WARMING UP

Check out the difference between this painting and the cooler version below. The 'blue' painting is the original, painted on gessoed watercolor paper several years ago.

This week, that blue finally got to me, so I dug out my mouth atomizer, diluted some transparent pyrrol orange fluid acrylic in water, then sprayed or actually 'misted' the blue painting to warm it up. Those ancient streets just looked wrong in cool colors.

A few small blue shapes were taped off before spraying, like the walk in front of the fence and parts of some windows. It would have been impossible to glaze paint over the surface because the friction from my paint brush would've easily lifted the existing watercolor paint right off of the gesso.

Once the orange dried, darks were added on the left hand side, and the sky area was darkened a lot to decrease the importance of its shape. A smattering of burnt orange was touched into the distant wall and more warms added to the lamp. Some of the darker shapes were darkened even more, and the fence was extended over to the wall.

A new painting is in the works right now of the same subject, but the approach is very different this time. The temperature dominance WILL be warm, for sure. It'll be posted once it's completed.

"MALTA EVENING" Transparent Watercolor with Fluid Acrylics on 140#CP Gessoed Arches, 15 x 21"

PATTERNS & POSSIBILITES

Shapes capture more attention when they have some diagonal movement to them. This painting is about placing recognizable, diagonally oriented shapes together to create a patterned painting. It leans slightly toward a grid look or checkerboard composition.

Watercolors - five different colors - were washed over the paper initially, with many blossoms and textural effects encouraged to occcur in the wash. Then opaque gouache watercolor was added to enhance, define, and bring out the emphasis of the shapes. Stencils were also used for the lettering, roosters and chickens by using a sponge to lift out each shape from the paint through a piece of precut acetate stencil.

After lifting out the shapes, some areas in the stenciled shape were touched up again with paint. The rooster feathers were left as is, showing the underlying textures, with only the face and leg areas painted with detail.

Repetition was important but couldn't be over done. Temperature dominance was understated but still evident. The use of straight edges in the background against the fluid edges of the birds and egg helped add contrast, too. The painting needed some surprises and stronger contrasts of value to keep it interesting.

The egg has a lot more value changes within a small space than this blog shows. It did turn out really good with just a hint of warmth on the lower side of it. Click on the pix to see the textures along with the chicken wire --- which could have been done with a stencil, but was painted in.

The elements of design that were meant to be emphasized included shape, color, and texture. My natural inclination when painting is to put a very strong emphasis on value, but not this time. The whole process was like going on a mystery trip, since there was no initial plan to go by. Although most of my work is usually preplanned, I really get charged up by the challenges of finding my way in a painting like this.

"THE EGG CAME 1ST!" Transparent Watercolor & Gouache on 140#CP Arches 20 x 14"

FALLING AWAY

Watercolor is often defined as a medium that incorporates the pigment with water to extend it onto the paper. That could include many kinds of paint like tempera paint/poster paint - from grade school - plus opaque watercolor made by mixing chalk with the pigments (gouache) to acrylics to water based inks to casein and egg tempera paint. Even watercolor pencils and crayons technically qualify as watercolor if water is added. But transparent watercolor is what the majority of people 'think' when they hear the word 'watercolor.'

This painting, done on the slick YUPO surface, includes 'regular' transparent watercolor with fluid acrylics over parts of it, with gouache added in thin layers plus water based inks drawn in last. It's a 'watercolor' technically, but PURISTS wouldn't consider it one.

Very few watercolor societies limit the definition of 'watercolor' to mean just transparent watercolor (as PURISTS do.) There's certainly validity in having a group or show for only transparent watercolor paintings because the difficulty and challenge of painting with only transparent watercolor is great. It's good to compare apples with apples in a 'watercolor' show occasionally.

The majority of my paintings are only transparent watercolor, yet it is exhilarating to be able to select whatever medium it takes to produce art. Years ago, I let the restrictive interior "WATERCOLOR POLICE" keep me from trying out other water mediums. My goal was to increase my expertise with the transparent stuff, and I (unwisely) shunned all the other possibilities.

For so many watercolor artists, it can be a big deal to take that first step away from using ONLY transparent watercolor. It was a giant step for me several years ago. However, now, whatever it takes, whatever works - that's what art's about for me, and it certainly allows so much more freedom to be able to express and create.

This painting's title came about partially because of my 'fall' from transparent watercolor. It was one of the very first that I'd tried as I used gouache and acrylics and broke away from the limits I'd set on myself. It's several years old, and tomorrow's post will include another oldie from that time, using gouache, too.

"FALLEN ANGELS" Transparent Watercolor, Gouache, Acrylics, Ink on YUPO 13 x 8"

CHANGING COLORS

Yesterday's painting is a reversal of this painting, but this one includes more background area. The technique of literally pouring watercolor in layers over protected, painted shapes helped develop the glow in the tulips.

The mood in today's post seems livelier, maybe because of the warmer palette. Although the process takes a lot of planning and work, it's so worth it when all those miskit areas are removed to reveal the luminous colors.

A scrubber brush helped soften some edges in this painting, too, but no paint on a brush ever met with the paper. Both paintings are from the archives.

