Author: -N-

Christmas Berries

This morning I wanted to work on the tree ferns, but for now, the jury is out on what to do.  I ordered some watercolor marker / brushes from Amazon, as I don’t have any and the design element seems to warrant more control than a brush.  So, I decided to use this photo I took over the weekend of a Toyon – also called Christmas Berry as it shows up  Decemberish – for a quick morning paint.  Below are the results using my palette with 5 greens (yay!  green!) and a 1/2 inch flat brush.  I painted directly, no lines.

 

Tree Ferns

I took this photo back in 2014, almost exactly to the date.  Tree ferns are amazing plants -they have spores and fronds, and get huge.  I wonder what it would be like to wander through a forest of these!

Anyway, I decided to scroll through my years of photos and found this one.  I liked the pattern repeats and the shapes.  A nice graphic quality.  So, this is what I began in my sketchbook.

I may add more fronds.  I may not.  The big question is what I should use to color it.  Something that contains itself seems appropriate, like markers, given how sloppy my painting skills are.

Oak Trees – LInes, No Lines

Tired of being indoors, I pulled a bunch of stuff out to the side patio – paints, brushes, water, chrome book, water, palette, head phones, ink, pencil, pen.  I played a bit and mixed up some greens using yellows and blues, and phthalo green.  I don’t like having only phthalo green on my palette, but that is what I had.  I like sap green and Hooker’s.  I also like Payne’s Grey.

Being outdoors means being cramped on a really small table, so everything was jumbled up.  The goal was to just be outdoors and do something.  So, I used some photos of trees I have taken over the years.

The first tree was one I took the other morning when out on a shoot with my friend Tom.  Here is the photo:

And here is my rendering in line and colors:

And then a photo from April 2015:

And the results – no lines, only the intention to paint light and dark, contrast, whatever:

I’ll tell ya, this last painting was painful!  I noticed that most of my colors tend to be pastel – a lot of water, not a lot of paint.  I felt like I was beating up my poor brushes trying to get deep colors with more pigment than water.  Wetting the colors a bit before might help.

In my opinion, neither painting is especially sophisticated or elegant.  I will say that despite its primitive quality, I am pleased with the lineless painting as I did accomplish something.

Does your head feel totally stirred up when you try something alien to your normal ways of doing things?  Mine always does and it takes awhile to return to orbit.