Camellia

Ahhh the lovely camellia.  Such a nice flower.  I wanted to paint one and and thought this would be a good time to do some graded washes.  Well, I accomplished both of those things with this painting, but I don't think I did either really well.

The painting is OK.  There really isn't anything wrong with it, though its a bit banal.  I could really have punched this up by doing a couple of things.

See, in watercolor to make a dramatic painting you need to have lights next to darks, and darks next to lights.  Well, I've got lights next to darks with the petals.  you can see how the center is lighter and the tips darker.  This makes for a nice petal (here its a bit bland, but nice).  But Ive also got a background that is the same intensity as the petals.  There is no room for light and dark to touch, both edges are dark.  Hmmmm what to do...

Well, I could just as easily put on another row of petals (this would have made the flower look fuller too.  Right now its a bit small).  The outside row of petals would have been all light.  That lightness would have served two purposes.  First, it would have ensured that they looked as though they were behind the petals in front, then it would have allowed me to make my background as dark as I wanted.

Well, there is always next time.  I think its a good project for tonight, paint this one again.

If you have interest in seeing how I did this one, watch the video below.  Thank you.

 

Fresh Green Peppers

Garden fresh, totally delicious green peppers.    Mmmmmm I love summer.  All the fresh local fruits and vegetables.  I offer to you, two versions of a pepper I painted.  They look so gook, I think I could just eat them off the page.

I painted one of these with my daughter, and one for a video.  You decide which is which, or just watch the video.

Thanks for the view.  I hope you enjoyed the picture.

Loose Red Flowers

This lovely little painting is the product of my video last night.  I sat down to just paint some random stuff and flowers popped out of the painting.   Ok, I knew I was going to paint flowers, I just didn't know what they were going to look like.

After dabbing some paint on the paper, and allowing it to dry a bit, this is what I got out.  Not too bad.  Looks like some flowers popping out of a little garden area.

The End of Summer

Painting with my daughter has been an incredible sense of joy for me.  We sat down and painted a garden, and this is one of the things I came up with.  Watermelon from our garden.  Tried to give the melon a little depth, but not sure I really got it.  Regardless, it is so fun to paint with someone who has no fear in what she does.   I am trying to think less and do more with my painting, just like her.  Also trying to worry less about detail and focus more on getting the feeling of the painting across to the viewer.

Well, enjoy, and thanks for viewing.

random weekend sketching

These are just some pictures that I painted over the weekend.  The top of a chair with a red box on it.





The lamp hanging in the corner of the living room.



These are some of the plants growing in my front yard.  Not sure what all of them are called.

 These are some of the plants growing in my front yard.  Not sure what all of them are called.







This is the tree from across the street.

This is the lamp from the dining room.

Humming Quail... Wait, What?

This cute little humming bird for sale. 

SOLD

Ok, today we have two different paintings, and really two different types of things.  The first is of course a painting o fa humming bird.    Yesterdays was too cute, so I had to try another one.  This one looks a little like he is wearing a turtleneck sweater, but thats ok.  I was cold today while he was modeling for me.  It has a border around it because I painted it to put in an old frame I had, and forgot to scan it in before i put it in the frame.

The second is an etching that I added  color to.  The original is pressed into the paper, and is in black an white.  Ok, so I didn't go crazy with the colors.  I didn't think this picture called for it.  I have some nice greys on the rocks and nice coloring on the quail, also the sky gradually changes into green of the weeds and stops just before the ground.  I have been afraid to paint this for the longest time for fear that I would really screw it up, but I think I did a fair job of colorizing it, and keeping it looking period.