"TWILIGHT" Transparent Watercolor on 140#CP Arches 20 x 14"

OUT LIKE A LAMB

Only a few weeks until spring gets here - we hope... My daffodils are finally poking their leaves out of the soil, but there's no sign of the snow drops yet.

These tulips were painted with layers of miskit protecting the already painted shapes that weren't to get any darker. After each application of miskit dried, color was poured over the wet paper, then allowed to dry, too... more miskit, then more poured paint - with a total of seven layers of poured paint over seven different applications of miskit. No paint brush loaded with paint ever touched the paper, except for signing it.

The batiks and taping techniques on this blog were created with the same process, but with different materials to protect the lighter values. Instead of miskit, masking tape can be torn to cover shapes on the watercolor paper, or hot wax can be painted on washi papers to protect shapes before adding darker values of colors. Whatever's used to protect existing values helps keep the lighter values light and untouched, while the darker values are built up, usually resulting in fresher looking watercolors.

It's a great way to teach the importance of value changes to artists. Color does seem to get all the credit for a good painting, but VALUE really does do all the work - defining shapes, distance, forms, etc.

Watch for a post of another painting of the nearly same tulips tomorrow done with other colors, resulting in a completely different mood. Painting the same picture several times seems to bother some artists, but I enjoy the surprises and lessons that each painting brings, since they all have their own uniqueness.

"PINK PARADE" Transparent Watercolor on 140#HP Arches 21 x 14"

IN LIKE A LION.......

Yesterday's weather was a little 'lion like.' Our mom always told us that if March came in like a lion, she'd go out like a lamb, and I'm counting on it. Spring can't get here soon enough.

This lion actually lives at a zoo with a great view of Lake Michigan, and although he doesn't look too ferocious here, he can really, REALLY ROAR! He was created over eight years ago on YUPO paper, when I was just learning to control the paint on that slippery YUPO surface. Some of the darker detail has been painted with 'tip tapping' brush strokes, which I don't seem to use as much anymore.

The lion looks old and sad, and a little too human, maybe because of the long winters on the lake. Or perhaps he's really the lion in the Wizard of Oz?!?

He was a beautiful and majestic animal and did live with a lovely lioness in his large, serengeti-like confinement. The YUPO painting of her was posted a while ago.

"LIKE A LION..." Transparent Watercolor on YUPO 13 x 18"

BLOWING BUBBLES

Freshly blown bubbles, (made up of 6 oz. water with 3 oz. Dawn Liquid and 2 oz. of fluid acrylics,) created a textured background for this watercolor. Three colors were used in separate containers, and the last two 'printing' of different colored bubbles took place while the original bubble print was still damp on the page. This allowed some areas of the color to mingle on the paper, creating subtle changes in the bubbles.

Once the bubbles/paint mix dried, it was time to develop some kind of painting. This one really suggested the free fall of water from the top of a steep slope, and since I'd recently read The Shack, beautiful Multnomah Falls near Portland, Oregon, came to mind.

A shape was cropped from the original printing to accomodate the composition. Then, trees were added and some areas darkened to enhance the composition and create movement in the painting. Finally, more burnt orange was painted across the top of the falls for a bit of drama.

If you haven't read it yet, check out The Shack. It started a little slow for me, but after a couple of chapters, there was no putting it down. Hope you like it, too.

"TUMULTUOUS" Transparent Watercolor over Fluid Acrylic Bubbles on 140#HP Arches, 8 x 13"

BLUBS & BUBBLES

When visions pop into my imagination, I might try to capture them on paper, but it usually doesn't work. This started out as one of those paintings last week. Envisioning a wonderful forest of quiet trees extending into a spacious white snow bank with a striking contrast of dark and light patterns, I couldn't wait to get started.

After painting the trees and background and leaving the snow area white, I knew it was obviously not going to express what I saw. The unfinished painting was tossed into a drawer.

Then when Wednesday's class got to BUBBLE PAINT, using fluid acrylics mixed with water and Dawn Liquid Soap, I printed the unfinished tree painting with the bubbles. Nothing to loose, I thought, and at least the new texture added some interest to an otherwise drab composition.

BUT --- seeing it flipped upside down changed everything. Now it reminds me of the northwest corner of Indiana with all the smoke stacks that used to pollute the air. Though this was not what was intended initially, it was a good discovery nevertheless, and conveys a vital message, too.

More bubble paintings are on their way, one of them fairly successful. The goal in the class is to develop valid pieces of art by combining the textured surface created with the colored bubbles with additional enhancements or embellishments of paints, inks, and possibly collage. Each artist's work will be individual even the the initial technique was used by everyone.

We all developed small, two-value thumb nail studies to work from for our bubble prints, so some may end up with abstract designs and others with realistic or representational paintings We are expecting really creative results.

"POLLUTION SOLUTION" Transparent Watercolor Covered by Fluid Acrylic Bubbles on 140# HP Arches 12 x 16"

COOL WASH

This was posted yesterday, but since then, a pale blue wash of Cobalt Blue has been added to the background as well as to some of the petals of the flowers. Stronger darks were also added, as per Rhonda's good suggestion on the last post. Maybe better?

