Fruit and Veggies

15x22 trio of tomatoes with a single pear drawn with Caran D'Ache watersoluble wax crayons on 140 lb hot press paper. Title is: A Pear of Tomatoes.

Holy Cow!

22x30 acrylic over failed cherub painting, hence the title. This is a WetCanvas! challenge to paint in a style or colors you're not used to, so it was quite difficult with large flat shapes. A Netherlands cow of Connie van Winssen was the ref used and it was in the middle of a green field with a city skyline behind, so I enlarged it and took out all the rest.

Pick Your Own-Watermelon torn paper collage

Finished!!! After 6 more hours today and messy fingers it is finally done. I hope it reads okay now and values are corrected and shapes simplified...I have a tendency to add detail when painting, so thought it would hold true for collage and yes, it does. Last chore to do was to tear tiny black ovals for seeds and get them adhered to the gloss varnished areas as well as check all 4 edges that they're covered, too. Fork and knife in foreground rest on a white napkin for a little genteel touch in this country still life scene. Total fun and takes many hours but is well worth it! If you have never done this type collage I'd encourage you to try.

Collage WIP - Watermelon steps 3&4

I'm continuing on with the background starting upper right and down that side then working across left and down to foreground. I can tell already that some areas need simplification to read as solid instead of so choppy and detailed...tomorrow will tackle that and adjust values as the purple grapes aren't showing up too well.

Polkadot Dress - a quickie watercolor

9x6 on Strathmore, American Journey paints, of a blonde at a street fair having a good time (photo courtesy my friend Joanna). I left out the other woman dressed identically...both were obviously singing to the crowd. This was a quickie in less than an hour. I used a black & white copy of the photo, so no color reference at all, just my imagination.

Collage WIP Watermelon Still Life

Now you can see what all I got done in 2 more hours today, all of the melon and its pieces, and even going back to adjust values here and there. I thought the red zinnias were a nice touch.

Collage WIP Watermelon next steps

Yesterday I began adding torn red paper from magazines to the meat of the melon and will show values from light to medium to dark in red tones. Today I did its rind, the yellow lemons, and all the grapes. Stay tuned for more as it progresses.

New Collage Watermelon Still Life WIP

16x20 line drawing on wrapped canvas, ready for doing collage today with torn paper, a work in progress.
So stay tuned!

The Original Flowers of Passion

Here it is the awful boring piece that was too blah! 15x22 watercolor. It was such fun to cut it up. As usual I got too detailed...

Flowers of Passion - woven watercolor

15x22 work is actually two identically painted scenes of pink roses in front of a house. The original was ho-hum boring (I'll post it soon for comparison) so a few years later did another exactly like it as I'd saved the drawing. I got the idea of weaving them together after seeing the work of Nancy Maas, which is much looser and not as tightly woven. One painting you cut wavy strips horizontally, and the other cut vertical strips, then weave in and out. When done I vacuum mounted onto acid free matboard to frame it. Now it looks much more interesting!

Collage - Next Step: More Glue!

The "white" background and inbetween spaces is now collaged with white, off white, and other neutral values of torn paper. Some areas still need to be covered again as I don't want the grays in the watercan to have conflicting values. It needs to be prominent, at least until all pansies are done. Most of them are in as seen here and hot pink one needs to be more pale for contrast. All in all, a fun time and I'm learning more as I go along. Susie advised to add light white acrylic to the background if needed.

Collage Beginning Stages

The canvas is slanted but maybe you can still see its beginnings of the line drawing and adherence of torn paper scraps in dark gray for the metal watering can. Next I tackled the background which was to be white. Susie taught us that white paper needs to be white on both sides and she uses some photo paper that she scribbles or doodles on. At upper left mine is too gray and is the wrong value for white so later had to collage over that.

Torn Paper Collage on Canvas

This is "Bloomsday Pansies", 16x20 paper collage on wrapped canvas. It was begun on Saturday in Colorado City at Studio 20 under the direction of Susie Powell of Plains, Texas.
With this type collage method, you tear colored papers you need instead of using scissors.
Draw with black Sharpie directly onto canvas, then fit pieces of torn paper into the shapes.
Adhere with Liquitex gloss medium brushed on the support then on top of the paper. Varnish when dry.

Surfer Dude - finished version

13x10 watercolor on matboard work in progress fiished today. I used touches of gouache to soften and mute out some of the more obvious black Micron pen lines and to add splatter in foreground water drops.

Surfer Dude step 3 WIP

Most of the colors are blocked in now with no more than 2 washes but I see I'll have to go back and correct values where shadows are and in his swimsuit. Plus, what about giving him a hairy chest? Yes!!! Water on right side will be painted maybe by tomorrow. For that I'm using Manganese blue, Prussian, and ultramarine and painting around white bubbles and splash marks for seafoam.

Surfer Dude - WIP

He's baaaaaaaaaaack, Mr. Cool Water Surfer Dude, a watercolor on matboard work-in-progress on 13x10 support. Today I began adding color first to his bathing trunks, side of surfboard, and head. I never know how a painting will turn out as that's the nature of the fluid medium, always surprising the artist as well as the viewer! I've not painted on matboard without it being gessoed first. With this one I'm thinking of adding pastel or Caran D'Ache watersoluble crayon.

Contour Line Drawing - WIP

13x10 contour drawing with Pigma Micron 01 pen on archival matboard of a surfer just coming in out of the water. I'll try different watermedia to see what works best, then try other beach related photos from the time I lived on the beach in Florida and North Carolina.

Hollyhock House

Finished! After a couple more hours I can say it is done and was a joy to work on this simple cottage garden scene.
Now on to the next one whatever that will be as only my muse knows.

Hollyhock House continued in progress

Now I've invested about 2 hours total into the garden scene working the entire right side, sky, trees, gate, background foliage and path leading into the composition. I'm still working wetly as I go along, spraying with the mister bottle letting some blending happen. A few hollies will be in sharp focus and others softly blending into their surroundings. Probably 20-30 minutes more and will be done with this one.

Work in Progress: Hollyhock House watercolor

On the right hand side I began at the dark-paned window then mixed greens for foliage, spritzing with fine mist water sprayer as I went along.

Hollyhocks House - Work in Progress

This new one is of an old white house and large garden featuring various colored hollyhocks, and is drawn with a brush on Italia watercolor paper, 15x22. I first spritzed with water here and there then blocked in the main shapes which took about 10-15 minutes.

Love Affair

5.5 x 12 watercolor on Canson paper, drawn from life last week and finished up yesterday. I tried to make the tulips' transparency obvious where they overlap...long had a love affair with this particular bulb and have painted hundreds of them. This pair is on fire for each other and hopefully the viewer!

Dancing Silhouettes

23x35 watercolor on Yupo, medium weight synthetic paper. These irises were drawn from studio garden plants and there was one lone dark yellow and brown one so it was included as the center of interest. Background was left white so the bulbs would stand out more. Definitely Spring!!! Finally we had almost 1/2 inch of rain yesterday which will help the plants.

A bit more work on grapes

After getting this one home and realizing the large leaf should have more color, I added a warm glaze of quinacridone gold. Also I added quin magenta on left side in the background while lower left corner had more pigment, too, very wetly.