TAKING ON A CHALLENGE

Jane James provided the photo to the left for a July paint challenge for one of the Yahoo online groups called Watercolor Workshop. I decided to try this one on YUPO to see what I could come up with.

The results posted to the right were very predictable and indicative of how I paint when given an assignment. Although I submitted this first attempt to the group, I knew I wanted to pursue the subject more.

I adjusted the same painting several times before I felt I was getting anywhere. The third post here shows some progress, a bit more contemporary but still not what I had envisioned.

Susan Roper from the group helped me out with a critique part way through which I much appreciated. After simplifying the background areas some, I called it quits - see the last painting posted here.

It's great to work on YUPO with watercolor because adjustments are fairly easy and fun to do. George James calls it deconstruction and reconstruction of a painting.

The finished painting's stored in a drawer now, and I doubt I'll do any more to it. It was fun taking on the group challenge, but I think I paint better when I'm challenging myself.

"PARTY CRASHERS" Transparent Watercolor on Heavy Weight YUPO 20 x 26"

PAINT

We were allowed only five colors for our final workshop painting .... but I goofed and used six. Instructor Carol Carter's assignment to us was to paint something we really like while incorporating the wet in wet approach she'd been teaching us, using pure colors, on a half sheet of paper.

The colors are all Daniel Smith watercolors, which I love. SeveraI years ago, I made a gradual switch from mostly Winsor Newton paints to Daniel Smith paints, trying some Holbien, Maimeri Blu, Da VInci, American Journey, and Schmincke brands along the way. There are a couple of colors I prefer from other brands but seldom use those colors anymore.

Phthalo Blue and Quinacridone Burnt Orange make up the background with some Permenant Yellow Deep and Cobalt Violet Deep added for halos. Quinacridone Magenta and Transparent Pyrrol Orange along with the Phthalo and Permanent Yellow Deep created the colors on the paint tubes. It's kind of a goofy painting - giant paint tubes - but it's what I love.

Earlier that morning I was uncertain about what to paint. While sitting in church, I grabbed a pen and drew a quick sketch of three paint tubes, scribbling a circle around them. My brother saw me writing and thought I was taking notes. The message was about creativity, and we even watched an artist paint during part of the celebration.

"MY MAIN SQUEEZE" Transparent Watercolor on 300#CP Arches 15 x 22"

GOOD VIBRATIONS

Another exercise from our Carol Carter Workshop. The three days Carol was here were filled with COLOR, vibrant, exciting, unexpected color!

Day two really threw me. Carol stated that we'd be creating space and form with color, not value. Aah oh. My favorite phrase is that color gets all the credit and value does all the work. Now we were going to prove this wrong.

We were to paint three things, one with a blue base, one red, one yellow. Using the remaining two colors, we were to define the shapes giving them form.

These little chickadees look like they've been dipped in inks. I do love the one on the right.

The colors I used on the background and birds were Daniel Smith watercolors - Phthalo Blue, Hansa Yellow, and Quinacridone Magenta. That's a switch from the day before when I used only two colors - Ultramarine Turquoise and Quinacridone Burnt Orange by Daniel Smith.

Every shape was really wet before the paint was brushed on. The yellow halos were added in the wet background before the birds were painted.

When I finished, I realized that color may look like it's doing the work of defining the shapes, but at least in this little painting, it is still value that is the true work horse. Of course, color gets ALL the credit.

"SCUTTLEBUTT" Transparent Watercolor on 140#CP Arches 15 x 10" COLLECTED

DANCING WITH PAINT

This is my second painting of Day One from our Carol Carter workshop. She said to paint what we love (so true always,) and I seem to lean toward nature a lot.

These three trees were supposed to have shadows filtering toward the viewer, but just before I was ready to put the shadows in, I noticed that the unpainted shadow areas looked like white skirts on female trees. I don't know what music they're dancing to, but they seem to have lost their heads. These paintings are great exercises to teach us how to let the water and paint do the work.

"STRUTTING OUR STUFF" transparent Watercolor on 140CP Arches 14 x 11"

WET IN WET PROCESSES

This past three days were spent submerged in a wet-in-wet process of painting with transparent watercolors. Carol Carter flew in from St. Louis to teach 12 of us how she creates her dynamite paintings that are so full of color and movement. She did a great job, and we learned some very valuable things to help us on our art journey.

