WWM #27: Fruits

Summer is the time of year when we live on fruit salads. If we get ambitious, maybe a pie, tart, galette . . . you get the picture. The prompt of “fruits” is perfect for the middle of July, the month of #WorldWatercolorMonth2019.

This year looks like it will be a really good year for our fig tree, a Brown Turkey. We used to have a Kadota, which is a lovely green fruit, and a perfect foil for the Brown Turkey, which are a deep purply-brown color. Figs are something I look forward to every year, to just walk out to the tree and enjoy a sweet treat . . .

Besides anticipating figs, we have also enjoyed grapes and apricots this season.  Cherries, nectarines, melons, raspberries, strawberries, blackberries, blueberries.  Abundance!

The first painting is not quite where I want it to be.  I was focusing on contrast and shadows to separate one piece of fruit from another.  The same for the grapes and apricots, which is a bit more successful although I am not quite pleased with it because I think it is a bit overworked.  It’s interesting how I feel pretty good about some things – more confident – and less so with others.  I guess we all do.

WWM #26: Natural Wonders

The American West is filled with places you probably could not survive in for long without the amenities of water and shade and good soil to grow crops. Many of these areas have become national parks and monuments to preserve them for present and future generations, and to keep them from being destroyed and exploited, as is wont in the US. If you can make money off it, do it!  I don’t get how “conservatives” fail to “conserve” the beauty around us . . .

Anyway!

The White Sands National Monument, in New Mexico, is a strange and lovely place. White sand unlike what you usually find, accompanied by sparse plants, shifting dunes, and the vast New Mexico sky. Here are some studies – which, in my opinion, are all failures. That sand is so hard to express!

From the White Sands National Monument, we continue on to Arches National Park.  Layers of sandstone have been worn away by wind and rain, and arches of varying sizes and heights are the keynote of the park.  So many in one place!  The layers of sediment vary in color, erosion creates odd shapes, and the drama of sky and land, seen through the arches, creates visions of worlds within worlds.

I was rather pleased with the painting of the arch, more so than the others.  As usual, depth was a problem, but I think I solved it by doing three things.  First, I applied a cool glaze onto the blue-green-grey plain and mountain range n the distance.  Next, I applied a warm glaze of a yellow-orange hue over the arch itself and the rocks directly below it, but not on the red rocks seen through the arch.  Finally, I added some thin, dark lines along varying edges, and used the same concept of lines to create the plants on the lower border of the painting.

Gouache painting is really helping me “get” watercolor more completely.  Positive and negative space is becoming a more conscious thought, as are colors and methods to depict depth and distance.  It’s been a lot of fun to make a lot of little paintings some days, or only one another.  Each is a wonderful learning experience.

WWM 2019: Days 20-26

#WorldWatercolorMonth2019 is flying by!  It has been a lot of fun, in the doing, pondering interpreting the prompts, and in the progress made from just daily painting.  I have some really awful paintings, and some of which I am rather proud.  So, with no further ado, the prompts and the paintings!

WWM #20:  Buildings

Here, some old buildings in Paris at sunset.  I am rather pleased about this watercolor for a few reasons.  Perspective works, with decreasing detail, lines, and atmosphere.  The sky is pretty killer, too!

WWM #21:  Patterns

I was pondering this one – I thought of all sorts of patterny things, but in reality, nothing grabbed me.  As my studio – particularly the sewing area – is in total disarray, sewing patterns suddenly seemed perfectly obvious.

WWM #22:  Rain Forest

I always imagine a rain forest as the French primitive painter Henri Rousseau showed it. The above is a rather poor homage to his great imaginings.

Here, from some photos and memories of our trip to the Hoh Rain Forest in Washington State. Paths wander beneath ancient cedar trees covered with moss, a green canopy, and little if any sky visible.

WWM #23:  Beach Fun

Pales, buckets, and surfing at sunset – all great fun at the beach!

WWM #24:  Treats

Cookies!  I really love cookies (but like pie better, I admit), and for elegance and color and delightful flavor, macarons!  Here, lemon, mocha, pistachio, orange, and raspberry.

WWM #25:  Shades of Pink

I have to say, I like these raspberry macarons a lot!

WWM #26:  Natural Wonders

The White Sands National Monument in New Mexico is an amazing place – white sand dunes in the middle of a desert, scant plant life, dramatic skies and mountains all around.  It was also incredibly difficult to paint the whiteness of the sand . . . nothing particular awesome about my paintings.

On the other hand, the Arches National Monument has some amazing things to offer – arches being one.  The sandstone, eroded by wind and rain, has left some amazing geological remnants behind.  This watercolor really pleased me . . . again, perspective and distance issues, as well as my usual problems with conveying depth.  To do so, I simplified the background hills with a few lines of color.  I put more detail into the middle ground, which was the arch and the red sandstone behind the arch, and in front of it.  Plants on the lower corners and border became the foreground.  To aid more in the depth, I did a light blue-grey glaze over the mountains, and applied a warmer glaze a couple of times in different areas of the arch and sandstone.

To be continued!