Tag: Painting

End of Summer Paintings

Summer comes and goes; retirement gives you time to fill the days. Each one is cherished, and soon, your time becomes increasing full, so full you wonder when you will find time . . .

I have tried to paint every day – gouache, watercolor, pastels – and overall have managed to meet that challenge. Some days, other parts of life intervene, and that’s okay. Appointments, social engagements, reading a book all can replace the time spent painting. Thus, without further ado, here are some that I produced since my August 2, 2020, post about painting in July.

24 Minute Painting

Following along with a pastels instructor, the by-word of the month is “fast and furious”. Well, for me, this means in less than 30 minutes. The instructor suggests 15 minutes. I decided to give myself “under 30” for a “fast and furious.” Here is the result.

The point of the fast-and-furious approach is to keep the artist from over thinking and overworking a painting. This exercise is invaluable as decisions have to made quickly and decisively. Pondering doesn’t happen! Instead it is like, hmm, let’s see; I think this could work. Grab, paint, run on to the next section. Top to bottom with swaths of color here and there to carry out a sense of continuity.

It worked out.

I won’t show you the first attempt.

Jachelt

This is one of the most stunning images I have seen on Pixabay, which has a lot of wonderful royalty-free photos; here is the direct link to it:  https://pixabay.com/photos/fog-moor-moorland-birch-tree-mood-1717410/ 

This photo is moody and mysterious, and you can certainly imagine how spooky it could be to come upon suddenly, lost in a whirl of fog on a lonely moorland. I tried to capture it in my own watercolor.

This painting is significantly different than some of my other paintings.  I used the wet-in-wet technique throughout the painting, creating several layers of glazes before adding the details of grasses.  These I did using negative painting over the washes.  Then, more solid brushwork for the tree, branches, and scrub in the lower corners.

16 x 20 Arches 140# cold press paper.

 

Icky and Not Too Icky

Let’s start with the flowers I did that I like.  Spontaneous background, flat brush, working on edge of brush for dots and lines of stems and flowers.  No pencil drawing.  I liked painting this one a lot.  Not so icky.

This one absolutely sucks.  Pencil drawing.  Overworked.  I was ready to snap the brushes and burn down the house.  I really hated doing this painting as it so uptight.  Icky.  Icky.  Icky.

Another Tale of 3 Paintings: Tanglewood

Yesterday was Painting Disaster Day. I suppose it had to happen after a couple of good rounds. It was also nearly 100F, and even with the air conditioning on, I was hot and cranky, and that doesn’t make for good focus. Anyway!
I took this photo last month, and rather like its moodiness. The dead leaves and bright new leaves create interesting colors while the trunks create interesting lines. The first attempt to reproduce this painting in some form or another began with pastels, then gouache, and finally watercolor.
This pastel painting is rather clumsy, but I have found in doing these kinds of series that usually the first one, in whatever medium I am using, is always the starting point. I learn more about the picture as I paint it. 9×12 on Mi Teintes paper.This is the second in the series – a small 6×8. What I did differently here than my usual gouache is I used Arches hot pressed paper and worked to keep my gouache paints thin (cream consistency) and moist while I painted. The smooth paper and smoother paints made painting a lot easier. It turned out pretty good!
Finally the watercolor. This is on the reverse side of another painting, on 16×20 Arches cold press watercolor paper. As both pastels and gouache allow for opaque overpainting of other colors, by this time I had a pretty good idea where light and dark were and could plan ahead. I used frisket on the tree trunks and in areas where the leaves are hit by the sun. Keeping these areas masked off let me apply broad washes across the paper without losing the shites.

Altogether, I am pleased with this series. I think I may redo the pastel painting as I have some new pastels to try out! Meanwhile, I am looking for some buildings for my next triad (or “try-at”) of paintings.