Check out Rhonda's blog, http://rhcarpenter.blogspot.com/ where she has detailed what Carol explained. Over the next couple of days, I'll post my attempts at painting using Carol's directions.

The first painting was to be done with only two colors, one warm and one cool, and each shape was wet before we applied the paint. I felt my painting was a little hard on the eyes, yet the idea is to use pure, pure pigment. No muted colors allowed! I was challenged. Here's the first day's work.

"BILLOWS" Transparent Watercolor on 140#CP Arches 15 x 11"

CAROL CARTER WORKSHOP BEGINS

No painting to post today because in less than 12 hours, we begin our much anticipated 'CAROL CARTER" workshop here. When we're done, I'll post some of the inspiration and instruction we've had. Sure looking forward to it.

I'll post again by Monday. Until then, I'll be painting, painting, painting! See you then.

RECKLESS ABANDON

What fun to paint with reckless abandon, as if you're plunging off the very edge of an enormous waterfalls. Today in class we incorportated a couple of Nick Simmons' (see side bar for his great blog) unique techniques and let the paint, water, and liquid gesso do most of the work. The less brushwork, the better, with each stroke being as fresh and free as the flow of water shooting over a falls.

Two weeks ago we were at Multnomah Falls in Oregon - breathtaking - and the inspiration for this painting. And painting this in a great Tuesday morning class full of friends made this 61st birthday extra special.

Everyone's paintings were original and experimental. Some people completed their work but most will put some more finishing touches on their paintings. The first stage of my painting is shown below, and you can see that everyone is hard at work. Now Honey and I are headed out to eat...YES!


"RECKLESS ABANDON" Fluid Acrylics and White Gesso on 140#CP Arches 16 x 23" COLLECTED

BATIK vs BATIK LOOK

For whatever reason, I like to paint the same picture several times using different techniques while expressing my feelings about the beauty I see. Our grandma used a sewing machine like this, but the reference for these pictures was taken in Sauder's Village in NW Ohio.

The first painting was created using torn masking tape to save areas before I painted layers of random colors over the whole paper. The second painting, also posted earlier in this blog, is a wax batik on watercolor paper, using watercolors instead of dyes, and it's three times as big as the first painting.

Both processes allow me to imagine from beginning to end just what the painting will look like. Since the paint's covered over gradaully, layer after layer, with either wax or tape, it's a mystery how it'll turn out until all the tape or wax is removed. It's like putting a puzzle together without seeing how it looks until it's all done.

I love good surprises, and maybe that's why I like these processes. Of course, there have been a few 'bad' surprises, too, using these techniques . . . goes with the territory of making art. Parts of the bad surprises can help make a good collage later maybe.

It's neat to see the different moods in each painting, even though they are of the same subject. I'll be painting this again soon.

Both are done with Transparent Watercolor and are in art collections.

BATIK LOOK ALIKE

Last week I posted the batik window I demo-ed during Craftsummer, painted from the same photo reference as this one. Today's post has a batik look, but it's done using masking tape as the preserver of colors and values, instead of using wax.

Actually, when a painting's all done, the wax is easier to iron off than the masking tape is to pull off. And the wax is much easier to put on than tearing little pieces of tape to fit each shape. But I love the results, so I think it's worth it.

Each time I use this photo reference, I like to change the quilt area to my liking. One of my long time good friends from way back in grade school bought this to hang in her family room, and I even get visiting privileges to see it (and her.)

"BETSY'S ROOM" Transparent Watercolor on 140#CP Arches, about 17 x 23" COLLECTED

THE REST OF THE BATIKS

Grab of cup of tea or coffee and enjoy the second half of the Miami University Craftsummer students' BATIK slide show. Comments are always welcome.

BATIK! BATIK! BATIK!

The batiks in this slide show are original works of art, created by college students at a workshop I taught earlier this month at Miami University. Two of the students were undergrads, and two took the workshop as a non credit course while all the rest of the artists were graduate level. Their work was superb as you will see.

There were so many masterpieces that I must post the rest of them later this week. Everyone was to create five, 12" squares along with at least one larger painting. Some of the paintings are really large - 24"+ in size and fabulous!