Yesterday's post was a little too pale compared to the real painting. This one's more accurate, I think.

The last couple of days have been spent blowing bubbles - paint bubbles! More to come soon on this:-D

"WASHED DAFFODILS" Transparent Watercolor on 140#HP Arches 16 x 12"

SO MANY GOOD CHOICES

One of the things that I love about watercolor is the huge variety of processes and techniques to choose from when painting. After taking many workshops from many wonderful, professional artists, I've enjoyed adapting those techniques to how I paint, eventually passing along the information about the processes to my classes via demos. Credit is duly given to the instructors for their specific techniques that they so willingly share.

Years ago, a friend introduced me to Stephen Blackburn. Deb Ward had been fascinated by his beautiful handling of watercolor, so a bunch of us signed up for his workshop in Lafayette, Indiana. Since then, he has been to the Cincinnati area several times to give workshops ... twice, in fact, to give workshops for people in my classes. One of my original paintings of penguins, shown on the blog on March 24, 2008, was created during one of those workshops.

The daffodil painting shown here was a demo for Tuesday's class based on info that Steve taught us. Posted here are also two stages of the painting before completion.

First, miskit is 'poured' in a 'stream' onto the paper and then spritzed with water to create trickles for it to flow into. It's a lot trickier than it looks to do this part. Once the miskit is dry, paint is poured over the paper, with several colors being applied. Each color can be allowed to dry in between pours, or for more color mingling, the colors can be poured all at once.

Once the miskit's removed, the subject can be established, as it was with this painting, or the subject could be determined ahead of time before pouring. I do a detailed value study of the drawing in order to know where NOT to paint. For the most part, the picture is developed by painting behind the subject matter, with those darker values popping out the focal areas. This 'negative' painting preserves the beautiful results of the poured paint over the ruffly miskited areas, allowing them to remain untouched.

The final look couldn't ever be achieved with a brush. The unique textured surface created with the poured miskit and paint adds so much to the final painting, making it more unique and intriguing to look at. Thanks, Steve, for sharing your discoveries with us.

Steve won the top award several years ago in International Artist Magazine for one of his exquisitely rendered sunflowers done with his technique. He's a master artist who has developed his very own technique of creating beauty, and he willing shares his techniques in his workshops. Deb's invited him to return to Cincinnati to teach another workshop in May. Hop over to her website - http://www.debwardart.com/ - for more information about the workshop, but hurry. Several people from my classes have already signed up.

Pop over to Steve's instructional website, where you can sign up for his newsletter, too. If you click on the workshop page, you'll see him in action at one of the workshops he taught in my studio. Here's the link - http://www.learnwatercolors.com/

Next month, watercolor artists from around the country will enjoy being at Kanuga Watercolor Workshops near Hendersonville, North Carolina. I've been able to be there for most of the last dozen years to continue learning more about creating art. I'm one of those people who think that learning never ceases and love taking advantage of as many opportunities as possible to experience more ways to be creative. Although there are more than ten instructors to choose from at Kanuga each year, this year Miles Batt will be my instructor for the week. So looking forward to going!

"SONG OF SPRING" Transparent Watercolor on HP 140# Arches, 16 x 12"

YUPO DEMO

We had a great time Sunday in Indianapolis, Indiana, at the Watercolor Society of Indiana's Winter Meeting. Mark Lemons does a great job as president to guide and lead this group of diverse artists. About sixty people attended... not bad for a cold February afternoon.

After the business meeting and a drawing for some great door prizes, it was time for my demo. Once that first wave of nervousness was out of the way, all went well. In fact, I had a blast painting on the slick YUPO surface and sharing several of the processes used to work with watercolors on YUPO.

One of my small oil studies of a couple walking under an umbrella was my source of inspiration. The drawing was completed ahead of time with gray miskit applied to areas that were to remain pure white.

A 4x6" value study, created earlier from that oil sketch of the photo, was the guide for the painting as well as the drawing. Paint was applied in each shape with the value of that shape based on the value study. Colors were chosen at random, with consideration for the mood of the rainy evening scene.

Edges were adjusted as I painted, and a foam roller was used quite a bit to move paint around and help establish smoother transition areas. Some shapes were extra juicy, and but most were very dry, with little water added to the paint. Many of the techniques shown are ones discovered and perfected by George James, YUPO master from California.

A window washing squeegee, (previously cut into smaller lengths by my husband,) did the trick of dragging thicker paint and helped add linear aspects to the painting. A couple of dried areas were spritzed with water from a Windex sprayer, then squeegeed off, creating a spontaneous, fresh, textured look.

The finished painting is posted here, as is, without any changes made since the demo. There's a possibility that the legs of the man might need to be adjusted. Also, it bothers me that the reddish brown oval shape to the right is about the same size as the woman's hair, so that may need to be changed, too.

