Category: Blitherings

Lavender Field

Pixabay provides such a wonderful range of photos for free! This is based on one, a lavender below a village in France, which I think may be Bonnieux.

Yesterday I bought a number of fresh bottles of Golden Fluid Acrylic Paints. These are thinner than traditional heavy body acrylics, and unfortunately their color range is not equal to that of the tube paints. However, I have a number of small bottles, but my fresh ones are 4 oz. in size, and that will give me a lot of paint for some time. After playing a bit yesterday with the colors, mixing some, and then finding the ones I had did not meet my color needs, I ordered a few more from Amazon. This allowed me to get brighter spring greens and a good color for the lavender.

Yesterday I taped 1″ wide tape along the borders of a pieces of Canson XL watercolor paper in block format – 16×20 I believe. Then, I sketched in with pencil and laid down a foundation of values which gave me a sort of road map as to what I was going to do.

This is my second layer – colors this time with some values. The idea I had when I started out is I did not want to do a bunch of dabbing, which is my normal style, but instead make large swaths of flat color in the foreground lavender with some detail, and lead the eye to the village on the hill. To do this I used the lines of the lavender to lead the eye to the middle ground, but then chose brighter and warmer greens to sort of point to the village – lookie here!

I am not too sure how successful this is as a painting per se, but I am quite pleased with it. This is my first attempt at a big painting with the fluid acrylic paints, and as with all acrylics, I had to work with the quick drying time of the medium. The fluid acrylics were easier to use in a lot of ways than were the regular tube paints just because I didn’t need to work at diluting them. Straight out of the bottle, they work quite well. Shaking them a bit before use is a good idea, too. I will be ordering more titanium white as I have used a lot of it to just make this painting.

I hope you like this! More to come!

Playtime Is Fluid

Several years ago I bought some Golden Fluid Acrylics in 1 oz. containers. I really didn’t appreciate them as I wanted them to do something they couldn’t. However, I have pulled them out lately and played with them here and there. Many of them are dried up and old, worthless to use, so I decided to pick up some newer ones and in a limited color palette – one yellow, two reds, two blues, a brown, and two whites.

Obligatory color testing – and mixing – to see what could show up. I like the oranges and red violets, but the greens are not the bright ones I like. I think the blues are not quite what I would like for mixing, so I am getting some cobalt teal. The same with the lavenders – they are okay, but, again, not exactly the shades I want. So, some dioxazine (aka carbazole) violet, as well as a quinacridone magenta as the alizarin is not to my liking either. Oh, let’s add a raw umber to that mix – not sure about the burnt umber.

Anyway, some playtime with the paints, quick sketches to see how the fluid acrylics work. They are a lot smoother, but dry out quickly, too. I did a sad lemon and a decent bit of bok choi. I think the bok choi is worth a bigger glance.

I may actually begin to enjoy the acrylics – working on 140# Canson watercolor paper – 16×20 – gives me plenty of room to explore. I am working on a bit of a landscape to see how to use the paints, and will report on my progress later on. I laid down a value study on the paper, and will next consider colors and layers, probably moving dark to light, and my brushwork, too.

More Rocks – A Rocky Shore

It is always good to break up your routine. I have been sewing a lot over the last few days, and I am now ready for a change. I am also contemplating modifications to what I was making, namely pockets for a kit car. While I contemplate that, other things prevail! Today, I did all those fun things you have to do – specifically, clean house. A friend is coming in from overseas tomorrow, and I have no idea if he will be coming to visit, so I figured I better get it done. Who wants to welcome a guest to a dusty, dirty mess?

But messes are not really interesting to me. Color is.

So, back to the rocks in a quick sketchbook painting. In the US and elsewhere, some lake shores are not covered with soft sand, but are home to boulders and rocks at the edge of a forest. Trees fall and die, water freezes and thaws, snow and ice and heat and sun all wreak havoc as storms of all sorts come and go. I love the wildness of these places and their lack of order and tidiness imposed by civilization.

Today I wanted to express rocks in a more abstract manner – suggesting boulders and rocks. Fallen trees, too, and the edge of the summer as it moves into autumn. I splashed on some light washes in the trees and on the shoreline after doing the sky, and from there worked with negative painting to create the rocks and boulders.

I rather like the rocks, but in general, the painting is nothing much – I just like to paint some sort of picture when I am practicing things.