Wish you could see them in real life. The creativity was wonderful. ENJOY!

BATIK, ETC.

A couple of weeks ago in Oxford, Ohio, at Miami University, sixteen women, mostly art teachers, met for a week to delve into the possibilities of using the wax batik process with transparent watercolor. This week I'll post a slide show of the creative works that each of them produced.

The first posted painting here is the piece I did partially as a batik demo during that unique week at Miami. The photo reference for this painting is one I've used several times because I love the shuttered window I'd photographed years ago at Sauder's Village in northwestern Ohio.

I'm also posting two other paintings I did of this same subject, one painted on YUPO and one done using a masking tape technique (rather than wax) to preserve shapes. I thought the comparison of the three different approaches would be interesting to see even though they have been posted before on this blog (along with another YUPO variation of this same subject.)

I'm sure I'll be painting this one again and again because I never loose interest in seeing what can be done with the play of lights and darks in the painting. All have been fun to do and have been painted during the last several years.

1st Painting above - Batik 15" x 20" COLLECTED

2nd Painting - Yupo COLLECTED

3rd Painting - Tape Technique

All created with transparent watercolor COLLECTED

POURING PAINT

One of my favorite things about watercolor is how luminous the paint appears. When paint is applied by pouring, without the aid of a brush, it seems to have even more luminosity, too. That's how this painting started.

The first picture here shows the painting right after I'd removed the miskit. All the edges are crisp as a result of using the miskit, but the painting has a very graphic and, unfortunately, almost monotone look. (I think I let the colors blend together too much during the early pours.) I was not ready to call the painting finished so I had to get out my brush and make lots of adjustments.

This old nurse log 'lives' in Washington State, where Dawn Bailey took an excellent photograph of it with all the moss and ferns growing around it. Be sure to check out her nature blog - Vulture Cafe - on the side bar.

We painted together a week ago, and this was one of our projects. In fact, it's actually her fault that I'm teaching 'online' now to several artists - she instigated the idea and nagged me until I said we'd give it a try. She's a great photographer and knows her way around handling a paintbrush pretty well, too. We had a good time last week painting in real life instead of via cyberspace on the Internet.

The next painting shows lots of the adjustments, but the last photo shows what I think is the finished painting. In this last photo, only minor adjustments were made to various edges along with subtle value and color changes to some small areas. Because I painted over almost the entire picture with a brush, much of the original luminosity of pouring the paint has been compromised.

See if you can find the mountain chickadee that was added in the last photo - which sang to us as we painted that day in our woodland studio. It really looks more like a sparrow, so you'll have to use your imagination.

"HAVEN" Transparent Watercolor on 140#CP Arches 11 x 15" COLLECTED

MAGNIFICENT MOLLIE

Some animals are so beautiful that it's hard to imagine painting them as magnificent as they are. Mollie is like this.

Although she's a sleek black dog, there's no black paint on her. What you see here is lots of Quinacridone Magenta, Ultramarine Turquoise, Phthalo Blue, Quin Burnt Orange, Indanthrone, Cerulean, and Lunar Earth, all from Daniel Smith Company out of Seattle.

I've started painting a full length view of her on a larger sheet of paper, but for now, she looks like this. My hope is to capture how exquisitely gorgeous she is.

"FIRST MOLLIE" Transparent Watercolor on 140CP Arches - 11 x 15"

SAM KITTY

Got home tonight from a great vacation with our 8 yr. old grandson - spent wandering down the coast of Oregon then back up the Cascade
Mountain Range, finishing along the beautiful Columbia River - beautiful, luscious country - so hard to leave behind to come back to the humid, muggy midwest.

Crater Lake was beyond any words! Thanks, Lynn, for telling us about it.

We used to come home from trips to be greeted by this gorgeous old cat named Sam. He's gone now, but I still thought of him when we got back in town.

He was a Maine Coon, and I think, 'part dog.' Our younger son taught him to sit and stand on command! I miss him. This painting was done several years ago, and animals are just about the only commissions I ever accept to paint now.

Looking forward to class tomorrow, but it won't have quite the atmosphere that Dawn and I had as we spent the day at a picnic table in the woods last week painting amidst the Oregon ferns and conifers. Great memories.