Though the painting was finished in under two hours, the preparation time was considerable. It took well over six hours to get the composition tweaked and sketched, ready to paint, plus about 20 years to learn to handle watercolor. Add into that the two frustrating years spent fighting to control paint on YUPO before finally having a break through, and you can see why art can't be sold for the actual time it takes to create it. No one could afford it.

Overall, I was very happy with the results and really enjoyed being with so many Hoosier artists. In early May, Middletown Fine Arts Center is sponsoring one of my YUPO workshops - see the side bar here. If you're interested, check it out. I know we'll have a great week painting on this slick, slippery, challenging, and fascinating surface.

In June, there's also a YUPO workshop in Dallas that I'll be leading - see side bar - at a great workshop facility and gallery there. Hope you can make one of the workshops if you're interested in learning more about painting on YUPO.

Thank you, Betsy, for taking pictures during the demo. You are a blessing.

"RIVER WALTZ" Transparent Watercolor on Heavy Weight YUPO, 19 x 28" COLLECTED

BEFORE & AFTER

Some paintings don't work out at all, and some fall just short enough that they torment me. One of those was a painting of two huge pigeons, a big painting, 27" by 43", cut from a roll of hot pressed Arches paper. The original was posted last fall, but now it's posted again so you can see what a difference one wash of color can make to a painting.

First, the pure whites on the birds were misketed to protect them from any more paint. Some of the blues were also miskited for the same reason. Then, the entire surface of the paper was sprayed, which didn't harm the fluid acrylics in any way. Using a large brush to glaze over the whole painting, I washed on Transparent Pyrrol Orange, a beautiful fluid acrylic color from Golden. DaVinci may carry it too.

Popcorn salt was sprinkled over the damp, glistening glaze in a few areas to allow the colors underneath to surface. After the orange glaze dried, some more darks were also added in the background to help settle it down.

I'm much happier with it now, and it'll be one to take this weekend to Indianapolis for my demo at the Watercolor Society of Indiana meeting. If you have time, let me know if you like the change. The newly glazed one is the first one posted. Thanks.

OIL OR WATER???

This oil study was done on canvas as a demo for one of my morning watermedia classes. Then, after the evening class met that night, we didn't have any classes for two weeks because of snow and ice and snow and ice and snow.

OR COULD IT BE ---MAYBE the snow and ice came along to cancel classes because the oils had invaded my WATERMEDIA studio? Punishment? It was all Carl's idea to have an oil demo, so maybe we can just blame all that winter weather on him! (Grin.)

Again, the idea was to capture my emotional response about the scene as quickly as possible with few details. A week later, while it was still snowing, I worked on the painting again, trying to straighten up the gondola, add in some more windows, and really messed it up. The sense of immediacy disappeared. It's in the dump now, having joined the piles of wasted watercolors that went before it.

The oil mess is cleaned up. The lids are on tight, and the tubes packed away, paper palettes pitched, brushes painstakingly cleaned ..... until next time. The snow's all melted, finally. Back to my fluid acrylics and watercolors.

MORE OIL PAINTING STUDIES

This first small oil was done on half a sheet of typing paper, which will eventually disintegrate as the oil eats into it. One of the reasons for using a temporary surface to paint on is to take away the importance of a finished product and focus instead on capturing the essence of the scene and my emotional connection to it.

The second painting is a little bigger - about 12 x 9" - and on canvas. A third, very large painting was developed from these two onto a sheet of YUPO paper. It's the third photo posted, although the colors don't quite do it justice.

The YUPO painting was created using all transparent watercolor, and my hope was to establish a very impressionistic, oil-like painting with the watercolor. That slick YUPO surface is so versatile. I LOVE IT!

This Sunday, I'll be doing a YUPO demo for the Watercolor Society of Indiana meeting in Indianapolis. Tomorrow's agenda includes deciding what to paint. It will be fun no matter what.

The first oil on paper painting above has not been posted before, but the last two were posted much earlier in my blogging. I wanted to include them here again with the previous posts of oil-studies-soon-to-be-watercolors.

One of my friends mentioned that he really liked my paintings where the people had no faces. He's an strong introvert and loves art, and I appreciated his observation of the impressionistic look.

"EUROPE'S BEST" Transparent Watercolor on heavyweight YUPO 40 x 26" COLLECTED

MORE OIL

Here's another quick oil sketch of trying to put down the immediate response to a scene. Painting quickly with almost no detail is one of the best ways to help establish emotional response to the subject matter.

Of course, the interaction of the shapes, values, textures, colors, and lines becomes even more important since detail will not be there to reinforce the story of the painting. Next, the idea is to meld this into a larger effective painting while keeping the emotion in it.

We were walking in the drizzle of cool rain along the Rhine, and it was almost dark. These two lovers were doing their best to keep dry under one umbrella, and, hopefully, it'll make a good painting soon.

"RIVERWALK' Oil on Masonite 9 x 12"

CHOICES

What to leave in and what to take out??? The 'painting' above shows just the lower third of an original oil sketch. There are a couple more crops below, showing more of the painting, especially the interaction of the dark and light shapes. The original painting is posted last.

My inspiration to paint this was the wonderful contrast of dark and light shapes - see photo. However, the final small painting really captured the movement of the feet and became my favorite part of the picture.

