I saw some climbing roses against a bright white wall, dancing with the wind. The play of light and dark, flickering shadows, and the swaying of the roses in the wind – tried to catch it in this morning’s sketch. No lines, direct watercolor.
Tag: shadows
Broken Bones & Painting: False Fronts
Two days ago I was cleaning the kitchen up, even to the point of cleaning the oven and stove top – huge job for a Sunday morning. The other half was on call all day, so it seemed like the perfect time. We weren’t able to join family that day, so do something useful. All was going well until one of the dogs lay down behind me, and when I turned around, over I went. I took a standing lamp with me, fell over the arm of the couch, smacked my arm and hand on the treadle sewing machine, and ended up on my back. I knew my hand was messed up – it hurt! Off to the urgent care to have 3 questionable fractures, one in the wrist and 2 in the middle finger. Monday confirmed fractures, but only 2, both chips. Not too bad. But, now I am all bound up with a splint on my finger and one on my wrist. My right wrist. I am right-handed. Oh, woe is me!
Happily, my dog was more surprised and less damaged than I.
Spring break and the plans are to do all sorts of fun things. Like paint. And that is what I have been attempting to do today. It is not easy to draw a straight line or hold a brush, much less type, with normal dexterity. In a way that is really good as nothing can be considered “serious” when nothing is feeling coördinated. There is a real disconnect, like when your face is all numb from anaesthesia at the dentist. Believe me when I say drawing in splints make straight lines somewhat improbable.
And here are the results, pictures taken step by step as I waited for things to dry. I was on the patio whilst painting – someplace relatively safe as the dogs aren’t allowed in this part of the yard. The focus is on imagined shadows, not great art. Click to see larger.
Once Waitlisted Weekend Watercolor Workshop
How’s that for a few Ws or so?
This past weekend I spent immersed in painting and drawing and sketching, all focused on watercolor. This lucky girl got in after being waitlisted to a workshop with Brenda Swenson, an excellent watercolorist, and as it turns out, a very good teacher. Three days of organized to increasingly looser structure was perfect.
Day 1 began with continuous contour line drawing and lost edges. At first I got it – and then didn’t – and then did again. These drawings then led to watercolors using lost edges to blur and bleed color into color – wet working with deliberate movement of color. This helps with reflected light. The mind fills in what the brush does not.
From there, on the second day, we moved into landscapes from photographs, all of which were provided by Brenda, and from which all the landscapes in this post are derived from. For some reason I couldn’t seem to think straight – I was restless and goofy and my mind was all over the place. Somehow, I managed to survive and produce a few pictures of value. The still lives I did sucked. Structure of the day, if I recall, along with the first was draw, format, paint. Formatting was finding a border for the image, where edges might break out of the line, and give an interesting look to the painting. Good graphics!
And on the third day, structure loosened. The focus was on painting vignettes. A vignette, I knew, had white around the borders of a painting – a piece of a painting. Brenda put it into a different perspective, on which I never had heard of – cruciform. Don’t touch the corners with paint, touch one or all of the 4 edges of the picture’s ostensible borders, and focus on how the shape – the negative space of the corners – looks in relationship to all the other.
Lessons each day, thoughts for each day. If I get another chance to attend here workshop, I will – if you get a chance, do it!
Now, a few things done during the workshop . . . click on a picture to see them bigger!
Cactus, Shadows
It’s been awhile since my last post – just over a month. Part of that has been limited time because of a bunch of things going on in our lives, as well as a shift into focusing – and refocusing – on painting. There is not enough time in the day! But, a lot of times painting is an indoor activity, and I miss the outdoors. Cabin fever sets in.
Yesterday was finally a relatively taskless day (compared to every other day!), so I went to the bank, went to have a camera repaired, only to have it fixed right then and there by the store owner, and thence, on to the local botanical garden. With rain coming up today, I knew the garden would be closed to the public, and with rain forecast for the next few weeks, it will be closed for some time.
It was an absolutely lovely day, and I got a few good pictures of old friends, like ancient oaks and spring bulbs, and the cactus on the top of the hill.
A Prelude to Round Things
Given my frustration with painting grapes the other day, I decided to look at some YouTube watercolor videos on painting the highlights and shadows of spherical objects. I found two which I really liked, and the result is I did a number of studies, as can be seen below. Techniques include both wet-in-wet, glazing, and a few others. 
The purple balls were done with glazing; the shadows were wet-in-wet. Here and there I went in with a damp brush to soften the edges of the shadows in the grapes, or to blur paint over areas which seemed weird. Not too bad, but I do not find glazing appealing; it may be I need to improve my glazing technique.
These orange goodies are preludes to a potential painting of oranges. The one on the right was done first, but as the ink was bleeding – it was ordinary fountain pen ink – I moved on to the one on the left, which is drawn with Sailor’s Carbon Ink. I like the on the left quite a bit – the bleed into the shadow, as well as the colors themselves, which are Hansa Yellow, Pyrrol Orange, and Organic Vermilion. The brush I used was a large one, a Cosmotop 14, and the paper was the Canson pad of watercolor paper (not the Montval).
Soooooo!! Things are beginning to improve!
Ink, Yarn & Beer 