Category: Chatter

WWM #5: (Foot) Loose & (Fancy) Free

“Well,” I thought to myself, “how to express ‘loose and free’?”

I thought about wild hair, lions and zebras on the veld, and all sorts of crazy things.  Nothing felt right.  Then the word “foot loose” came to mind, and, as they say, the rest is history.

“Foot loose” means traveling.  What better way to travel than a luxurious sea voyage (and maybe a camel ride when you hit Cairo).  Those wonderful vintage posters for ships to exotic and wondrous ports of call make you want to pack a steamer trunk and just go!  Gouache lends itself perfectly to such classical posters, and I must say, painting this was a thrill – a puzzle – a delight.  I hope you like it as much as I do!

WWM #4: Family Fun

Today’s prompt of “Family Fun” opened an artistic can of worms for me.  I don’t draw or paint people very often – if at all.  So, if you are going to do a family, it seems to me you want to include human beings in the mix.  I thought of maybe a family of ducks out for a paddle, but that felt rather chicken!  So, here are my contributions.

This is based on a really cute photo of two little kids doing laundry together.  As a kid,  pretending to be a grown-up is fun.  

This one is also a bit outside my comfort zone – silhouettes of people.  They didn’t turn out too bad.  The dog was fun, too.  I liked the idea of dancing on the beach at sunset, playing with dog (who is dancing as well), and just having a wonderful time at the end of the day.

Family fun is about simple things – the things that bring people, related or not, together in memorable, pleasurable moments.  Enjoy those you have – go dance on the beach, play in the mud, and have a great time.

WWM #3: Picnic Food

The third prompt for #WorldWatercolorMonth!  Here, picnic food.  Bread, wine, cheese, fruit.  Sounds a lot more healthy than burgers and fries, and certainly more attractive to paint!  But, oh, what a challenge gouache is compared with watercolor.  I haven’t worked in opaque medium in years and years and years.  Personally, I don’t like the picnic basket, but the cheese, bread, wine, and (sorta) the fruit look okay.

I started with broad swaths of the major colors, such as the green, browns, blues, and laid in the underlying colors for the bread, cheese and apples.  From there I moved into less thin paint to thicker, working from the most distant (the grass) to the foreground.  At the end, I laid a thin wash of ultramarine blue to dissolve a bit of the underlying gouache to create shadows, knowing full well it would lift and blur the paint underneath it.

While I cannot say I love the painting – still lives are not things I pursue, preferring landscapes – I can say that it was definitely a worthwhile study.  Paint handling is getting a bit more intuitive and logical.  So different than watercolor – but at the same time comprehensible, if that makes any sense.  It’s really just understanding the logistics of the medium . . . And, I think I am improving (a bit) in using gouache, which is a good feeling.  I’m looking forward to the challenge of alternating transparent with opaque medium during #WorldWatercolorMonth.

WWM #2: Sunny Sky

I truly love scenes of the Caribbean and the Mediterranean and Southern California – places where the sun is brilliant, walls are white, shadows are blue and glowing, palm trees clack in the wind, and bougainvillea brightens the day with shades of mauve or pink or salmon.

Two people come to mind when I think of painting such scenes – classically, Winslow Homer, and more in our own era, the recently passed Charles Reid.  Both men caught the flavor of such scenes, and I hope I did here, too.  The beauty of the Caribbean cannot be denied and its sunny days are memorable for their clarity and stunning colors of sky, sea, and land.