Will just that 'feet' portion of the picture be enough to create a good painting as shown in the top cropped painting? I'm not sure.

The full figure - to the left and cropped somewhat - helps establish a pleasing cruciform pattern of darks.

Another possibility is adding the variety of all the curved lines of the bike wheels and cropping the figure even more, as shown next.

Maybe the figure looks too chopped off in this crop - or is it the lack of dominance of lights or darks? They seem to be almost equal here - not so good.

The challenge is to develop a good composition that will draw attention by the value pattern. Plans are to use fluid acrylics on YUPO for the final painting, maybe even throwing some collage in..... We'll see. All comments, suggestions and direction will be much appreciated.




"AMSTERDAM" Oil on Canvas 8 x 12"

THINKING OF SPRING

It's snowing a beautiful, swirling snow right now. And we didn't have our Tuesday class AGAIN! Boooo.

This painting reminds me of the hope of spring (which is a hope we really need here right now) and was painted about 15 years ago with that in mind. Lots of negative painting was involved to define the trees in front of the cave like area after spritzing and splashing paint to create a soft, pale background.

It seemed strange to paint ''''negatively'''' to produce not only the positive shapes of the trees, but also the cave place that I viewed as a tomb. The tomb is an empty one, but with a positive message to show the power of resurrected life, and for me, the trees represent the strength He gives us.

How many artists paint, frame, then unframe, a painting? That's what happened to this one. It was carefully cut up into one and a half inch squares with the idea of reassembling it someday into a collage. At the time it just never 'spoke' what I thought it should say.

Now looking at this photo of it, I'm a little sorry that it was cut up. It was never reassembled and is long gone. Thank goodness the hope's stayed here.

"HOPE" Transparent Watercolor on 300#CP Arches 22 x 30" Recycled

YUPO - NEW JOURNEY

This was finished this morning on YUPO using fluid acrylics, and it was certainly a great journey of discovery to find out what could be done with these acrylics on the YUPO. Several different techniques were used to develop the textures of the brick and walls.

Miskit, masking tape, spritzes of rubbing alcohol on wet paint, spritzes of water on wet paint, splattering with a toothbrush and a brush, salting with popcorn salt, removing paint with alcohol and a tissue, removing paint with alcohol and a squeegee, removing paint with a brush dipped in alcohol...... The possibilities seemed endless, and I enjoyed trying as many different ways to develop the textures as I could think of. Some areas were really wonderful accidents that created delicious textures.

What was best was the fact that once the paint dried, it couldn't be removed, as opposed to painting transparent watercolor on YUPO, which lifts off easily if dampened or brushed over. The look of watercolor is still evident since the fluid acrylics were used - watered down and washed on - just like transparent watercolor.

Click on the painting for an up close look. The reference photo, taken along a Venice alleyway, is posted, too, to show the changes in composition from the original scene to the painting. Seems to be a possibility now to never want to paint on cotton paper again...... It's time to live with the painting a while before making anymore adjustments.

"JOURNEY" Fluid Acrylics on YUPO 14 x 25"

OLD PAINTING - NEW SNOW

What a beautiful morning it's been! The snow outside is soft and deep, curling up and around each obstacle it fell on. The birds have been frantically digging for their food.

This painting was a quick class demo that turned out alright ... from many years ago ... and reminds me of today. The key word here is 'QUICK.'

Because of the natural spontaneity of watercolor, it's a great thing to splash some paint on the paper with an idea in mind and see what happens. The key is leaving it alone, touching it only a bit where it matters, and not working it to death to make it 'better.'

Some artists can naturally and intuitively do this, but for me it's a struggle. I love when it happens, though.

Now I'm off to PLAN another painting .... or change my plans and just paint by the seat of my pants. We'll see.

"SOLITUDE" Transparent Watercolor on 140#CP Arches 12 x 17" COLLECTED

WINTER

This painting was done in the early '90's and reminds me of today's weather. A friend and I were headed to an art walk this afternoon but never made it out of Indiana due to snow '''flurries.'''

Evidently no one expected the snow to be a problem on the highways, so the roads were quite nasty to drive on for a couple of hours. Sure makes me appreciate all that the highway people do to keep our roads normally clear. And we can hope that Spring will be early this year (smile.)

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Rhonda's birthday is Monday, and if you can, pop on over to her blog at http://rhcarpenter.blogspot.com/ to wish her a happy birthday. Have a Happy Birthday, Rhonda. And thanks so much for pushing me to start a blog.

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"KOKOMO CREEK SENTINEL" Transparent Watercolor on 140#CP Arches 30 x 22" COLLECTED

PALETTE COLOR CHOICES

Selecting colors for my new palette took much longer than I ever imagined it would. The top priority was to have a range of pigments with a wide variety of various properties.

This color chart shows the range of value of each color, with the names listed of each color as well as the pigment used to make the color. (Compared to the full pix of the palette shown in the previous post, this list starts with the third color in on the top to the right and goes around counter clockwise.)

