FINISHED GRATE PAINTING

This is my third GRATE painting. The first one, done nearly 10 years ago, was about 5 x 7 inches, the next 20 x 26 inches, with this one being 26 by 40 inches. It's been a while since I've had so much fun while painting a picture.

The whole process, from dodging traffic while taking photos of the man hole covers and grates - to the preparation and design - to the actual wonderful painting time, has been both challenging and exciting to do. Traffic actually stopped a couple of times on that cold rainy Sunday afternoon while I stood in the center turn lane taking photos of some really great grates. The cars could have gone around us, but the drivers were so polite and careful to wait for me. At another location, a man circled around to ask if we needed help. When we told him we were taking pictures for art, he moved on. Crazy artists! Thanks, Betsy, for driving, for stopping, for joining in on the fun.

Grates have fascinated me since childhood, when I was afraid to walk on them. I love the lines and edges, the lettering, the strength they have, and especially the patterns and textures that the paint and rust make. Some are really works of art in themselves. Now anywhere there's been a neat one underfoot, a photo is a must. In my studio you can find quite a photo collection of amazing grates.

One of my self imposed challenges for this painting was to create a design with circular shapes that allowed eye movement from shape to shape. Squares, equilateral triangles, and circles are predictable shapes that usually capture the viewer's eye, to the point of stopping eye movement in the painting completely. Using both value changes and color contrasts helped to create a flow throughout the painting.

The second challenge was to paint a more curvaceous painting. When painting, I always seem to prefer straight edges over curves, so doing the reverse could help me stretch a little. Somehow the challenges helped me stay directed.

I'm super pleased with the results. Sounds like a 'pat on the back,' but it's not. It just makes me very happy with how the painting turned out, and I really enjoy looking at it. It's almost as if it appeared on the paper magically, and I had little to do with it. (That's not true, of course, since there are more than 50 hours of work (play) in its actual creation.) Check the previous post on this blog for the work in progress of this grate painting. You'll see that several changes were made from that post to this finished piece.

Don't you LOVE textures? They are so incredibly inspiring and tantalizing. Artists HAVE to paint them, don't we? Since this is Fluid Acrylics on YUPO, creating amazing textures was just way too much fun. At first, my focus was on developing a good composition, then the textures were a blast to add after that was worked out.

It's been said that texture is the 'icing on the cake.' If the painting's a good one, people will want to get closer, then be surprised by the textures and details. If the painting has a weak composition, they may pass by it too quickly, and even the most wonderful textures in the world won't make them stop and look.

I really hated for this painting to be done. And the title is still undecided. GRATE JUNK - GRATE EXPECTATIONS - ROAD TRIP - UNDERFOOT - AMAZING GRATES - ETERNALLY GRATE FULL - TREAD ON ME - HITTING THE PAVEMENT...............

Here are photos of my other two grate paintings. The 'close up' grate is Watercolor on YUPO, and the Italian Grates are Fluid Acrylics on YUPO, completed about two years ago. Now for the next one!!!!!!!

GRATE ADVENTURE

This post is the beginning of the last three weeks' adventure in painting and shows the progress of my painting process for this GRATE painting. So many times I've said that planning takes almost 75% of the time I spend on a picture. I thought that would be true this time, too, since it took over 12 hours to take the pix and develop the overall plan. But the painting time also took MUCH longer before this one was done.

After taking photos of my subject, I cut them up and montaged them onto a board to get an idea of the effectiveness of the future pattern of lights and darks. No matter how unique or fascinating a subject is, unless the light and dark values make an eye capturing pattern, it's unlikely the viewer will want to walk up to the painting. The first black and white photo of the above montage shows a weak pattern, so adjustments were made with pen and ink and a white marker - see the second black and white. Some shapes were moved slightly and some eliminated.

Next the drawing was transferred with a regular Derwent watercolor pencil onto a full sheet of heavy weight YUPO paper, and gray Pebeo miskit was painted into a few important white shapes. Then I liberally applied a colorful wash over the whole paper, as seen here, using FLUID ACRYLICS like regular watercolors. Color choices were determined by the future colors in the painting but applied in a very random manner. No attempt was made to 'color' in the lines. Creating accidental textures and wonderful color nuances seemed most important to me at this point.

