Complements

It may be hard to believe, but the composition for this started with my previous post's painting. I was fooling around with ideas this morning, based on this composition and this emerged. It's pastel and influenced by some oil pastels I saw at an art sale this weekend, although I'm sure no one would confuse that artist and me! It's fun to work with pastels because I can go in and add lights. It's hard because it's messy and it's hard to tell exactly where the mark is going to be on the paper because of the size and shapes of the chalks. A nice, pointy, round watercolor brush is much more precise.

Jamaican landscape

This little road was almost directly across from the house where we stayed in Jamaica. We all thought it could be Tuscany, except for the palm tree.

Skip getting coconuts

I just realized that I hadn't posted my version of Skip climbing for coconuts in Jamaica. When we were watching him climb, I just held down the button on my camera and let it take multiple photos. So I have a gazillion (I *love* my digital camera) pictures and picked a different one from Fran's. I'm really happy with the way this one turned out. I worked hard to make my drawing as clear as I could, then within each element of the painting and shapes, make the paint loose and "painterly." I think I did it.

Numa

I figure that if I put Amari's picture on here, I'd better put Numa's up, too. Have to be fair, you know. I did this a couple of days ago from a photo I took some winter when we had snow. It's watercolor, 10" x 14". Interesting challenge, painting a white dog against snow, except that he doesn't look really, really white in the snow.

Amari

Now, imagine that you are sitting on a couch with a dog plopped next to you, butt at the back of the couch and head almost falling off the front. Imagine, also, that she's on her back and her tummy is being rubbed. She's in ecstasy. I happened to have a paper on a clipboard on my lap, being the human doing the tummy rubbing, and I did a quick sketch of what I could see. This version is basically traced into Photoshop, via my computer drawing tablet. I thought you might enjoy my view of such a dog.

Stone Bridge

This bridge is at one place where I walk the dogs. I don't remember when I took the photo but we haven't had that much snow this winter. It's pastel, 14 x 22, and I'm not entirely happy with it but I'm not sure why. Suggestions? Click on the photo to see a bigger and more colorful version.

Granddaughter and Son

This is, I think, the sixth version of this, not all posted here. As a matter of fact, some of the versions are already in paper recycling! This one is pastel. I see I still need to work on her nose a bit, and I'm hoping anything else glaring will be reported to me posthaste, especially since DS's birthday is Saturday, the day after tomorrow, and I'd like to give it to him.

Sunset Harbor

This piece, mixed media, just got accepted into the Philadelphia Water Color Society's Members' Exhibition. It's much changed and a bit cropped from the one I posted a week or so ago. The more I looked at what I'd done in the workshop, the more it looked like boats in a harbor, so I worked on it with charcoal and pastel to develop that idea. Click on this small image and look at it bigger. It's brighter and you can see more of the texture and detail.

Busy

I've done a lot lately that I haven't posted, plus I've been framing for two simultaneous art shows, into one of which I have yet to be juried. It's the Philadelphia WC Society's members' show and I've gotten in the last 2 years, so here's hoping. I hear the juror is a "tight" painter and I'm going to enter something VERY loose. Our local art center has a brand new gallery and this will be the inaugurating show.


I repainted my double portrait of my son and his daughter with the goal of getting the drawing better and getting more color in their faces. Then it was suggested that I give them a blue background which I've done only in Photoshop, so far. I like it that way.

I've also started an ambitious watercolor and, for fun, I did a pastel yesterday. The pastel is of a scene in Colorado I photographed last fall. It was a pretty boring photo, so I jazzed up the colors a bit.

Skip

Fran did this from one of the photos I took in Jamaica. Skip obligingly climbed the tree and brought down a number of unripe coconuts so we could taste the "coconut water" inside. Fran used ink and graphitint pencils (dark, water-soluble colored pencils) for this rendition.

Joy

My granddaughter and son. I have had this painting drawn for what seems like weeks now, and finally settled down to paint it yesterday. I'm really pleased by both the drawing and the painting. I might tweak it a bit here and there, but basically it's done. It was an interesting change from the wild and wooly mixed media paintings I did last week! I'm always open to critiques.

Workshop, Day 3

Today was the last day of the workshop and I did two pieces. The first, the blue and gold one, was started as soon as we got there (early) with various papers collaged over most of the sheet. It, like the first two I did, are more or less full sheet (22" x30") size. Then I painted tans and golds, along with some blues over everything. It was dull. So I went in with black ink and dark brown liquid watercolors. Wow! There are other things collaged over all that, then more painting, and so forth. I may crop this one some way, but I'm not at all sure where or how yet. In reality, the lines on this one are more horizontal than the photo looks.

The second painting is half the size of the first three paintings. I used printed copies of a couple of sketches I made in Jamaica pasted over a tan background, then added various other colors, including a dark brown liquid paint that I applied with a bamboo pen. This one is definitely calmer than the first, and much lighter in value.

Blue

Day 2 of the workshop. Here are the full version and a cropped version of what I did today.

Mixed Media Workshop I

I did this today in a 3-day mixed media workshop. I'm not at all sure which way is up.
This is done on illustration board with liquid watercolors, gesso both black and white, acrylics, some pastels.
I'll take any comments.

Jamaica VII

Finally, some of the other sketches and a painting I did. The round balls hanging from the trees are, I believe, calabash with holes drilled in them. The painting is of a green bush with banana leaves growing behind it. Green can get awfully boring, so I used a lot of colors. And that's a mop leaning against a fence with a rag rug hanging on the fence.