Author: -N-

The Mead Maker’s Hand

As some of you may know, the other half is a brewer. Here, we have a year-long project started the other day: Raspberry Mead. 5 gallons. It was impossible to find raspberry juice locally, so we special-ordered a concentrate of raspberry juice – something like 4 times concentrated into this bottle. Cost was a bit more than one would think, $61.00 US. The honey for the mead weighed in at 12 lbs., and locally produced. Let’s see what this is like in a year! Mark your calendars.

Scanned in a Pakon 135, Olympus XA4, Kodak TMax 400 shot at box speed.

WWM #19: Splashes of Color

I’ve been thinking about how I am developing a sort of painting style in gouache, as well as giving thought to the painters whose work I admire.  It definitely falls in the impressionistic and expressionistic varieties.  Gouache just seems to be made for exuberant color and enthusiastic brushwork.My colors are more subdued that I wanted – I wanted turquoise skies and pink flowers and a brilliant sunset.  Instead, I have a rather northern European type of town scene, with a garden or flowering park in the middle.  Summer’s abundance flourishes under the trees, but in the shade it seems.  In doing this painting, I didn’t do much planning.  I stuck to the prompt of “splashes of color” – and splash I did.  The result was a serious loosening up of my style, and a letting go of “this is what I want it to be.”  That is significant – I can be a real tight ass about painting, and in the end dislike the results.  When I let go – let things splash – I am usually much, much happier with the results.

Regardless, both paintings appear muddy to me.  I wonder if working with pure color – straight from the tube – would help.  Practice certainly will.  The flowers in the vase seem a bit overworked, too.  Again, practice and experience.

So, lots of splashes of color for #WorldWatercolorMonth 2019 is producing some rather pleasing results and, more than anything, a daily involvement with painting.

WWM #18: Clouds

Where I live, in the dry hills of the Central Coast of California, clouds are really, honestly a rarity.  Most days the sky is a clear, steady blue.  In the fall and spring, and sometimes into the summer, though, the seasons shift.  The rainy season brings in moisture, clouds form, and the sky suddenly has a life of its own.  In May and June, the coastal fog moves in, and sometimes you have a competition or a dance between the two – soft, cool fog close to the ground, and clouds at higher altitudes.  As the fog breaks up, you see the blue sky and clouds above the shifting fog.

This is from a photograph I took a long time ago when I first started doing digital photography.  A small group of us would get together to go for an easy hike, many times in the evening.  Hummingbird Trail is where the original photo was taken, admittedly way over-processed in HDR, but the intensity of the colors held true.  I tried to capture this in my painting, along with the shifting fog and clouds.  I also tried to work on distance by applying a light glaze of a dulling blue grey wash to the distant hills, as well as decreasing details to indicate perspective.

Clouds are so much fun to do in watercolor!  Who is to say your clouds don’t look real?  There are so many mysteriously beautiful in the natural world, but few are as shifting and as ephemeral as clouds.