Foreshortened picture of Mark

At first I was really excited to do this, because I liked how weirdly foreshortened it looked. However, the more I worked on it, I realized that it wasn't reading as "foreshortened" - more like "pin head". So, another "live and learn"...I learned a lot about painting cloth in this one, though. It's not quite finished. I should do more to the window area and a few other details but I'm tired of looking at it.

Flowers - done months ago but when I changed the title it moved it to the front of the posts

I wasn't even going to post this, because I didn't really "get" the assignment we were doing, but here it is - my first ever painting with flowers in it. I should not have painted in the blue background, but live and learn...

Yupo Paper portraits

(not finished) I decided to try a portrait (actually took these pictures myself at a reenactment) using the Yupo paper. The first one was not fun at all. I ended up wiping the whole thing off and starting over since the paints just ran all over the place. The second time I used a little brush and kept the paint brush more dry. I'm not crazy about the effect of this - although I like the pose and will probably do another one of Mark (friend I used to teach with) using regular paper.

The second picture is a quick sketch (very small sketch) I just did with a thin marker and dabbed with some watercolor. I like this approach much better for this paper. I need to get some permanent markers because the one I had tended to bleed into the watercolor. I'm going to explore this method some more.

Yupo Paper - Abstract

This week, our class assignment was to create an abstract using Yupo paper. This paper is actually plastic - so it takes forever to dry and your paint runs all over the paper. I'm really not comfortable with abstracts, but here's my effort so far. I'm not sure where to take it from here. (trash?) 'Doubt if I'll ever do another abstract, but who knows?

Drippy background

This was part of a class assignment. I didn't know we were going to do the drippy background so I had drawn in some background tiles and now I can't erase them. I keep seeing a lot of things I need to change about this but I think I'm just going to quit working on it. To make the background we made the paper wet in spots and dabbed on colors. We let the background drip and dry - then painted on top. It made an interesting effect, I think. My friend, Louise Best, took this picture on a mission trip.

I wanted to try doing dark skin. I just found a picture of this woman on the Internet. (I need to start taking my own pictures) I may go in and add some more darks in the head covering. Overall I'm happy with the way the skin tones came out.

Class experiment - using masking tape to cover the light areas - then painting, then adding more masking and painting again...etc. I got a bit impatient - but I could see where you could get some nice effects this way if you actually let things dry.

Mexican girl sketch

From one of Julie H's photos. Just experimenting. I like how this turned out for the most part. I used salt on the background. I am not posting all of my pictures so I'm not going to number them anymore.

Third Pix

Here's a pretty quick sketch of Courtney Evans. I couldn't figure out what to do with the hair. Not exactly happy with the color in the face either.

I decided to paint Courtney (family friend) again to see if I had improved. The first picture I did of her had way too much purple and yellow in the face. This one looks more like her and has a better balance of color I think. This is really just a sketch - sort of cartoony and not much depth.

     

Second Pix

This was a bit ambitious for my second actual painting. It's from a photo that Julie Hagenbuch took in Mexico. The boy is a candyseller. I had no clue what I was doing here.

Here's a quick sketch that I did of the boy in a looser style:

First Pix

This is my first (non "in class") picture. It's from a picture of Sophia and Harley on the beach at Nag's head.

The second picture is another one I did of Sophia when I was just beginning with the watercolor. 

The Journey Begins

I decided to journal my exploration of watercolor. I'm not sure if I'm even going to share this blog with anyone, but I wanted to keep a record of what I hope will be my progress in this area.

This is the first retirement promise to myself that I have actually kept - to try something I was not comfortable with in the arts. I have never really worked with color and my artistic skills are pretty rusty. I signed up for a class at the Mechanicsburg Association. (Watercolor for Everyone - Ron Schloyer)

I'm enjoying the painting so far, but find that I'm falling back on safe techniques and a pretty realistic painting style. I'm hoping that will change and evolve with practice.