Category: Chatter

Tulips in a Glass Vase

Flower paintings are some of my favorite things, just because I like flowers.  Painting them is another story.  Tulips are such cheerful, seasonal flowers, appearing in the market for a short time; I always have to buy a bunch or two or three.

Determined to paint a vase and water with stems, to really look at them, I put the tulips in a rather coarse, rectangular glass vase.  The edges of the vase are wavy, and it is far from perfect, which gives it a rather pleasant charm.  It seems I rather avoided the stems – my picture got too big!  I’ll give it another try later.

Parts of this painting work, but overall it feels rather labored in appearance.  I’m not quite sure why – maybe too many glazes took away a sense of spontaneity as well as clumsy negative painting.

Caribbean Cool

I love the colors of houses seen throughout the Caribbean.  Brilliant sunshine sets them off beautifully.  The same with white – it becomes so bright it can be as blinding as snow in the sunshine.  Where I live, if anyone paints their house anything other than beige or some other neutral color, they sort of get a weird look, like “what’s wrong with them,” so the colors you see in the Caribbean is eye candy.

Of late, I have painting snow and water.  And skies.  Now, I am looking to trying to include buildings in my paintings.  I want to improve my perspective (the chimney here is cock-eyed) and to make them focal points.  At some point I may even brave putting people into my paintings.

Here, the study was not just architecture, but white and how to express it as something other than just white.  Fabriano Artistico, cobalt and ultramarine blue, sap and Hooker’s green, yellow ochre, and red oxide (I think).

Spring Comes to the High Plains

I have to admit, I am on a winter kick.  Cold, chill.  And loneliness.  I don’t tend to paint or photograph people or civilization, but as far as painting goes, I need to get into painting them.  I’m doing okay with moving inland water.  But buildings, people, and oceans leave me baffled for now.

So, the open spaces of the flatlands between mountain ranges.  Harsh weather, blasted heaths, winter and wild weather. The hint of spring.

Dappled Light

More work with water and light.  Here I thought about some of the exercises I have followed from Rick Surowicz’s YouTube channel – lines, curves, and dots to capture branches, light, and leaves.  I think this painting worked out quite nicely.

Besides considering what I wanted in advance (a way of thinking that has taken a very long time to get to) by applying frisket, I also was determined to paint from light to dark and use glazing and blending.  Areas of color were also considered, and rather than trying to paint each leaf, I painted blobs of color to represent the foliage.  As a result, I built up layers of color throughout the painting as I moved along, and can say this is possibly the first painting in which I have done this.

I also had to be very patient!  Frisket is not happy when you blow dry it – it gets all sticky and you have let it set up again. As a result, this 6×9 painting probably took a couple of hours to do.  However, the results, for me, were definitely worth the time it took.  Perhaps my impatience is lessening . . .