Once the basic wash dried, I attempted to define specific shapes as seen in the progression of the next three photos. The last photo here indicates the painting less than half finished. There's more to come in the next post which will show the final GRATE painting.

This photo shows the fancier grate redone. In the photo above, it has a tired, overworked look, so all of the paint had to be removed, (YEAH for YUPO) then the drawing redrawn before the grate was repainted.

Thinking of a title has been fun because of the possibilities of interchanging GRATE and GREAT. Initially it was to be titled, "OVERLOOKED & UNDERFOOT." What are your suggestions?

CELEBRATE

This week has brought a wonderful change of weather. CELEBRATE! Leaves of flowers are finally popping up, and hope is in the air for winter to be about over.

These harbingers of spring were painted several years ago as a class demo. The whole paper was wet before the paint was loosely and liberally applied, then the little catkin shapes of the pussy willow were lifted off before the paper began to dry. A touch of pale pink was tapped into a few of the damp fuzzy shapes, at that point. Carefully adding just a bit of popcorn salt to some of the tips of the light shapes added a different texture, too.

Once the paper was dry, the stems and calyxes were added. One edge of the stems was lifted to give a sense of dimension. Makes a nice card to send to friends. 'Happy Spring' to all blogger friends north of the equator. And HAPPY BIRTHDAY to you today, Suzanne!

"HOPE FOR SPRING" Transparent Watercolor on 140# Arches, 5 x 7"

REVISIONS

Yesterday my copy of Between Two Kingdoms arrived. The author, Storyteller Joe Boyd, has blogged about how many revisions he made to his book and how it felt like he was sending his child off to college once it was finished. Probably many artists from many genre are this way about their creative work. I certainly am with specific paintings and really regret with having parted with a few of them.

This painting from last summer went through several revisions itself. It began as a watercolor batik on rice paper but is now a mixed media painting on rice paper, mounted on a wrapped canvas. It, along with a couple of other paintings, left home this week for an art show that opens this Friday in Oakley at The Red Tree Gallery, east of downtown Cincinnati.

Some may prefer the original look of the painting - see first draft posted below - but it's long gone - now covered with more watercolor, fluid acrylics, caran d'ache crayons, and some ink. The original dark border was so inhibiting, and the pattern of lights and darks in the original was too weak to capture the eye. The arch on the right appeared too dominant, and the beautiful stone wall by the steps seemed like a fussy soldier, nearly forbidding entrance up the steps.

Those were my thoughts when I began to play with the adjustments. It also seemed to need something personal in it, too, something alive other than plants. Now there's a fairly obscure woman looking out of one of the windows. Putting someone walking up the steps seemed like the obvious thing to do and too predictable, too. A cat might have been nice somewhere perched on a step???

Sacrifices of some of the good parts of a work of art are often necessary to make the whole piece pull together. That's what happened here. No longer is this so obviously a watercolor batik, but hopefully, the painting is stronger. While I totally loved the glow in the original,- shown here to the left with the dark border - the impact of the revised painting above tells the story so much better of the ancient buildings and passages in a charming village on Lake Como.

If you are interested in seeing the original with its initial revisions done this past July click HERE. Have a great week!

"COMO COUNTRY" Transparent Watercolor and Hot Wax on Kinwashi, with Sumi Ink, Fluid Acrylics, Caran d'Ache Crayons, mounted on Wrapped Canvas 18 x 24"

CALLING IT QUITS

We win some and we loose some, but when working on YUPO, there are more options to try before we have to call it "Quits." This first photo shows the results of my demo this past Wednesday for the Greater Cincinnati Watercolor Society.

My focus was to explain the importance of patterns of darks and lights as well as demonstrate many of the possibilities of applying Fluid Acrylic paint to YUPO. We all had a good time, and a dozen or so stayed after the demo for a two hour mini workshop to experiment with using the Fluid Acrylics on the YUPO.

The next morning, with brush in hand, as well as a squeegee, I worked on the demo painting. At one point, it seemed like a good idea to switch the painting to a fall foliage atmosphere, as you can see here in the second photo. (The 'cool' strip on the right hand side was mostly warm but photographed cooler for some reason.)

Adding the distant tress caused the painting to look way overworked and much too haphazard and busy. They were added to help balance the busy-ness of the foreground grasses. Bad idea. And the colors look too much like the 'avocado' olive greens and 'harvest gold' oranges of the late 60's.

