Old Shack

The sky is a lot of space in this picture.  Layers of blues were laid down, lightest at the horizon line behind the trees, and moving into darker shades of blue toward the top.  Overlapping colors were considered, too.

It took seconds to lay down the pencil, and seconds to run the water through it.  Here, I used a large mop brush with a sharp point.  I turned the picture upside down, and worked from the horizon to the top of the sky.  The sharp brush point allowed me to reach into to curves of the trees and around the building and chimney.  As soon as that was done, I took a tissue and blotted, turning the tissue to create the idea of clouds.  I had no idea what it would look like, but like I said before, the sky is the big gamble.

The clouds turned out better than I expected – cauliflower clouds,. cumulus – building up toward what now looks like a stormy sky, one ready to rain, but still with the sun somewhere to the right.

A bit of drama – and trauma! – in that upper left corner.  I thought I would see how dabbing a brush on a pencil tip would work.  Not a good thing.  Then, while the pencil tip was damp, I drew on the paper.  Another problem.  I then put water in the corner and smoothed it out, and tried to blot it.  Not a solution either.  Giving up, I just merged in darker blues and some violet, shaping it into the upper horizon, above the clouds, ignoring the horizon for the moment.  I want to shape the sky and clouds in the upper atmosphere first with water and brush.

 

Penstemon

Penstemons are simple flowers – tall, elegant, plain – with an incredibly beautiful red-orange flower.  They are another one I photographed last weekend at the botanical garden.  Maybe today I’ll venture out to the cactus garden to see what blossoms may be up there!

Here, I decided simply on using a brush, a stiffer one than a red sable, to focus on how the brush responds to pressure, paint, and amount of water.

Painted Flowers

The bathrooms are nearly done.  All that remains to do is hang the mirrors, towel racks, toilet paper holder, and place the drawer pulls.  The baseboards can wait!  At noon, we will officially be able to use the sinks, the faucets, and the second toilet.  Who thought that could be so exciting?

And in between the chaos of repairs and work, I have tried to do some painting.  I pulled out my watercolor pencils and started a picture that will be mixed media in the end.  It’s complicated.  I have been scanning every step.

To kick back, I have been looking at the flower pictures I took last weekend at the botanical garden – so many!  I have painted a few of them, with ink and pen, with watercolor pencil and pen, with watercolor.  I really like flowers and wish I had a better yard for a garden . . . that will come, though; meanwhile, I wander in one I don’t have to maintain.

Old Shack

I went out to lunch, so that is why interrupted the first part of this post.  And, there were a lot of pictures to look at.  Now, back from lunch, and awake from a 2-hour nap, here I am.

The next step was to put in the grasses on the lower and the left of the picture, and the trees in the background.  Shape and contrast were the goal.  The grasses, again, were straight lines with a bit of curve.  In the background, I used 3 different colored pencils, and drew small, tight circles to convey the thick foliage of the trees in the distance; this was repeated in front of the shack.  Longitudinal lines were used to create the direction of the fields.

Once the grasses, field, and foliage were put in, I used water.  Short straight strokes for the grass were done vertically, some blending into other grasses, too.  The trees in the distance on the left and right were next, being careful to work around the straight lines of the building.  The sloping fields to the left and right were worked with short brush strokes, to keep the colors isolated in some areas, and blended in another.  If you look on the right, you will see the fields are yellow, blends of yellow and browns, and finally, below the trees, varying shades of green.  Lastly, I worked the grasses in the foreground, top to bottom left to right.

 

Next?  The sky!