"SAM KITTY" Transparent Watercolor on 140#CP Fabriano Artistico 11 x 15"

YUPO STILL LIFE

This bouquet was so gorgeous I simply had to paint it. I used miskit to mask out the pure white areas on several flowers. Even though I could easily lift off the paint later from the slick YUPO surface, I would not be able to get a crisp edge like I needed for the daisies and lilies.


When you have a minute, check out the slide show on the right hand side bar of this blog. All the paintings in the slide show were created on YUPO, and there are many diverse approaches shown in the slide show.


One of the exciting things about being an artist is being able to 'play and discover' new ways to do things. Painting watercolor on unusual surfaces certainly brings out the playfulness in me. I used to love painting on a sheet of gessoed paper or a sheet of paper with mat medium painted randomly over it, but YUPO is already to go just like it is.

Yesterday, Dawn Bailey (Vulture Cafe - see side bar) and I got a chance to paint together and took just a little time to play on YUPO. We painted a top a picnic table amidst ferns and conifers. It was a perfect day and felt so good to be painting with a friend! Dawn brought along her hummingbird nest, and you wouldn't believe how very small it is to have held two baby birds. We had hotdogs and smoores over the campfire, and I saw a hummingbird dart down to some petunias nearby. What a great time.

(HAPPY BIRTHDAY, Matt!)


"SONNEY'S BOUQUET" Transparent Watercolor on YUPO 15 x 21"

IRISES ON YUPO

Painting flowers on YUPO can be a challenge because flowers are soft and have lots of lost edges. It's tricky to paint lost or soft edges where you want them on YUPO.

Artists who like to plan each and every stroke and know exactly what will happen next probably will never like YUPO. But if you're an artist who likes spontaneity, excitement, challenges, and surprises, you need to grab a sheet of YUPO and find out what all you can create on it.

I recently signed up to be part of a Yahoo Group called Watercolor Workshop and am starting one of the challenges they have each month. Of course, I'll do the painting on YUPO and post it here soon, too.

Although this post doesn't show it, YUPO is very very white. Sorry for the inaccuracy here.

"FANCY LADIES" Transparent Watercolor on YUPO 12 x 16"

IRIS ON MASA PAPER

Masa paper is a thin rice paper made out of sulphite, (whatever that is???) not rice. This painting was started the same way the hollyhocks began - see post below.

The whites or light areas in this picture were left as they are and the darker shapes painted around them. Both positive and negative painting was used to create the flowers and leaves.

Masa paper is thin, and when it's wet, it tends to 'ball up' quickly when it's brushed over with several strokes....looks like a cheap sweater if you over stroke the paper. It's best to let an area dry completely before adding more color.

Once the painting was completed, I glued it on a sheet of clean, acid free watercolor paper, using methyl-cellulose wall paper paste, taking care to smooth out the wrinkles without affecting the painted surface. If you haven't treid to paint on this, give it a shot. It's fun and easy - just avoid painting too dark at first.

"RUFFLES" Transparent Watercolors on Masa Paper adhered to 140#CP Arches 11 x 15

MASA PAPER

This week I'll be painting with a new friend on location, and we'll be using masa paper part of the time. Painting on this kind of rice paper is really easy and fun to do with watercolor.

First, we'll scrunch up the paper in a ball in order to create cracks in the surface of the paper where it'll then absorb the paint darker, kind of ike a batik look. Then we'll soak the ball of paper in water for a half a minute. After carefully spreading the wet paper flat, we'll float on some soft, light colors to create a gentle, subtle background effect.

Some areas may be left white or nearly white, and we may add some salt or spritz the almost dry paper to enhance the textures more. After the paper dries, we'll sketch our subject lightly on the paper.

The next part is the most fun because it's like magic. We'll lightly paint around the subject we've drawn, using existing colors, and pulling the colors out away from the edges of the subject so it doesn't look outlined or haloed at all. The subject will magically appear, and just need to small darks to finish it.

Some people call this "negative" painting because the subject - the positive shape - is avoided, and only the shapes around it are painted. But NEGATIVE painting sounds kind of bad, so one of my art students renamed it - SHADOW PAINTING! What a good description! We are painting the shadows and darker parts of the picture, leaving the existing light colors just as they are.

