WIP boy and girl children portrait

I began painting the girl's hair, wet on dry watercolor using quinacridone gold and raw sienna for blond highlights.  Her yellow dress colors are Winsor yellow and quin gold.  His hair is light brown using quin burnt orange, carbazole violet and ultramarine blue; her hair has touches of the blue as well.  Masking dots are places where fireflies, or lightning bugs are.  He is placing a firefly "ring" upon her finger and the setting is twilight.  Flesh colors are burnt sienna and cadmium orange and the time setting is in the mid 1950s.  Stay tuned for more to follow later.
Image is COPYRIGHT 2013 Kay Smith.

Red Sky Sunflowers - WIP watercolor

This work in progress starts out using 3 yellows, splashed wet in wet on 140 lb cold press watercolor paper.  I used aureolin, new gamboge, and quinacridone gold.  When dry I drew various sunflower heads, leaves, and stems free handed.  My goal is to have a red toned background rather than a blue sky.

You can see the yellow washes better in this step in which I began laying in mixed greens using same yellows and gold along with Prussian blue and ultramarine.

White Cat "Sinatra" WIP Step 6

Getting more done and nearer to completion in this view with more glazes on the table and correcting curves, shadows, and light reflections from the lamps and his white fur.  Typically cluttered with treasures as most antique stores are, the cat seems to know he belongs here.

White Cat "Sinatra" WIP Step 5

Today I worked on Sinatra another 2 hours mainly on the background and table front.  Its curve is not shaped right so will correct the curved line to match the bottom, as well as darken to dark brown.  Once that value is established, his white fur should show up better.
If I go back to Tyler I'll revisit this store and let his owner know he has surfed the Internet.  I did tell her he would be painted.

White Cat "Sinatra" WIP Step 3

Continuing on with background areas in this cat portrait work in progress; I've done dark tapestry folds and its reflections in cut glass. So keep watching for more reveal...

White Cat "Sinatra" WIP Step 2

Step 2 of white cat named Sinatra showing soft edged delineation of his shoulder, legs, neck and back.  Beginning background of a dark but rich tapestry frames behind his head and shoulder.  This pet portrait will emphasize values on a white subject and how to paint fur. I dare not mess this up as those blue eyes are following my every move!

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.

More Work on Morning Glories WIP demo

Shadows and glazes were added to the white flower for the multiformed ones seen through its transparent petals. I used UB, Copper Kettle, quin gold, quin magenta, manganese blue. The large leaf needs more darks as its value is too light.

WIP Blue & White Morning Glories

These images show progression of the background from start to finish done yesterday in watercolor, wet on dry paper. Darks have to be put in first for me to be able to get values correct from darkest dark to medium to light. I've added alizarin crimson and a bit of quinacridone magenta to warm it up as it is pretty cool temp wise with all the blues. As I go along I'm doing negative painting of some curled stems of the glory vines that were not present in the photograph.