Sinister Street Haunted House

15x22 watercolor just in time for Halloween night on Sinister Street. This old dilapidated frame house was an image in WetCanvas Weekend Drawing Event, courtesy of Dana. You're allowed 2 hours to draw and/or paint your composition and post your progress. Total time was about 3 hours for me. At the 2 hour mark I'd not done all the background trees nor the foreground grasses and weeds. HAPPY HALLOWEEN night, everybody!

Amarillo Sunflowers-They're Fading Fast!

12x9 Caran D'Ache watersoluble crayons, charcoal, and Rembrandt soft pastels on paper. At autumn, these wayside plants are curling and dying and simply fading fast. As their colors sink into my memory and paintbrush, so does the sun set upon this year and all the color nature has blessed us with.

Halloween Harvest Wagon

15x22 watercolor on Arches 140 lb cold press paper, painted wet in wet from a photo taken in Midland at Alldredge Gardens. Trying to be loose and a bit abstract, I put in fresh hot colors on the cool wet paper, let blend, then finished the haystalks. It is just in time for Halloween!

Time to Paint an Abstract or Two

30x22 mixed watermedia entitled "Rush Hour". This next week am going to paint in Lamesa, TX (where I was born during a sandstorm) and we'll be doing abstracts. Lots of fun but nobody around this area except my mother likes them nor wants to own them. As has been stated before on this blog, I've been taking some of them and making other art, using them as underpaintings.

More Daily Painting: Cottontail

15x11 watercolor, loosely painted wet in wet of the common jackrabbit, also known as a cottontail. These small animals abound in southwest brushy pastures and love to feed upon young cotton plants trying to grow. When I was growing up in west Texas our favorite pasttime was to go rabbit hunting before the coyotes got them.

Roses are Red

15x11 watercolor on Strathmore 140 lb paper, completed this past weekend in New Mexico. Drawn from a single red silk rose, I created all these various views and made up the leaves and rosebuds. Painting petal by petal, I sanded colored pencil shavings into the wet areas for texture. Each area leaf or petal is one application only of watercolor and are not repeated glazes.

Saddle Up!

12x18 watercolor of my brother's profile on a white horse, first painted 5 years ago and now doing more of these macro or cropped view closeups of western art. See Happy Trails image posted 10-17-10. My brother has this painting hanging in his O'Donnell, TX ranch house.

Happy Trails

11x15 watercolor, copyright 2010 Kay Smith, of my brother's backside. I changed the horse's color to white with grey tail instead of sorrel. This painting was done while in my New Mexico mountain studio cabin a few days ago.

Remember the theme song Roy Rogers and Dale Evans had for their TV show about happy trails?

After Vernita Bridges-Hoyt invited me to be part of her new blog about the Chisum or Chisholm Trail I realized I'd gotten away from doing much western art. So get ready! More is coming. To view Nita's new blog go to chisolmtrailart.blogspot.com/

Butterfly Bride

22x30 acrylic on paper, with first an abstract underpainting then butterfly shape drawn in. Black background with fluorescent acrylic patterning complete the image.
ALL IMAGES COPYRIGHT 2010 Kay Smith.

Red Hot Chile Ristras

Been looking at all sorts of peppers here in New Mexico as I've been madly painting for a week now in the cool mountains of Ruidoso. Known as the Playground of the Southwest to me it is a chance to connect to nature and enjoy pines, extraordinary light, and delicious cuisine. Art and antiques abound here in this fun place. Since Monday I've completed 3 paintings so will show them to you soon. Stay tuned.

South of the Border

22x15 watercolor done a few years ago. Yesterday I saw a similar clay pitcher of sunflowers in an antique store. This simple still life scene has been SOLD.

Reworked Abstract Zebra

22x30 acrylic abstract done a few years ago and used as the basis for a new work as seen below:

30x22 mixed media finished piece, Zebra Vibration, done today. I used a black permanent marker to draw the animal's shape and stripes, then black ink for those. Lastly I added opaque and transparent watercolor to the background, plus gouache. Crayons as wax resists you can see clearly now.

Hacienda

30x22 watercolor on Kilimanjaro 140 lb cold press paper; this painting is SOLD.

Rust in Peace

11x15 watercolor on Arches 140 lb hot press paper finished today. After pouring 3 primary colors (Winsor Newton Alizarin, Antwerp, Arylide) onto dry paper, I spritzed with water to blend, let dry, then developed the subject matter. Negative painting done to suggest branches, limbs, and twigs as well as autumn leaves. The old jalopy is a heap of rust with a story to tell.
(Ref courtesy WetCanvas)

Nassau Fisherboy

15x22 watercolor on Arches 140 lb hot press paper from my old photo of first Bahamas trip in the 80s. See the photo here as posted on WetCanvas Weekend Drawing Event currently running.

Gaudy an Angel collage

15x22 collage over watercolor with acrylics. I used a previous failed angel painting that I'd redone twice with no luck, gluing Veranda magazine cutouts at random. She is so gaudy now that just had to name her that as a pun for Guardian angel.