On the Forest Floor

Yesterday’s painting is now revisited, this time without lines, as well as with a few stages of the painting shown before the final rendition.

Working with white space is my biggest challenge, so I decided to lay in colors as a first step, as you can see above.  The idea here was to work around the white flowers and do what I could to keep them white.

At this point, colors and values are generally in place, but the white flowers have yet to be touched.  This is where the painting caused some questions.  Should this be more “painterly” – that is, splashy colors – or should it become more “formal” – meaning a more graphic rendition.  Because I am more inclined toward the “painterly” I went ahead and worked wet in wet, and in my mind’s eye, more messily.  Splash!  Splash!

Here is the final version.  I used pale colors to give the white flowers some dimension, but am not sure how successful they are.  I have a few ideas of maybe a third rendition, but that is for tomorrow if I do it.  At this point, I tried to introduce better contrast and detail in various areas, as well as working in some oranges, reds, yellows, and light greens throughout the painting to unite parts of it throughout.

In general, I am fairly pleased with this painting.  As with (I swear) every watercolor, it has its own ideas, so of course what I wanted to produce and what I did produce are rather different!  I didn’t create mud, and though I wanted to reach for the pen to make outlines and sharpen areas, I didn’t.  I did consider watercolor pencil, but in the end decided to leave it as it was.

The biggest problem is that the white flowers themselves need more contrast, but today, I am not too sure how to get them to look more 3-dimensional.

Below, you can view a slide show of yesterday’s ink and watercolor version, as well as the evolution of today’s exercise.

Ink & Watercolor
Keeping the whites defined.
Greater detail, whites still untouched.
Final version with whites “defined” by various pale colors, as well as final overall rendering of the painting.

Fish Hat: Dead or Alive (Revisited)

Years ago I made a fish hat for my husband.  It’s in the shape of a real fish, complete with eyes, fins, and a tail.  That was some 10 years ago, and over time, I have probably made another half dozen.  The fish hat is clever and a fun way to use up your stash of left over yarn.  The pattern was published in the online knitting magazine, Knitty, and you can find it here:  Fish Hat:  Dead or Alive? Because the dead fish hat was so popular, the designer even opened up a special website for more information about her ingenious pattern. The beauty of this last link is that you can find the fish hat in crochet, for charity, using a knitting machine, in different languages. If you don’t want to knit, find the crochet version at that site.

Fish Hats from the Knitty pattern site.

I even created knitted, rather than felt cloth, eyes for the dead fish.  The pattern is below:

Fish Hat [Dead or Alive?] Eyes

Cast on 4 stitches. Knit front and back of each stitch – 8 stitches. Transfer to double point needles, place marker at round beginning.

Rnd 1: Knit

Rnd 2: Knit front and back each stitch – 16 stitches.

Rnd 3: Knit

Rnd 4: *Knit front and back, knit 1,* repeat to end – 24 stitches

Rnd 5: Knit

Rnd 6: *Knit front and back, knit 2,* repeat to end – 32 stitches

Rnd 7: Knit

Rnd 8: *Knit front and back, knit 3,* repeat to end – 40 stitches

Rnd 9 and 10: Knit

Bind off.

Here is the first fish hat I made.  I made it around 2008 for my husband.  It has the knitted eyes, which look pretty good, I think.

The most recent fish hat is all stripes and has crocheted eyes.  The eyes were all done with single crochet.  For these eyes, follow the same ideas as the knitted eyes, but crochet.  It works.

I like the knitted eyes better.

With limited amounts of yarn for the most recent fish hat, I had to be pretty careful about what I used.  For instance, the tail is in two colors, not one.  The pectoral fins are smaller, too, because I was running out of black yarn.

I spent the last week knitting up this most recent fish hat – good way to listen to an audio book or watch some TV and do something productive and satisfying while riding out a head cold.

If you need something to do with your stash and have worsted-weight yarn, make a fish hat!  I’ve made a Nemo (clown fish) and others, and everyone has liked them.  The yarn is worsted weight, and my preferred yarn is acrylic, specifically Vanna’s Choice, which I find to be a very nice yarn altogether.  The original fish hat is about 10 years old, and has been washed multiple times.

This one is for my SIL who, at Christmas, said, “I’d like a fish hat, too!”  So, here it is, ready for her birthday next month.

Below, a rogue’s gallery of the fish hat in action!

 

On the Forest Floor

A few goals for this mornings painting.  First, keeping the white flowers white.  Outlines helped here!  Second, wet-in-wet painting.  That worked well, too.  As an afterthought, I worked on the shape of the vignette within the frame.  Top, bottom, sides.  The far right could run off the page a bit more – I could crop it, if I wanted, but I rather like the reminder of the flaws I see, too.