Sky, Interrupted

This morning I sat down to practice skies.  If I were to do the ones in my neighborhood, they would be blue.  That’s all.  Just blue.  Clouds are not a common sight where I live!

Anyway, so I scooted around YouTube and found some videos that had some good ideas.  One showed how to do lifting with tissue, advising not to scrub too hard on lightweight paper.  Important to know – I scrubbed a bit of the paper off.  Others used some rather wild color combinations, or certainly ones I haven’t thought about using.  Add to that, I wasn’t trying to accomplish anything more than playing, so it was altogether a fun way to start the morning.

This first one is a combination of Sodalite Genuine, by Daniel Smith, Ultramarine Blue, and Quinacridone Gold.  The Sodalite is a color I picked up on a whim, put in my palette, but had never used until this morning.  It granulates wonderfully, and is a good charcoal grey.  I think I will be using it again.

Then I started another one, wetting the paper once, letting it soak in a second time, and then wetting it again.  I am using Canson XL watercolor paper, which has a nice texture, is about 90#, and is a student grade paper.  I like it because it is working out really well for my needs.

After wetting the paper, I decided to start with a gradated wash, using the reverse side of another painting (to save paper, eh?).  The brush I used was a flat with rather stiff bristles, and the result was lines throughout the wash.  Oh, well.  Then I simply lifted the color off.  Then I began adding Carbazole Violet and Quinacridone Gold.

And then the phone rang!  My brother and his wife in Wisconsin calling, to wish us well for the holidays . . . . the painting was forgotten for the next several minutes, and this is the result.

Regardless as to whether or not this last looks like clouds, the colors have a lot of potential for a dramatic sky some day.  I really like the colors!  I like both, actually.

White space.  No mud.  I must be doing something right!

Holiday Cards: Daisies

The second card in a series for my sister-in-law’s Christmas present.  I used Peter Sheeler’s demonstration (below).  I love his lines and color!  Copying his style is teaching me a lot about simple color use, powerful lines, and particularly compositional elements I haven’t considered at all.

What I learned in this video was how to portray dappled lighting.  This gives character and depth to white petals.  What do you think?

 

Holiday Cards: Birch Trees & Snow

As a present, my sister-in-law asked for some hand-painted cards.  Given I have enjoyed Peter Sheeler’s videos, I thought I would use his exercises as a way to practice painting, and fulfill a family member’s request for a Christmas present!  Here is Mr. Sheeler’s video:

Birch trees are some of the easiest and most lovely trees to draw or paint.  The white trunks and white snow made for a good chance to work at keeping white space.  The other thing is that the palette was limited, which I am beginning to find refreshing – a lot of colors can be made from two or three.

Practice Present Presented

My sister-in-law requested hand-painted cards for a Christmas present.  She’s getting them!  Out of all of these, 6 were from exercises I did following Peter Sheeler’s YouTube painting tutorials.  What made them particularly useful, to me, was that many of them had a lot of white space in them, such as white snow or flowers.  The other thing was the simplicity of composition – a few trees, a stream, some flowers.  While they look easy, I did need to focus on the videos to follow the sequence of painting, as well as to focus on what I was seeing.  Of all of them, I think the stream was the most challenging.

From using Peter’s videos to practice with, and to create cards, I went on to do two based upon photos I have taken.  One is a prickly pear which really does sit on a heart-shaped paddle, and the California poppy fields at the State Preserve.  The latter made me think of Monet’s painting of a woman in a poppy field – the brilliant colors against a sea of green.  Our poppies in California are orange and yellow, so no reds, but mixed in with these colors are blues and whites and so many other colors it is hard to imagine that much of California once looked like that in the springtime!

Below are the different cards I did.  Click on one of them to start the slide show.

Birch Trees in Snow
Daisies
Autumn Leaf
Laundry
Old Fence and Wildflowers
Winter Stream
Prickly Pear
California Poppy Reserve

Wild Night on the Town

No, not really.  But a fun night meeting up with a friend at a local coffee shop / bar / whatever, and some time spent chatting and sketching.  I even drank tea and ate madeleines, so the artistic muse was happy.

It’s fun to watch another artist work, and it’s fun to see what catches the eye.  We sat opposite each other and what was in my eye line was different from hers.  It makes for altogether different projects.  Another thing about just hanging out with another artist is that you learn about things you never considered or used before.  Nothing like continuing to learn, eh?

So, below are my sketches from our hanging out last night.

If you play Sherlock, you might figure out where we were.

Any guesses?

Happy Friday!