Double click on the chart to see the colors up close, and you'll notice the sedimentary qualities of several of the colors. Effort was made to cause blossoms on each damp paint strip, and many of the sedimentary colors resisted producing that effect.

Things that had to be considered for my palette included these specifics ---

1. Staining or lifting quality of the pigment - needed both, but not too many strong stainers

2. Transparent, semi transparent, or opaque quality of the pigment - plenty of transparent ones important with just a few truly opaque ones needed

3. Sedimentary and granulating feature versus clear, smooth texture - LOVE the effects that granulating colors add and tend to go overboard in selecting them, but needed clear, smooth ones to complement them, too

4. Toxicity of the pigment - wanted a non toxic palette but had to include Cobalt Violet Deep because it's so useful and beautiful in so many ways

5. Value range of the pigment - needed some very strong darks

6. Permanency of the pigment - no fugitive or fading colors allowed even if I'm in love with the color... no Opera or old Alizaron Crimson, not even Auerolin or Rose Madder

7. Pure pigment versus mixture of pigments - wanted only pure pigments but did add Ultramarine Turquoise which is a blend of French Ultramarine and Phthalo Green... Seldom ever use those two colors so the mixture in one tube was great - plus I love the hue

8. Ease of mix ability with other pigments - Most colors play well together.... but some don't

9. Range of hues within each color family - needed a warmer blue & a cooler blue, a warmer red & a cooler red, etc.

10. Personal preferences for colors - the easiest decision to make

11. Quality of paint - tried many brands and found considerable differences in quality of pigment load and binders. Stayed with all Daniel Smith paints for this palette because of intensity of color and price value.

12. Versatility of the pigment - some pigments produce special effects more readily than others, like making backruns or blossoms or responding to 'salt' on the wet paint, etc.

To the left of each color name in the chart above is the actual pigment in that particular color - Hansa yellow is made of Pigment Yellow 97 - PY97; Lunar Earth is made of Pigment Brown 11 - PBr11, and so on. Each manufacturer labels their paints with their own names - hence Phthalo Blue might be called Winsor blue or Joe's Blue depending on who's making it. Knowing the actual pigment ingredient in the colors helps prevent duplicating colors.

This new palette is porcelain, made by Cheap Joe's, and so far I really like it. It's very heavy, especially now that it's full of paint. The puddles of color in the mixing areas stay put and don't bead up like they do on plastic palettes. And I like the feel of the brush on solid mixing surface, which easily cleans up and doesn't seem to stain at all. None of that will make me paint better. It's just what I noticed about the palette that I liked.

Every artist develops personal color choices, and the ones shown above are just my preferences of which colors I want to paint with right now. Daniel Smith paints have been my top choice of some time now, due to their quality and intensity of color. (I promote Daniel Smith paints, a lot, to my students, but their prices are the same for everyone - and I actually like that they have no 'spokesperson' getting free paint in return for advertising.)

Other brands that I also like include M. Graham colors, made with honey as a binder so that they really don't harden, even after months of sitting, Holbein, Winsor Newton, Schminke, American Journey, Sennelier and Da Vinci. M. Graham paints don't always dry on YUPO paper if the paint's applied heavily, so I've given up using them.

Generally, mixing brands of paint within a palette works fine. The main differences seem to be the intensity of color, the amount of filler in the tube, and the quality of how well the pigment if formulated. One company's Cerulean may be the same pigment as another's, but the color on the paper can look markedly different because of the binders and quality of production. Cheaper brands seem to have more filler and less consistency in the way the paint is ground. Also, be aware that student grade paints like Sakura, Cotman, or Rembrandt seldom produce the same results as professional grade do.

So what would you think is the most important thing to buy the best of if you're painting with watercolors.... paint, brushes, paper, palette....? Happy painting.

SQUEEZING PAINT

Can't wait to paint in the morning - with my new porcelain palette from Cheap Joe's, all set up and ready to go. Each winter my existing palette gets overhauled, with some of the seldom used colors replaced by new ones to try. This time, it's a brand new palette with several new colors. It was a great project to work on while enjoying the inauguration events on TV today.

Each well was filled up with paint, then tapped down into its well with each color being a bit concave in the center of the well to help it stay moist longer. It will never look this clean again....

A color chart is in the works which will be posted soon, too. The palette will stay permanently in my studio because it's too heavy to travel with. Happy painting.

OLSON HOUSE

These are some of my paintings which were inspired by a visit we made to the Olson house in Cushing, Maine, several years ago. These have all been posted before.

Andrew Wyeth painted over 300 paintings while at the Olson house where he had an upstairs studio of sorts. The house is now listed on the National Registry.

Several different
techniques are shown here, including dry brush watercolor, YUPO and watercolor, and batik watercolor on Ichimatsu washi. The boots and the buoys were not at the Olson house, but added to the paintings for interest.

One of the paintings that Wyeth was so recognized for was inspired at the Olson house, too - Christina' s World. He saw crippled Christina Olson crawling to her flower bed across the expanse of grass to pick some flowers and quickly did a rough sketch of her. Later his wife, Betsy, posed as Christina when he painted the painting.

