WWM 2019: Days 13-19

During Days 13 – 19 of #WorldWatercolorMonth2019, I got really busy!  So with no further ado, paintings.

13.  Glassy

I wanted to catch the reflections of the clouds in the smooth water of the lake.  Not sure if it worked – the photo showed perfect sky-clouds in the foreground.

14.  Furry Things

When I was a kid, furry caterpillars were our friends.  Cats, too.  Furry enough for all.

This kitten is from a YouTube study / practice by Maria Raczynska that I followed. It was a lot of fun!

15.  Monochromatic

In the heat of summer, it seemed a monochromatic scene had to be a cold winter’s day in the mountains.

16.  Relaxing

I thought a lot about this prompt.  Many things came to mind that I enjoy, but I realized that the beach, in all forms of weather, is one of my favorite places to relax.  Not being especially good at blending sand colors, I referred to a book by Geoff Kersey called Watercolour Seascapes.  His book is a series of studies that demonstrate specific watercolor techniques and employ a limited palette.  The first painting is from the study I did from his book and the rest are varied places.  The last painting is one I did from a photo I took several years ago of a beach here on the Central Coast of California, either Refugio or El Capitan beach.  Smooth sand and sunny days or a rocky shore and a cold, rainy day – both great ways to relax along the seaside.

17.  Music

Balalaika and Blue Tit.

18.  Clouds

California is an endless blue sky at times.  Other times, the high clouds of the rainy season and the sun are blocked by low-lying coastal fog.  When the two compete, the sky is endlessly changing and fascinating.

19.  Splashes of Color

As we move through #WorldWatercolorMonth2019, I am alternating watercolor with gouache.  Both need different techniques.  Gouache, being opaque, opens a new world as layers of paint can be built up and one color can be covered by another whether it is light or dark.  Mistakes can be hidden!  Watercolor requires more forethought and has more happy – and unhappy! – accidents.  Here, the opacity of gouache allows for splashes of color and a more impasto and impressionistic use of paint.

World Watercolor Month 2019 is proving to be very rewarding.  I am focused on painting, which is one of my retirement goals.  Learning and developing my skills and knowledge of water media is expanding, and though I produce a lot of dreck, I see improvement in many ways.  To me, the biggest one is that I am beginning to anticipate my approaches to varied areas of a painting, thinking ahead as to how I can accomplish what I want to see.  That’s good news.  I know what I want to produce – that is, the kind of paintings I like, and which I think are expressive of my thoughts – and while I am a long way from it, I can also see myself moving forward to accomplishing my “artistic vision” as it were.

The Mead Maker’s Hand

As some of you may know, the other half is a brewer. Here, we have a year-long project started the other day: Raspberry Mead. 5 gallons. It was impossible to find raspberry juice locally, so we special-ordered a concentrate of raspberry juice – something like 4 times concentrated into this bottle. Cost was a bit more than one would think, $61.00 US. The honey for the mead weighed in at 12 lbs., and locally produced. Let’s see what this is like in a year! Mark your calendars.

Scanned in a Pakon 135, Olympus XA4, Kodak TMax 400 shot at box speed.

WWM #19: Splashes of Color

I’ve been thinking about how I am developing a sort of painting style in gouache, as well as giving thought to the painters whose work I admire.  It definitely falls in the impressionistic and expressionistic varieties.  Gouache just seems to be made for exuberant color and enthusiastic brushwork.My colors are more subdued that I wanted – I wanted turquoise skies and pink flowers and a brilliant sunset.  Instead, I have a rather northern European type of town scene, with a garden or flowering park in the middle.  Summer’s abundance flourishes under the trees, but in the shade it seems.  In doing this painting, I didn’t do much planning.  I stuck to the prompt of “splashes of color” – and splash I did.  The result was a serious loosening up of my style, and a letting go of “this is what I want it to be.”  That is significant – I can be a real tight ass about painting, and in the end dislike the results.  When I let go – let things splash – I am usually much, much happier with the results.

Regardless, both paintings appear muddy to me.  I wonder if working with pure color – straight from the tube – would help.  Practice certainly will.  The flowers in the vase seem a bit overworked, too.  Again, practice and experience.

So, lots of splashes of color for #WorldWatercolorMonth 2019 is producing some rather pleasing results and, more than anything, a daily involvement with painting.

WWM #18: Clouds

Where I live, in the dry hills of the Central Coast of California, clouds are really, honestly a rarity.  Most days the sky is a clear, steady blue.  In the fall and spring, and sometimes into the summer, though, the seasons shift.  The rainy season brings in moisture, clouds form, and the sky suddenly has a life of its own.  In May and June, the coastal fog moves in, and sometimes you have a competition or a dance between the two – soft, cool fog close to the ground, and clouds at higher altitudes.  As the fog breaks up, you see the blue sky and clouds above the shifting fog.

This is from a photograph I took a long time ago when I first started doing digital photography.  A small group of us would get together to go for an easy hike, many times in the evening.  Hummingbird Trail is where the original photo was taken, admittedly way over-processed in HDR, but the intensity of the colors held true.  I tried to capture this in my painting, along with the shifting fog and clouds.  I also tried to work on distance by applying a light glaze of a dulling blue grey wash to the distant hills, as well as decreasing details to indicate perspective.

Clouds are so much fun to do in watercolor!  Who is to say your clouds don’t look real?  There are so many mysteriously beautiful in the natural world, but few are as shifting and as ephemeral as clouds.