Some of the stems in this painting were painted negatively and some positively, but most the rest of the painting has been done by negative painting. I'll post a masa paper iris later this week that's created in a similar way. See you soon, Dawn!

"BLUSH OF PINK" Transparent Watercolor on Masa Paper & adhered to 140#CP Arches 9 x 12" COLLECTED

WHAT A WORKSHOP!

I'm home from the workshop. WHAT A WORKSHOP! Craftsummer, as it's called, began over 30 years ago at Oxford's Miami University and originated as a craft oriented program. Now its focus is fine art and artisan works - and it's an absolutely amazing opportunity for artists and art teachers to gain new directions in their art journeys.


In a week or so, I'll be able to post a slide show of the incredible batiks that this talented class created. You'll be impressed .... no, you'll be blown away by the creativity and quality of work which these fifteen gifted artists produced.


When I checked my emails, I found that Nava from http://navartpact.blogspot.com/ has awarded me the Arte y Pico award. Arte y Pico is a blog from Uruguay, whose blogger has come up with this award. It features a gracious angel with a batik looking dress and wings ready to soar - very impressive!

What's Art y Pico mean? As Ana, the award originator puts it, "Basically, ironically, it translates into a wonderful phrase in Mexico, 'lo maximo'. It will never find its counterpart in English, but if it HAD to, it would be something like, Wow. The Best Art. Over the top".

I'll soon be passing this special award onto five other artists' blogs that are awesome. THANK YOU SO MUCH, NAVA, for passing the award on to me.

BUFFALO BATIK

This is another oldie - but goodie, I think. I like the way the batik shows off the textures on this ancient water buffalo.

To see all of the batiks on this blog, go to the lower right hand column where it says LABELS, and click on batik. I'll be adding more after our workshop is over here at Miami U.

(Have a Happy Birthday tomorrow, Teresa!)

"BUFFALOED!" Transparent Watercolor on Kinwashi adhered to 140#CP Arches 16 x 9"

BURRO BATIK

The batik process has been around for a very very long time, but to be able to do batik, you just about have to think backwards from a normal painting process.


This batik was created several years ago. I usually do only one or two batiks a year, partially because of the mess, and partially because they take a lot of time. I also prefer working on batiks when there's really good air circulation in the studio, too, since hot paraffin fumes aren't so good to breathe.


This slide-converted-to-disc didn't reproduce the colors very accurately on this painting either. It's more colorful than shown on my computer monitor.


"HEAVY LOAD" Transparent Watercolor on Kinwashi adhered to 140#CP Arches 12 x 15"

BUGGY BATIK

It's workshop week at Miami University - in OHIO, (not near the ocean.) This campus is old, beautiful, well maintained, and a delightful university town.

This batik, not reproduced here to its advantage (sorry,) was created almost ten years ago after a trip to the Upper Peninsula of Michigan, at Mackinaw Island with a painting friend. This digital shows the picture as being way too blue and dark. I had a disc made from slides of paintings I'd done earlier and can't seem to get the correct coloring on my screen. I hope you get the idea.

"TRAVELING IN STYLE" Transparent Watercolor on Thai unryu adhered to 140#HP ARCHES 25 x 19" COLLECTED

BARN BATIK

This batiked barn's still standing on the winding road to Rising Sun, Indiana, but it looks like it may not be long for this world. Next week will be spent creating batiks at the Art Department of Miami University in Oxford, Ohio, where I'm to teach a course about paper batik.

Batik can be a slow and tedious process, yet I really like the change of pace. It could be called artistic meditation when you're going through the process of waxing a batik.

We'll be using watercolor instead of the normal dyes, working on a variety of rice papers with regular paraffin to wax the places we want to preserve. The best part of batik is the surprise when the wax is melted off to reveal your creation.

I'll be posting more of my batiks next week which were created several years ago. To see some of my favorites, go to the LABELS sidebar at the lower right hand side of this blog, and click on batik.

Hopefully, the college class will give me permission to post their finished batiks here on line. You'll be in for a treat. I know I'll be having fun all week.

"RISING SUN" Transparent Watercolor on Kinwashi adhered to 140# HP Arches 19 x 15" COLLECTED

CELEBRATE!!!