Alcohol to the rescue! No, not to drink, but to remove the mess on the YUPO paper. Again, the bluish cast is not accurate, but it's now very white from one side to the other where the paint was lifted.

Working on YUPO offers SO MANY options when working with the Fluid Acrylics. Mistakes can easily be corrected, lifted, covered, etc. The textures and edges that result when lifting the paint with alcohol lend a wonderful surprise to the surface too.

This is where the painting is now...but maybe it'll change again. The colors are still warm dominance, as planned, but the season seems more springlike. Possibly some of the grasses could have purple or white Japanese iris blooms atop them in hopes of adding more to the springtime atmosphere???

The journey to create is so much fun, so fulfilling and exciting, that even when the results aren't nearly as special as expected, it's still all totally worth it. Some paintings, maybe this one, need to be in the "CALLING IT QUITS" drawer, but they serve as experience for the next possible masterpiece.....hopefully:-)

"SPRINGTIME CHANGES THINGS" Fluid Acrylics and Caran d'Ache Crayons on Medium Weight YUPO 26 x 20"

SKETCHED AND READY TO PAINT

Tomorrow morning brings me the special opportunity of painting a demo for the Greater Cincinnati Watercolor Society. I'll be presenting many of the possibilities of how to create watercolor-looking paintings using Fluid Acrylics on Yupo.

This 20x26" sketch on medium weight YUPO has nearly turned into a very large value study but shows my subject matter for the morning. The drawing and values have been done with a regular DERWENT watercolor pencil to help the artists see how the painting's pattern will be established with lights, mediums, and darks.

The pencil was a light gray blue color (though the color didn't photograph right,) and my intent was to show 4 to 5 values throughout the painting, using the w/c pencil. All I'll have to do is fill in the appropriate areas with colors of the right values with fluid acrylics. The watercolor pencil will almost completely dissolve when brushed over twice with paint, but if some remains, it could add textural interest to the painting. We'll see...

In the afternoon after critiques, everyone who stays will be experimenting with the fluid acrylics on YUPO using lots of fun tools. YUPO and fluid acrylics are presently my favorites for creating paintings.

There are two large 26x40" YUPO/Fluid Acrylic paintings in progress in my studio right now, which is unusual for me. Normally I must finish one painting before ever starting another. However, for some reason (unknown to me,) I have 9 different paintings, all works in progress, laying around in the studio. How did that happen? It actually seems like a lot of fun to have so many possibilities to choose from each day. And it's sure keeping me busy and, somehow, staying focused hasn't been a bit of a problem!

Sunday while I was painting, we enjoyed the treat of seeing some wonderful feathered visitors up close. Betsy, Marianne, and I saw not just one, but THREE pileated woodpeckers outside the studio on or perched near the suet feeders at the same time. Incredible for such a shy bird! They are marked so beautifully, and they are SO big. It looked like Mama. Papa, and Baby... though baby was nearly as big as Mama. Wish everyone could have seen them.

Watch for the finished painting soon, along with the other nine eventually, I hope.

ANOTHER TWENTY MINUTES

Here's another '20 minute' challenge painting, showing the finished painting, along with the actual scene in front of me, as well as how my painting area was set up. The apple by my painting supplies is my timer. Before Setting the timer for 20 minutes, I make sure that everything is ready to go and that I am focused and intent on the subject at hand.

The paper was a 5x7" piece of Strathmore Aquarius II that had previously been 'textured' using another process. The existing textures seemed to lend themselves to a snowy scene, but there was no pure white left on the 5x7" paper. Therefore, some white watercolor paint was touched into some snowy areas to help push the contrasts of values a bit. Using it in several small places helped it look like it was meant to be and not just a correction.

My inspiration was the effect of warm golden brown leaves hanging on the oak tree, surrounded by the cold of a February winter day. After finishing it, my thoughts were that just the tree and a couple of birds would have made a much more interesting painting. It's such a challenge to leave out what's not important. Seems like whatever we see, we often feel the need to put in the painting. A wise person said --- don't let what you see dictate what you paint! Great advice.

