined journal. My grocery list once we arrived at the beach on the left side of the page and notes driving down there on the right.

The receipt from our lunch and more driving notes.

A page in my new Aquabee Super Deluxe Sketchbook Size 11x14. Love these huge pages. I think my house window looks very angry - I might work on it later...

Now back to the journal...

Bought this fantastic find, which has been on my wishlist for several months, at Two Sisters Bookery in Wilmington.

Found this too - a new sketchbook - who can resist!?

And the title page documenting where I purchased and when.

I made a little arrangement from the flowers out back and we had a "party" grilling steaks outside one evening. So much fun!

I will continue later - right now I'm frustrated with trying to post all this and ready for bed! So happy to be home!! HOME!
There is no place like home...no place like home...