Country Life (house)

22x30 watercolor on 140 lb cold press Saunders; DaVinci and Daniel Smith paints.  Several years ago I painted this from a photo image I'd taken and cut into an odd number of vertical strips.  I mixed them up then drew each section as its own little painting, all parts of the whole.  I loved this old white wood frame house, its porch, bench, laundry, and garden.  This work is SOLD.

Trunk Show (elephants) WIP

 Here is the FINISHED work in progress, 15x22 India ink and watercolor on Italia 140 lb cold press paper done today.  Colors used:
raw umber violet, raw sienna, sepia, and cobalt teal blue.

 

This view is the first one where I drew in the larger bull elephant using ink dropper.  I had spritzed my paper with water sprayer at random, then sporadically misted it over wet ink spots.  Once the ink is dry it is permanent.

I felt the composition needed one more guy to round out the trunk show, similar to show and tell only these beasts are comparing trunks at the local savannah club.  Actually the work could stand on its own either with or without the third fellow who appears to be laughing.

Backlit Kitten

8.75 x 5.75 watercolor pet portrait on Strathmore 140 lb cold press paper; Daniel Smith paints, a daily painting completed this afternoon.  This weekend I shot lots of photos of my cats in windows backlit by the morning sun.  No masking was used to highlight white hair or whiskers.

Blood Red Hollyhocks

6 x 10.5 watercolor on 140 lb cold press paper, Daniel Smith/DaVinci paints, done from one of my dark red studio hollyhocks.  I'm having to use photos from a few years back due to no rain this year in spring to cause them to grow and bloom.  I did have one pale yellow plant and one medium pink hollyhock, though, but the roses really suffered.  This work is now SOLD.

Sunflowers and Tulips

14x11 watercolor on Ampersand Aquabord, brush only, no predrawing, done today.  Prompted by the wild weeds that resemble sunflowers and a few other yellow wildflowers, I added the red orange tulips, although you wouldn't see them growing together. It is my first time to work on Aquabord and really did like its clay surface; it has a 2" cradle around its edges, so frame and glass unnecessary.

Mollie's Chickens

5.25x7.5 watercolor on Strathmore 140 lb cold press paper done this afternoon.  These are Mollie Jones' poultry and she has them in all shapes, sizes, colors, breeds, etc. on her farm in East Texas.  After yesterday's mixed media collage intense concentration I felt like painting these barnyard babes.

Trashy Poppies collage

                                                                             12x12 watercolor collage with ink

This view is showing the applied cocktail napkin over Crescent matboard, adhered with half matte medium/half water ratio, with phone book yellow pages added on top of the napkin.  Finished version (top image) flowers were drawn with pencil and heavy watercolor added.  When dry I added touches of black India ink and let portions of the napkin show.  Total time a bit over 3 hours today.  Since all items used were destined for the trashbin I named it Trashy Poppies; just wanted to see if I could make something from nothing.  This work has now been SOLD.