SLICK

In 'pre-YUPO' days, the unique surfaces available to paint on were either gessoed watercolor paper or watercolor paper coated with gloss medium. Aquacanvas, Aquaboard, and Clayboard for Watercolor hadn't arrived yet, and YUPO, then called Kimdura paper, was just beginning to emerge in the art world as a surface to explore.

This watercolor painting was created over layers of gloss medium. First, the polymer gloss medium was applied in two or three coats to create a slick, smooth finish, and each coat had to dry before the next one was applied.

The very week that I painted this picture was the same week someone handed me a small sheet of YUPO, back in 1997. It took two years for me to find my way on that slick YUPO surface, even more slick than the gloss medium surface. I nearly hated the crazy things that happened with the paint on YUPO then, but I refused to give up. Finally, a few breakthroughs encouraged me to keep painting on the YUPO. How I love it now! The possibilities are limitless of what can be created on this incredible surface.

Next Wednesday, I'll be giving a YUPO demo at the Greater Cincinnati Watercolor Society meeting in Mt. Adams. We'll also have a class afterwards so that artists can further explore how to handle this surface. This time the demo will be with Fluid Acrylics, applied like watercolor. Hope to see you there if you live in the area.

Here's the painting reversed, to make a point of how our eye normally prefers to enter a picture from the left. Here the waterfalls is, in our minds, falling down (into the lower left hand corner,) and it seems that it's hard to go up against the flow to enter the painting at the lower left. What do you think? Is there better eye movement throughout the painting with the falls in the lower left or the lower right?

"OREGON" Transparent Watercolor on 140# Hot Pressed Arches precoated with Gloss Medium, 30 x 22"

WISHES

All of us here in the Ohio River Valley have a zillion photos now of our record snowfalls. One snowfall was beautiful, the second one was gorgeous, the third was enough but they kept falling, almost daily. This lovely hula snow honey greeted all the artists yesterday who made it to classes. It's wishful thinking that it could be warm enough to wear flip flops.

It's supposed to snow Saturday so I'm heading north, out of here. There's a Watercolor Society of Indiana meeting on Sunday in Indianapolis with artist Rena Bouwer painting to live music provided by guitarist Joe Peters. Before that, I get to do some serious 'Grandmothering.' I'm packing lots of paint and paper for them to use up when I'm at their house.

Yesterday Dawn let me know how wonderful the weather is in her neck of the woods --- in the mountains. SIXTY DEGREES!!! Makes me think about moving, but I do love it here.

Have a great weekend, and I promise - no more snow pictures. Thinking spring:-) By the way, the hula snow honey has a REAL belly BUTTON, but it didn't show up in the photo since it was white, too.

HAPPY DAY!

Finally, a couple days without snowfall. We're happy, all of us, even our blanketed deer seen outside the studio walkway. She was waiting and wondering where all the artists are. They've returned to paint. YEAH!

Two nights ago after my honey cleaned everything off again, it snowed again....of course. We should be used to it by now but most of us are whining.

He really does enjoy that John Deere snowblower, but it was a bear to clear all the snow from our up hill drive and the parking area. What were we thinking when we sold our snow plow 20 years ago? Global warming, maybe.
It's so good to paint with friends again. Class yesterday was perfect even though several in the class couldn't make it.

Some like to paint alone but I'm definitely a paint-with-people-person most of the time, unless I'm getting a painting ready. When I'm planning, I need solitude and quiet. When I'm painting, I so enjoy the creative energy of other artists. We're all different. How about you?

TWENTY

Here's the latest of my twenty minute paintings. The inspiration comes from all the snow we've had - a record for sure. This black glove has seen it's share of digging out snow, and painting it was pretty challenging, too.
While looking for paper to paint on, I came across some 'textured' papers I'd created several years ago at a workshop with Peggy Brown. Twenty minute paintings would be a perfect way to use these watercolor-painted textured papers. The first photo shows the finished painting, then each successive photo shows the work in progress going backwards. Also a reference photo taken after the painting was finished is at the end of this post.

This shows the painting with only 2 minutes left to paint. The edges must still be softened here and there (the darks are too harsh,) and some adjustments need to be made to the lighter areas. A few light hard edges must be softened, but keeping hard edges near the focal area is crucial.

I'm pleased with the fresh look of the glove at this point and must be be cautious now with each brush stroke. Overdoing it is so easy to do. Every stroke counts, especially with watercolor at this point. The pressure is on!