Collecting Little Things

I have been sewing prototype pockets for the kit car being made by Uncle Ed. It is the same one that Josh is making – the 818s. Ed is further along than Josh – retirement has its advantages – and is ready for some storage in the form of a side pocket for the car doors. Details are not necessary, but I plan to make another one today, slightly different, before going down to the Valley to visit him and Auntie Am tomorrow. I’ll maybe post something about the pocketses later.

All this has been a good break from my very unhappy watercolor painting of rocks. Frustration deserves a diversion from the frustrating thingies, so sewing was good. As well, I am really beginning to sort out stuff to take on our voyage, and one thing I am determined to bring is as little as possible, but plenty to keep me from wanting to scream with boredom and nothing to do with my hands. This means setting up a small watercolor kit with pan paints, brush(es), smallish watercolor sketchbook, and ink.

I finally decided on this small half-pan set from Schmincke – it includes a small travel brush, colors I am likely to use, and to which I could add more if I want, I think. I like Schmincke’s pan paints a lot as they are designed specifically for being in a pan, and this way, too, I don’t need to bring tubes with me. I will keep them wrapped up until I begin my voyage – no idea what crazy laws might prevent me from bringing them along.

Awhile ago I ordered these Etchr watercolor sketchbooks, and currently am using the largest for my adventures. I like these a lot, and so I am bringing the middle-sized one along with me. The paper handles both ink and watery colors well, is about 5×8 inches (A5?), and can easily be brought along.

A good mechanical pencil with extra lead is also a requirement, along with a kneaded eraser, some Pitt or Micron pens with permanent ink, a collapsible water cup, and plastic eye dropper or two for wetting the paints. I will most likely stuff them all in a large waterproof zip baggie or something like that, as should anything leak, some things may be spared. I expect I will be doing inked sketches with watercolor, like below, during the trip.

These kinds of sketches are easy enough to do, nothing to get too frustrated about, and bring back memories – as well as give my little hands something to avoid the devil’s attraction.

Packing for a trip is not easy for me – I am always worried about boredom, a lack of clean underwear, sweaty-smelling clothing, uncomfortable shoes. This trip is a real challenge for me as I am trying to be minimalist, yet still have enough for comfort, both mental and physical. Choosing what to bring is not easy – and trying to keep things small and convenient and useful and practical all at once is a huge challenge! I am collecting little things, bit by bit, surrendering to the need for saving space and weight, and rather enjoying the challenge.

Stone Buildings – And What Photos Don’t Show

Anyone who paints from real life and then references a photo of the same knows that photos do not get all the information. This is even more evident when you paint from a photograph of something or someplace totally unfamiliar. Such is the case here – stone buildings from somewhere in Brittany, downloaded from a royalty-free site for the primary purpose of trying to render stone buildings in a painterly fashion, not a nit-pickingly detailed fashion.

First round – colors applied to a pencil sketch in a very wet and general way. As color and paper dried, some details added and attempts at creating contrast done. It took awhile as I didn’t use my trusty hair dryer to speed things up.

I like to desaturate my color scans to see how the picture I am painting works with contrast. IMHO, not too bad, but still in need of stronger contrast. I used my brush in LR to get an idea of where to make things darker, and using that as a reference worked on the arching greenery in the middle and other areas, as well as choosing a source of light – the sun – from the left somewhere.

As I looked at the reference photo, I noticed a window I had not seen in the tunnel below the arching greenery, as well as shapes and areas of light and dark. Was there space without greenery beyond that arch? Was there a turn to the left at the end of the tunnel? How did all these buildings all interconnect? The fact is – I don’t know! So, artistic license as you will, reality is also important as I would like to figure out what I am dealing with, especially when painting the challenging and unfamiliar – old, stone buildings.

Wonky perspective, inappropriate contrast, but I rather like the stone buildings and interplay of shadows, such as in the foreground. The shadows lead the eye (good question where!) and add some interest to an otherwise dull foreground. The light in the reference photo was very flat, so I made up my shadows. As the focus was on the buildings and rendering them in a way I liked (which I do to a degree) I was not especially concerned with the plants.

Looking at the paintings, I am rather pleased with them, but think that perhaps the center upper roof might need some horizontal texture, or do I need to use some ink to define some of the shapes better?

Your thoughts would be appreciated . . . .

Anne said she liked the first one better – it is lighter. In LR I increased the exposure a little bit.