No matter where Wyeth had lived, he would have painted what was around him. It seems many artists travel far and wide to find resources to paint, going on photo jaunts and vacations in hopes of finding their next inspiration. I know I'm that way. But Wyeth's paintings show that the emotional attachment to what we know the best can be the most ideal inspiration of all.

IMPRINT ON MY HEART

Check out http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nnj_MBfSZKs if you want to travel through the years that Andrew Wyeth painted. The Speed Museum in Louisville had an awesome display about ten years ago of his family's work. The show was incredible, but Andrew's work was breathtakingly stunning. It left me speechless. I could have stayed there and let his artwork pour into my eyes forever. I could have crawled inside the paint and lived there. It was so beautiful and really overwhelmed my emotions big time.

Getting to see some of the Helga paintings was a huge highlight in my life, and I will never forget the impact his work had on me. The depth of emotion that he could paint with............. He sure left an imprint on my heart.

He told his granddaughter a few years ago that he no longer gave interviews..... since everything he had to say was hanging on walls. He was a master who truly knew how to convey emotion with expert technique and had paid his dues to get there. The world is forever richer because he was here.

UPDATE: My friend, Dawn, just sent another site with other Wyeths on it well worth seeing at http://web.me.com/grainne2/Art_Appreciation/Art_Appreciation.html . Some are watercolor and some egg tempera.

YOUNG ARTIST

Portraits of children, especially younger ones, are very challenging to do in watercolor, and the challenge is even greater when the child is someone the artist knows and loves. Shown here are the five stages this painting went through this week, with the finished one posted first.

This little lady (my youngest niece) is very fair skinned with nearly white, silky blond hair.

As you can see in the next three photos, the hair was miskited carefully before painting began. The darker grayish areas are Pebeo Drawing Gum miskit, which will protect the white paper from paint and will be removed later.

After carefully completing the sketch, I applied the miskit with a thin rigger brush and allowed it dry. Next, the whole page was gently sprayed with clean water. Pale, warm colors were added to most of the face with a little blue touched in at the temple, forehead, eye, and cheek areas. The colors spread beyond the face in some areas since the whole paper was wet.

The lighted middle of the face was kept very, very pale with just a slight hint of color. Because the paper was wet, there was no attempt to 'form or shade' any shapes yet or to try to create any necessary edges.

The dark spot on her nose is miskit, and the teeth have miskit on them too. The highlights in her eyes are also miskited. Raw Sienna, Quinacridone Burnt Orange and Quinacridone Magenta were the warms used, with Cerulean as the cool.

When the wash was completely dry, darker values were added in shadowed areas of the face - third photo posted her. Careful attention was paid to the edges of each darker shadowed area, adjusting each edge before it lost its shine. The nose begins to have more definition and the face begins to look a little more three dimensional at this point.

Because there are no eyes or mouth at this stage, portraits usually looks pretty ghoulish before they're painted in. Next, color was added to all the hair areas where medium and darker values were needed, using Cobalt Blue and Quinacridone Burnt Orange.

The background was washed in next on dry paper with a juicy amount of paint, using colors that had already been introduced in the painting. Care was taken to darken the background near the head so that the blond hair would be visible when the miskit was removed, but it was crucial to avoid making a dark silhouette all around the head.

Before the miskit was to be removed, the facial features needed to be completed. The whites of the eyes were painted first, while the miskited highlights were still there, using pale Cobalt Blue. The top of the white eyeball area was painted a little darker to suggest a shadow under the upper eyelid.

The iris was done with Cerulean and a little Cobalt just as the Cobalt Blue in the whites of the eye was drying, and the highlighted side of the iris was a bit darker. The pupils, made up of Quin Burnt Orange and Cobalt Blue, were carefully centered in the iris while the paint was still just slightly moist. Lashes were nudged in on top and bottom, taking care to avoid outlining the eye totally with darks.

The brows were also nudged in to create a soft effect, using Quin Burnt Orange and Cobalt Blue. Once again, the edges of the brow were softened as needed so that they did not look pasted on. Also, the nostrils and ears were shaded a bit more, using darker, warm colors. The neck area also had to be darkened under the chin line with a little blue and warms.

The lips were a combination of Quin Coral and Magenta, as was the inside of the mouth. Once that area was done, the miskit could be removed from the teeth. Only a bit of pure white remained on the teeth after they were shaded with Cobalt and a little pink. The lines between the teeth are just hinted at.

Overall, more focus was given to the edges of shapes, how they disappeared or were soft or hard, than to which color to use. Specific attention was paid to just how dark one area needed to be compared to another.

The miskit was taken off the rest of the painting at this point. In this photo, the harshness of the miskit is evident since no paint has been added to those areas yet in the hair. Color was added to most of the previously miskited hair, but for the hair to look blond, some of the hair had to stay the pure 'white' of the paper.

At last, final touches were made, darkening the corners of the mouth, repairing the chin area, and adding a suggestion of shoulders and shirt - refer to the finished portrait at the top of this post.

I was really pleased that this worked out as well as it did. Many times, a child's portrait takes many attempts to get it right. This painting is high key, very pale, compared to my natural way to paint, and being able to keep it light was satsifying too.

