Hopefully, hopefully, hopefully, the house will be back to usable today! Toilets and sinks installed and operational. I’ll find out when I get home from my watercolor class. Meanwhile, I looked through some of my photos and chanced upon one of a small flower, tiny, and thought it might be a good way to warm up for my class – before lunch – before coffee!
The house is torn up. The studio is empty. The living room is filled with boxes, one corner for Josh, the other for me. The shower stall will be done Monday. The shower door will be measured and ordered on Monday, too. The dogs will be boarded out Monday through Tuesday night because of the fact the flooring is going in on Tuesday day, starting at 730 a.m. Thursday the painter starts. Saturday the vanities arrive. Wednesday next the painter finishes and the new toilets are installed. Then the vanities are installed and the template made for the counter tops. We will have a shower that works – finally! hooray! – but we will not be able to use it until the door is installed. We will be brushing our teeth in the kitchen sink (ewwwww!). I go back to the doc on Tuesday to have my wrist and finger checked 3 weeks after my fall.
And . . . we have been packing, eating junk food, brewing beer, trying to have a life, and painting in between – pictures and samples of paint on the wall.
I will post photos of the new house stuff sometime later, but today, here are the things – little things, no bigger than 7×10 at the most – I’ve been painting and drawing, just to stay sane. The painting of the barn needs a bit of help – the roof is too white, and it looks like the windows are some strange eye infection. The meadowlark needs more contrast. I could go on, but I need to go to work on my other stuff.
Click on a picture to start a slide show, and to see them larger.
I’ve never drawn a bicycle, much less painted one, in my life. Welcome to my first attempt! Rather out of proportion – wouldn’t want to ride on those wheels – but did get it to be recognizable.
Given the fact I broke my wrist and finger, I am surprised I can even draw, much less keep colors inside the lines.
Back to work with a messed up wrist . . . wasn’t bad. After work, the sun was still out. In our yard, we have a beautiful vase-shaped crepe myrtle tree. It is sending out the first leaves of the season. I sketched this at sunset, trying to catch the complex interweaving of the branches and the delicate greens of the baby leaves at the tips of the smallest branches.
Besides doing the orchid yesterday, I sat down and did what is being called”direct watercolor.” As in sumi-e, the artist thinks about things before committing brush to paper. No lines. No value studies. Look, see, think, paint. It is a bit of a challenge and rather daunting, but I think this is such an enlightening way to learn the art of brushwork, value, contrast, and so on. I did some glazes here and there, to create contrast as well as to carry various colors throughout the painting. I also worked with vignetting, considering the shapes of the four corners of the vignette as well.
Ink, Yarn & Beer 