Tomorrow's the day for fire crackers and fireworks. The skies in the evening will be filled with amazing displays of colorful lights accompanied by lots of bangs and booms as we celebrate our nation's 232 'birthday.'

The little fellow here celebrates his birthday this coming Tuesday, too. He'll be eight and wants some basketball stuff for his birthday.

Becoming a grandparent and being an artist nearly requires that you paint portraits of your grandchildren. I painted this picture of our older grandson at the first Janet Rogers' Workshop I'd ever taken in Florida.

Learning to paint loosely is very challenging, especially when you're painting babies, yet I so enjoy the results when it turns out good. It looks like the paint was just haphazardly plopped onto the paper, but actually, much thought and consideration was given before quickly plopping that brush down each time.

HAPPY BIRTHDAY, AMERICA. And Happy 8th, B.R.M.

"BLUE JEAN BABY" Transparent Watercolor on 140# CP Arches 18 x 18" COLLECTED

SHADOWS

Last night at dusk, I was lucky enough to see a little hummingbird quickly inspect my flowers. I think he was grocery shopping. He didn't stay long at all.

This is another painting from the archives of twenty years of watercolor. Painting shadows has always been an exciting thing to create. This shadow on the side of our house caught my eye, and I had to paint it.

Shadows technically are darker, grayed down colors of the object they fall on. Their edges are hardest closet to the object they come from and get progressively softer the farther they are from it. Generally, shadows are also a bit warmer and darker closest to the object, and get cooler and lighter as they move farther away.

With those guidelines in mind, I try to paint shadows that are full of interest, adjusting the colors to be more than just 'gray,' adjusting the edges to be varied and softer, etc. Sometimes, I make sure that the object's local color also bounces some color into the shadow area near it.

I took Davey's Grey and Payne's Gray out of my palette about fifteen years ago. I think I've used Payne's Gray a couple of times since then but not for shadows. My tube of black watercolor is great to have for the right spot but not ever in a shadow. Shadows have color. Lots of color. Play it up when you paint shadows. Make them delicious.

"EVENING VISITOR" Transparent Watercolor on 140#CP Arches, 9 x 22"

GAYLE'S GARDEN

For many years, I had the pleasure of filling my mother-in-law's small backyard with flowers. However, that eventually gave way to my painting - allowing less time (and interest) for landscaping.

I think that it's easier to paint a flower than to dig a hole in our hard packed, clay soil, plant the flower, and then have to fight off the rabbits and deer and slugs and bugs during our hot, humid summers.

This year, my mother-in-law moved from her home of 50 years, but she's still enjoying this painting that I did several years ago for her. She misses her garden, though.

These iris are painted on a full sheet of Fabriano Artistico, a paper that allows the paint to be lifted and blended more easily after it's dry. Fabriano is slightly softer than Arches, and works well for portraits, too.

Mother-in-law's are a lot like flowers - some more beautiful and special than others - which perfectly describes mine. When our older son was about 3, he wanted to help me plant some bulbs for his grandma. Each variety was packaged in its own bag, so he 'helped' by dumping them all out . . . in one big pile . . . over 300 assorted bulbs! I was mortified, thinking that now there was no way I could follow my carefully planned, color coordinated landscape design." My mother-in-law laughed and said it would be beautiful. The next spring, it was.

"MUMSY'S GARDEN" Transparent Watercolor on 140#CP Fabriano Artistico, COLLECTED

FINISHED YUPO

This was the first big painting I did many years ago on a full sheet of heavy weight YUPO - 40 inches long by 26 inches wide. All the weights of YUPO are the same exact surface and accept the paint the same, but since YUPO doesn't absorb water at all, no matter what the weight is, it never stretches or warps like regular cotton watercolor paper does when it's wet.

I prefer the heavy weight over the lighter YUPO just because it's easier to handle. The light weight YUPO is very flimsy, so if I move the painting at all while I'm working on it, I have little control over how easily the paper flops around. Medium weight YUPO is ok to work on, too, and recently I've used the fairly flimsy translucent YUPO. Because you can see through what's called Transparent YUPO, it's easy to trace a drawing through it onto the surface.