When 15 minutes showed on the timer, this was where the painting was. Almost all the main shapes are in, except for that big shadow shape yet to come and the rest of the wrist of the glove. Focusing on painting just the shapes in the correct value takes intense concentration. My inclination was to paint the fingers of the gloves instead of the shadow shapes on them. I wanted to paint the glove like I would pull it on my hand. THINK shadows and shapes.

To make the dark black of the glove, I dipped into the darkest colors in my palette, using controlled moisture, and let them mix pretty much on the paper. There's some Quinacridone Violet, Indanthrone, Ultramarine Turquoise, and Quin Burnt Orange, plus some Cobalt Blue and Cerulean. No black paint, though. The colors make the blacks seem livelier to me than black paint out of a tube.

This shows ten minutes worth of painting time. I remember wondering if I could get the painting done in another 10 minutes or not. Since I had no drawing to start with, I had to rely on painting connecting shapes. The proportions were close enough to be believable so far, at least. There's a lot to do before this will look like a glove, though. It was hard to stay focused on values and shapes, yet the folds in the glove made such neat shapes to paint - see photo below.

It sure seemed like a great idea to start with the darkest shapes, connecting those shapes as much as possible. With no pre-drawing, it was a challenge to make the correct angles and curves in the correct relationship to each other. I started with the buckle, a most fascinating shape and near what I hoped would be the focal area, at the lower left, and worked my way around the finger shapes. Using just one value at this point helped simplify the process a little. My eyes looked for the darkest darks, and that's what I focused on painting. This photo was taken exactly five minutes after the painting began.

Here is how the paper looked before the painting began. Subtle textures of muted colors would make a perfect background for the winter gloves. The paper is 80# Strathmore Aquarius II, a synthetic blend that doesn't stretch and is quite soft. Paint shapes, paint shadows, forget about the THINGS you see and paint those shapes and shadows. Then fix the edges of the shapes to be either hard, soft or lost edges. Use whatever colors you love and get the values correct. It'll work every time! Have fun:-)

< Reference used of my husband's two gloves. He's spent lots of time outside that last two days clearing snow. I really hope to have class in the morning, first class in two weeks' time, due to the weather! It's been beautiful, though.

Blogging this took about ten times longer than painting it. It's sure faster and easier to paint with a one inch flat Daniel Smith synthetic brush than use a computer and keyboard to tell about it.

DEMO

Wednesday morning's class asked for a demo on pouring miskit and pouring paint to create a background for a painting. Steve Blackburn introduced this technique, winning major awards with his paintings. He also teaches workshops to help artists discover how to create this unique look.

First, a small blop of miskit was placed on the paper, and immediately the edges of that miskit blop were lightly spritzed with water to make the miskit trail out into those spritzes. The paper was turned and tilted to encourage a random miskit pattern. Eventually, the white paper had miskit trailings crawling over much of the surface. (See Steve's website for better instructions.)

When the miskit had dried, watercolor paint was poured over the paper and allowed to mingle with other colors which were added while still wet. For this one, warm colors were poured first over most of the paper first. Then when they were completely dry, cool colors were poured in chosen areas, with soft edges created with a sprayer. The whole paper was covered with paint, leaving no pure white areas anywhere. When all the paint was dry, the miskit was removed to reveal intricate patterns of whites which would play an important role in the painting.

The drawing was done next, as well as a small value study in black and white. Once the painting began, the idea was to preserve as much as the original poured areas as possible and to include some of the white patterns within the focal area. Negative shapes behind the subject must be painted in, as well as darker areas within the subject - like the shapes on the giraffes, the eyes, etc.

Check out another master at this process. Kathy Wirth has adapted this technique to her own style of painting and creates breathtaking and unique florals, pouring miskit and paint first before 'pulling' out the flowers almost magically from the poured surface.

It's a lot more difficult than it looks to create beautiful art this way. The challenge always seems to be to NOT PAINT what you are painting. That's sure confusing, but it's true. To let the beauty of those original pours be the highlight of the painting, they should remain untouched in the focal area as well as in other parts of the painting. This process is a great way to shift an artist's thinking from painting things like flowers or giraffes, into painting shapes of lights and darks.

These giraffes were finished last week during a snow storm, and today we're getting a lot more snow again. It'll be a great day to paint on YUPO and watch the birds.

