Quack Attack

So I was messing around and thought I would paint a duck.  Tried to do it pretty quickly and somewhat loose.

I thought it came out pretty good.  The colors muddle together just a little, but its still pretty clear what the edge of the duck it.  The wing is a bit so so.  I tried to put a  dark line to represent the ducks back wing, but I don't think it quite worked out.

Oh well, its still kinda a cool painting.  Hope you like it.

A Rose is A Rose is A Rose

A nice loose rose for the weekend.  I had a little spare time and I decided to paint a few things.  You can see a painting so close to this that I couldn't crop it out.

I don't know if I like painting flowers or if I think I am good at painting flowers, but.... since I think I do them better than most other things I paint, I just keep bringing them.

Not sure I totally got the top of this, where the petals open up.  But  I'm not sure it really distracts from the overall painting too much.   There is just enough going on to make you a little distracted.

Actually, I bet you look right at the middle of the painting more than anywhere else.  I put in just a bit of yellow to warm up the painting in the very center.  It really does make your eyes kind of hang out there.

Anyone else notice this?

A rose by any other name

Having gone through a poppy phase over the last two weeks, I might be going into a rose phase.  Here are a few I sketched out.  Some good, some bad.  Hope you like them.

Roses Redux

Ok, so here is my first finished work of roses.  I kinda like the way it came out.  I've pasted it on my office wall and already gotten several compliments.  

So I obviously  have a little work to do on my petals.  I think on some they should be closer together, and then outer layer should be pretty wide.  Since I'm still trying to figure it out, I'm not gonna be very hard on myself for an mistakes.

And I suppose you are wondering why a drip is going horizontally.  I'll explain that:  I just thought it would be fun.  That's all, no good reason.

I'm still considering not leaving the highlights on the inside of the flower, and moving some to the outside petals.  Actually, I'm not sure how much it matters.  Your eye ends up seeing the way it wants anyway, but I'll probably  try it just to see.

I definitely think that after a few more attempts I'll get roses down.  Errr, well, thats the hope anyway.


Hope you all enjoyed these.  Thanks for the view and for taking the time to read this blog.

Poppypalooza

I went home last night with the intent on painting some hydrangeas, and guess what happened... Poppies.  This time it was a little different painting from little pans (All I have at home is a small travel set of paints).  I wasn't sure if I would be able to make up enough wash to really work this style of painting.  Luckily, I found out I could.

Also, I should say, I wanted to paint yellow/orange poppies, but somewhere between palette and paper, my mind forgot, and I got these red ones.

I can't express how fun it is to paint these.  Most of my whole artistic (if you can call it that) career (part time dabbling with paint) I've been painting tight pictures, and it always bothered me that they didn't look like the pictures I was painting from, and they were rather lifeless.  Additionally, if I were to paint outside a line, or paint something wrong (whatever that is) it would make me nuts.  I could never figure how to let the water and paint do their own dance on the paper.  

Now with this style, I feel much freer to let the paint be the paint, the water be the medium to make the paint dance, and the paper to record it.  All I have to do it keep refilling the brush and move it to the paper every now and again.  I know these pictures aren't accurate representations of poppies (or whatever I'm painting).  But what I think I get is the expression of the poppy (or whatever I'm painting), or the feeling of, and that is what is important.

Anyway, I'm gonna keep along these lines for a while.  Don't expect me to be painting inside the lines.  I had fun painting this, hope you had fun looking and reading. Thank you and see you next post.

An Attempt at Cherry Blossoms

OK, I wanted to continue on with this style of watercolor painting, but I didn't want to do the same thing I've already done.  So, I decided on cherry blossoms.This is my first attempt, so they might not be quite right, but I had fun painting them, and hey, that's the point anyway.

I did get a little heavy handed with the color in a few places.  Especially in the bottom paintings.  Also, as you can see, I put a background down on the bottom painting before doing any work with the flowers.  I don't think it worked, and I wont be doing it again (at least I have no current plans to do it).

This style for me is all about putting a dark next to a light.  The contrast between the two is what gives the form its shape.  On the top twig, I did a fairly good job of it, but kind of lost my way a bit on the second painting.  Also, I got some of the shading on the petals correct, and some horribly wrong.  What can I say?  Sometimes I forget to define top and bottom and from what direction the light is coming from before i begin painting.  I get all caught up in having fun in putting paint to paper, and really should step back a little to think a bit more.

Yes, I was trying to limit my palette.  You really only see two colors, or more truthfully you see variation on two colors.    In my next iteration, I may try to work a third color into the mix.  It might help it to be a bit more dynamic.

Well, I'm done havering.   Hope you enjoy the paintings, and thanks for taking a minute to look at, and read about them.

More Lanterns

I had a lot of fun with the previous painting of Chinese Lanterns that I did.  I thought I would see if I could recreate what I did.

Again, like last time this was a quick painting, trying to let the paint do whatever it wanted to do on the paper, and as little as possible on the palette.

It had been a few days since I picked up the brush and I wanted to make sure I don't forget to do that.  So, today, like many days, I substituted lunch with painting.  This is what I came up with.  I like it, hope you do to. Thank you.

Morro Bay at Sunset

This painting for sale.  Watercolor.  9x12. $30

Ok, I think that every now and again, I will alway do a really loose paintint like this one.  They are fun to do, and have an interesting look to them.  Trying not to keep the paint in the lines, just in the general area is quite often maddening, but the results can be outstanding.  Also, I trying not to worry about my drawing quite so much too.  It was a little un-nerving to draw with ink like I did.  I think I will call this style coffee drawing, since it looks like I've had a cup or two too many to make the lines straight.  I actually didn't want to make the lines perfectly straight.  I've seen some videos lately of people talking about ow the irregular lines add more life to the painting that straight lines.  I wasn't sure I believed it before I did the painting, but I'm nearly convinced afterwards.

This is a painting of the Inn at Morro Bay, one of my favorite buildings in Morro Bay.  It's right on the water.  Of course, any good picture of Morro Bay is gonna have the Rock in somewhere.  And since the whole town is a bird sanctuary, I thought I would throw in some birds for good measure.

The west facing side of the Inn is almost all glass, and when the sun goes down, the windows really do look orange, red, purple and blue from the outside.  It's quite a site.  Of course most people look west rather than east, and never see the windows.

I like this painting and will hang it proudly in my office until its sold.  Hope you all enjoy it.

Check out these Hooters!

Ahhhhhh, the old bait and switch.  There is only one hooter.  Having a little success with human eyes, I thought I would give a a try to an animal that has perhaps the best eyes.  My thought was to have the eyes crystal clear and sharp, then as you moved further away from the eyes, the painting became fuzzier, so that your eye would focus in on the eyes of the owl.  I'm visualizing this owl sitting in a tree staring out through the night.  If I were to come across an owl on the golf course, this is what, in my mind I would see. (btw, I run into them on the course all the time.  I give them a wide berth knowing that owls can be really mean.

This one turned from another eye exercise to a looseness exercise.  Trying to get that etherial look around the edges.

Hope you enjoy it.

Oh and if I give post a title like this one, I'll get 3 times the amount of hits that I normally get.  Funny how that works.

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.