Did you know that if you erase on YUPO, the eraser makes an invisible mark that won't ever accept paint? Using watercolor pencils - Derwent brand is best - works well for drawing on YUPO because you can 'erase' mistakes with a moistened tissue.

These colorful 'boats' in Maine were so vibrant in all that marine wilderness, that I knew they'd become a painting on YUPO. Anything with dancing colors looks extremely good on YUPO, since the colors stay put, never fading on the paper. Often, on cotton watercolor paper, the colors look spectacular while they are wet, then once the paint dries, the color looses it's pop. (Can you tell I'm very partial to all the good qualities of painting on YUPO?)

Whatever we paint on, the most important thing we can do is to 'tell' others what's important to us, how we see the world in our own special way. The materials and techniques we use certainly affect how we express ourselves, but being an artist involves creating something that lets others see our own personal point of view. Otherwise, we're just decorating the canvas or paper with some nice colors, textures, and shapes.

One of these days, I'm going to order a whole roll of YUPO. Imagine how big those paintings will be!

"FRIENDSHIP COMPLETED" Transparent Watercolor on YUPO, 40 x 26"

YUPO AFLOAT

Pulled out of the archives, this painting was practice for a bigger one and painted while I had my reference photo in front of me. In early fall, eight of us from three different classes will be painting in beautiful Italy, and we'll be painting from real life, not photos.

Working outside on location has some strong advantages. The emotion of the moment, the inspiration, the smells, the breeze, the sun, the action, our reaction, all of it is there when you paint on location. Somehow it adds to the energy in the painting. We'll sure experience it this fall - can't wait!

"WAITING IN FRIENDSHIP" Transparent Watercolor on YUPO, 14 x 10"

READY TO PAINT?

This frisky fellow decided to be on patrol today while I sat on the deck and painted. Actually, I probably spent more time taking photos of him than painting.

Unless I stood up and moved around my table toward him, he would not leave. And when I did make him scoot, he'd snatch one last kernel of corn before he'd scamper down the post.

This shot's with a telephoto, but I'm still only 5 feet from him the whole time he munches his lunch. And he can put it away, too!

Years ago, my husband wrote a great story about a big white oak, which included a squirrel. Maybe it's time to illustrate it and get this little creature published. I did drawings as illustrations after Bob completed the story, but paintings and photos would be more fun. Getting the book into print is also much easier now, too. I've talked myself into a new project!

I love his little paws. Awwwwwe. Better get back to painting.

BREAKING IT UP

Artists can be notorious for not giving up on a painting..... all that time and effort, let alone the paint and paper expense. We keep at it no matter how bad it gets - we can be such a stubborn bunch.

Fortunately, most of us have discovered that we can salvage parts of a painting by cropping. I'm posting the original painting below that really must be cropped into smaller shapes. Here you see my future book mark, business card, greeting card, a coaster? and possible grocery list! (I'm just kidding... I'll pitch it before I go to all that hassle.)

The poor composition and design made the painting a loser from the start, and that circle of the roses was my fatal mistake.

Although I really liked the way the paint hit the paper 'loosey juicy style,' the overall painting just didn't happen. Got the title right, though:-) Since it's overly sweet, it's appropriately named "COTTON CANDY," on 140#CP Arches, and presently about 14 x 20" - from the archives.

GARDENS

Recently a new friend who's an avid gardener purchased this tulip painting I completed a couple of years ago. Since I've been puttering in the garden all day, it seemed fitting to post her painting today.

Her gardens were so full of treasurers, surprises, and intrique. Just by walking along the natural curving paths she'd created, you could sense that the landscaped area was brimming over with love. It was beautiful and delightful, just like the gardener!

"KLINGER COUNTRY" Transparent Watercolor Poured on 140#CP Arches 21 x 14" COLLECTED

YUPO UNDERWATER!

We were in a helicopter the first time I saw a real sea turtle swimming in the Pacific below us. Later, watching them glide in an huge aquarium beside the ocean was mesmerizing, and I hoped to capture that magnificent fluid movement with paint.

This is a YUPO painting from quite a few years ago, painted as a demo during the opening of an art show. I'm not a very good 'stand around and talk' person at an art show, but I do enjoy talking about the painting process while it's happening.

"ANCIENT MARINER" Transparent Watercolor on YUPO 25 x 18"