"TWO FOR LUNCH" Transparent Watercolor on Hot Pressed Crescent Premium Watercolor Board, 20 x 30"

PHOTO OPS

There are some great opportunities when we have a cold, snowy week, especially if the camera's handy and the bird feeder is full. Seeing a Pileated Woodpecker is a major event, and this week he flew under the upper deck to feed less than three feet from my studio door. Needless to say, I didn't get much painting done that day or the next.

In the second photo of him, there's a hungry starling quietly waiting his turn. Normally they are very obnoxious and aggressive birds, but the size of this woodpecker has him beat.

Soon a Flicker joined the troops feeding outside the door. She's been back a lot and is extremly cautious.

At first she fed at the seed feeder, but then decided the suet feeder would be a great dessert. She was willing to take on the Red Belly Woodpecker who visits us often. They flitted and danced around the suet feeder, then the flicker wanted it all to herself. She won.

The yellow under her wings was breathtaking, and the red on the Red Belly Woodpecker was more pronounced when he was in flight. Later the Red Belly returned to finish dessert. And I was happy with many, many pictures to download and work into future paintings. Oh, to capture the excitement of it all in a painting.......

MORE 20 MINUTE CHALLENGES

All four of my classes have taken on the challenge of creating three small pictures a week, timing themselves to get each painting or drawing done within 20 minutes. When the timer 'dings', we have to put the brush down whether we're done or not.

This post shows my six from the past two weeks. Some turned out ok, some not, but the point is to spend time with that brush in my hand and observe, simplify, and create! We're not expecting masterpieces, but when the artists bring their 20 minute paintings to show in class, it's amazing how creative and diverse each painting is.

My six 5x7" paintings here are transparent watercolor which is freshest when it's not overworked. The 20 minute time limit certainly helps to control that desire to fuss and overwork the painting.

Painting the Christmas cactus, especially the clay pot, was fun to do. The colors were loosey juicy and allowed to flow, creating my favorite watercolor look. Quite a bit of negative painting was done around shapes, but without any drawing to follow. Challenging!

The trees were an exercise in negative painting, too, with no preliminary sketch. There's so little time to do these that I seldom draw anything for these 20 minute challenges since the drawing must be part of the time allowed for each picture.

These trees are outside the sliding doors of my studio and have been covered with lots of snow for several days. At least we didn't get as much as the east coast did, but in the past five days, we've gotten over 12" of gorgeous sparkling snow.

Squirrels scamper continually around the bird feeders outside the window, and this little fellow stood still for at least 20 seconds while I sketched him from a side view. Then he moved and never went back to that original position, so I had to adapt. The drawing time was basically wasted.

Their fluffy tails catch my eye and really make me want to paint them. I'll try another one soon with better results, I hope.

My honey was more cooperative than the squirrel and pretty much held his pose while he did some bookwork. He LOVES his new I-pod that our kids got him for Christmas... but says his nose is too big in this picture. He's listening to his Ipod with my super deluxe earphones that the kids got me for Christmas.

His glasses are painted too small, but I enjoyed this challenge. He has a gorgeous head of hair much like his Dad's. No prelim drawing here, but still a pretty decent likeness.

The next 20 minute painting shows a red sun visor that I sometimes wear outside to 'see' the values in a landscape. This was a BEAR to paint, maybe because the shapes were predictable and uninteresting or just weird. I grabbed some white gouache to put in some needed highlights and ended up going over the twenty minute mark. Bad. Doubly bad because it didn't help much to make it a better painting.

Kathy Cartwright has been doing these challenges herself for years and now has devoted a special blog for people who want to join her. Learn more about it HERE, but don't tell her I went over the 20 minutes on this visor.

The last TMC is of Ginger painting in Thursday night's class and didn't end up with quite the looseness that I'd hoped for. My focus quickly turned to getting a likeness in her face, instead of capturing the sense of an artist at work. It's tricky to keep the initial motivation for a painting at the forefront. My desire was to capture my impressions of the light and shadows. The hands, especially the one with the brush, do a better job of showing what I was after. No prelim drawing here either.

We've had no classes this week due to the snow, but it's great to kick back and take photos of all the wildlife outside the window. Watch for some photos soon of what's been showing up at the feeders here during the snow. It's been incredible.