Chatter – Page 83 – Ink, Yarn & Beer

WWM #15: Monochromatic

Monochromatic – value studies – black, grey, white – something I never do. I promised myself I would weeks ago, before beginning any painting. As with most resolutions, it fell by the wayside. However, I think monochrome value studies in gouache could be really rewarding and worth doing – you can make corrections as you go along, put white on black if need be. Not so easy in watercolor, and pencil studies can get all fuzzy and blurred.

#WorldWatercolorMonth2019 is at its halfway point already! Summer is fleeing . . .

See you tomorrow!

WWM #14: Furry Things

Furry things – what could that be? A weird bit of fabric, fuzzy socks, your husband’s bewhiskered face. For me, caterpillars! When I was a kid in the middle of nowhere, furry caterpillars were our playmates. They were so beautiful and soft, and you couldn’t tell which end was the front until it moved. We used to race them.

WWM #14: Furry Things – From a Video by Maria Raczynska

Besides caterpillars, cats are wonderfully soft and fuzzy. I really like cats, but with a household more inclined to dogs at present, I admire them from afar. Cats are such characters – nutty, languid, predatory. A cat’s personality is unique and their expressions priceless.

When I was thinking of the prompt for today’s prompt for #WorldWatercolorMonth2019, I realized I could use a bit of thought about how to paint fur. For the caterpillar, it was clear in my mind – I just referred to some photos to see how they might look. On YouTube, of course I looked up “fur watercolor” – so many came up. The one I thought was best was the one below, by Maria Raczynska. One reason it is a good video is that the final painting is well executed, and she also shows you the reference photo at the beginning. Watching this video – which is rather longish – was worthwhile. I actually learned a lot from it while still doing my own thing. Resources like videos make learning anything so much better.

For “Furry Things” I have two items this time. Both worked out really well and I felt really confident while I painted. Some days it just comes together – and today was one of them.

WWM #13: Glassy

I am drawn to water – maybe because when I was young, there was always a lake or river nearby. As an adult, I live in a rather dry land where creeks are rare, but the vast Pacific is not far, with wetlands and marshes. Fresh water lakes, though, are what I really love – the ones where the sky passes by beneath your feet on the glassy calm of the water.

This is from a photograph of a lake somewhere in the world – from Pixabay – and the clouds in the foreground were crystal clear and smooth. I sort of messed that glassiness up, but came fairly close to what I was trying to express. Obviously, this is a rather lonely view, but what better place than to sit, enjoy the breeze , and perhaps listen to the babbling of water fowl and the hum of insects on a warm summer day?

WWM #12: Blossoming

Old country houses, castles, abandoned churches – all returning to the earth – and the abundance and destructiveness of nature, relentlessly taking over that which is not cared for, in Nature’s own fecund rabidity.

Okay, enough of that! Rambling vines and roses, grapes, trellises – flowers cascading everywhere in profusion and fragrance. That’s my kind of garden. If there is a relic or two along with the plants, I think that is a pretty cool mix!

WWM #11: Simple Pleasures

This one had me pondering . . . a good book, flowers, painting. In the end, I thought of what seems to give me the most pleasure. The natural world, flowers, plants – the world outside that is simply there. Sometimes we manipulate it, such as by planting flowers, and other times it is just being itself, chaotic nature.

Here, sunflowers. A family member was in Las Vegas when the earthquakes of July 4 and 5 hit the Los Angeles area. Her pool sloshed over, inundating her garden with salty, chlorinated water. She lost a lot of plants. I had sent her a picture of some sunflowers she had given me, soon to bloom, and that is when I found out she had lost her plants. My idea was to (maybe) paint some sunflowers for her, but unfortunately these did not turn out too well. Still, there was the idea and the pleasure of painting sunflowers . . .

Here, Joshua Trees. I really get a bang out of these crazy-looking plants, which are very limited in their topographical area for survival, and as the world warms (it really isn’t, per the government), these plants are becoming endangered. When the US government shut down, Joshua Tree National Monument (or Park?) was heavily vandalized. Many of these trees take centuries to get big – and then some fool decides they are fair game to destroy.

The natural world is one filled with simple pleasures for our delight. Some delight in destroying things of beauty, wrecking the work of time. To me, this is a really sad, pathetic statement about human beings, but then there are those who also work to save our natural world before it disappears. I am very grateful for these heroes who work to save the simple pleasures of the natural world.