Author: -N-

Wrecking the WRX

Hard to believe it has been nearly a month since my last post. Lots has been going on, and not going on. For one thing, the quarantine has been going on and on and on. Life continues despite it, and with a few rule bending days and outings. Fortunately, all is well in our neck of the woods, and because we are such boring people, not much in our lives has changed. We have been very fortunate. However, in the next day or two, a Major Change is a-comin’!

This is no longer a car. It is in bits and pieces, sawzalled into oblivion, dissected, sold, and scavenged. The WRX is now parts and pieces. Something is coming soon to replace it.

Ormond Beach

More water and reflections!

Ormond Beach is located on the coastal side of the county in a flat, rural area near two navy bases.  The sky is often dank and cloudy and it can seem like another world compared to my hot, dry corner.  Here, I wanted to catch the dreary grey sky along with the rows of palm trees on the horizon.  I think this one is one of my better ones of late.

The Mountain

Yesterday was a watercolor day!  I warmed up with a copy of Wesson’s painting, and then moved on to more water.  I am not intimidated by water in the form of lakes or streams, but do need to learn how to do oceans and waves and white caps.  I am trying to get a grip on reflections and how water and reflections interact.  I think reflections appear longer when the sun is behind you rather than in front of you, like shadows.

Here, a mountain and a lake, with some very deep shadows.  The distant mountain is quite bland to my eyes and would like to liven it up with deeper greens and richer browns.  I didn’t.  I tried to keep it more simple than the actual photo.  I did to a point.

I think most painters will always find faults as they know, as they paint, what challenged them while they painted and what their vision was, versus what they put down.  My life.

Through the Window

Before I got the idea of having the DH print a flash cover for the Instax Wide 300, I took a picture of the studio. With flash, everything in the foreground was visible and the picture was rubbish. It had that classic flash-look so common in photos of yore. So, I covered the flash with my hand as I took the picture. The evidence of not needing the flash all the time is evident here.

Someone sez I should get the Lomo wide . . . 😉

A Study After Edward Wesson

Edward Wesson was a master English watercolorist.  He is renown for the simplicity of his work – clear color masses, defined work.  It is his economy of color and shape that are attractive to many painters as he says a lot with very little.

I, on the other hand, am prone to overdo and use rather bright colors.  My perspective is often wonky.  To counter this, I look for painters, such as Wesson or Seago or Hannema or Kautzky whose work I admire for its elegant use of colors or lines or both.  Copying another artist is good intellectually, as it requires thinking about what the artist did, and how.  Great practice!  Today, I chose Wesson.  Below is my interpretation.

My mountain in the distance is more detailed than Wesson’s.  I chose to make the trees on the shore in the midground lighter than in his painting as I think he meant to do it, but had laid in the dark of the hill on the left already.  My beach comes nowhere as beautiful as his – too much detail.

My husband remarked that this is definitely something he would define as NOT “my” style.  I agree.  I was looking to create something a bit spare, and to a degree I did, but I had to blot the sky (too dark) and re-wet the mountain.  I like the middle ground green hills, and the reflections on the water.  My beach sucks!  All in an afternoon’s work.