As usual, preparation and drawing time took about 75% of the time, with the actual painting time maybe a little over two hours. If someone asked me how long it took to paint this portrait, I'd say, "Three hours and forty years."

This is a Christmas gift for my brother and his wife, just a little late. Must get it in the mail this week. It sure was a delight to paint it for them. My niece's Christmas gift was a palette full of rich wonderful colors to paint with, and she did that VERY well.

"ALMOST SEVEN" Transparent Watercolor on 140#CP Arches COLLECTED

MAKING GOOD SHAPES

For a demo last month, it seemed like a good plan to paint a trial run to work out any kinks in the process. Below is a step by step description of the method used to paint that demo cardinal painting, which was on the previous post. This cardinal is reversed from the demo painting but otherwise was painted the same way, same techniques, same colors, etc.

The blog below describes in detail how using a good white shape in the planning stages will help hold the painting together. If you're an artist and want a challenge that will help make your paintings stronger, read on.

After making a sketch of the bird and branch, specific areas were miskited that had to stay light or white, like the feathers on his shoulder and chest and the top of his beak. There's a highlight speck of miskit in his eye and a thin line around it, too, and his feet on the branch have some miskit on them.

Applying miskit is an art in itself. The best way to think about its application is to realize that you are actually painting the exact white shape that you want in the finished painting. No haphazard, sloppy brush strokes, please. Make the edges of the miskited shape appropriate for the texture of the surface, too.... like skin areas would be smooth edged, tree bark might be rougher at the edge, etc. Along with applying miskit to the specific white/light areas, some miskit was splattered over the paper to add extra sparkle later. Any directional shaped miskit splatters were removed once they were dry, leaving only round-shaped splatters on the paper.

Temperature dominance of the painting was the next consideration. Would the overall temperature be cool or warm? It would be cool, and the focal area would include the opposite temperature to make a nice, eye catching warm contrast against the overall coolness of the painting. Contrary to instinct, the first layer and biggest of paint would be warm, not cool.

Both Steps 1 and 2 are shown in this photo, but Step 1, the lightest wash, will be discussed first. A juicy mixture of mostly pale warm colors was painted very lightly over the painting, except in a specific shape that was determined before the painting began. That shape, known as the good white shape, would serve as the bones of the painting to help hold it together and give it unity, even though it would not be visible when the painting was completed.

By definition, a good shape must have a diagonal or oblique thrust, be unpredictable in its shape, and be irregular. The shape also needs to have either mostly curvilinear lines or linear lines and go off the page on at least three sides. It needs to take up no more than a third of the paper and to include all the areas that would remain pure white. Finally, it must be one connected shape.

Shown next is a super imposed blue outline defining the original good white shape of this painting. Creating a good shape to serve as the bones of the painting is crucial for this process, so below is a description of what seemed to work well to help establish that good shape.

Starting on one edge, a line was drawn over to another edge to create the first side of the shape, A to B. None of the whites in the painting were in the corner shape created by line AB.

Then starting close to B, a second line was created from C to D, with the whites of the painting located between the first and second lines. Care was taken to NOT outline much of the obvious shape of the bird in order to keep the white shape unpredictable.

Adding the third line starting next to D and continuing over to A completed the shape. Notice that the three lines never cross or touch each other and therefore make one continuous shape, going off the page on three sides. Care was taken to make sure that all the future white areas were included within the shape. Usually adjustments must be made at this point to make the shape more irregular and unpredictable, but this process creates a basic overall shape.

Referring back to the first picture posted here, you'll notice that the white shape has mostly soft or lost edges and is very subtle. As paint was applied around the good white shape, attention was given to whether an edge was to be hard, soft, or lost. Most of the edges were softened or lost because they were part of a larger sky area that had only gradual value changes in it. Some hard edges remain around the bird's head and the branch.

Step 1 of this process presents a perfect opportunity to create varied textures in the wet or damp wash, by making back runs or blossoms, stamping, spritzing, etc. The old standby of popcorn salt was added here to the barely damp background, and reapplied as the paper dried, creating various sized speckles of white. The paper was allowed to dry completely before going on to Step 2.

The next step involved adding some dark shapes. The selected colors would be made up of mostly the opposite temperature of the first wash and would establish the dark values in the painting. The dark shapes would cover less than 15% of the overall picture, somewhere touch the white shape, have soft, hard or lost edges, and could have a variety of dark values within each dark shape. Every dark shape should be a different shape and size, too.

The darks in the bird's wings, tail, and mask all touched the white shape as did the branch, so those areas were chosen for the darks of Step 2. Notice that none of the dark value shapes encroached into the white shape just yet.

Step 3 helps pull the painting together. Master artist and excellent teacher, John Salminen, who introduced this process to us at a workshop at Springmaid Beach via an abstract painting lesson several years ago, called this the INTEGRATION STAGE. The white shape, the pale wash area, and the darks will all be integrated together now to make a 'real' painting.

By following basic watercolor procedures, you can integrate the painting at this point. Choose the largest unfinished area, in this case the background, and complete it. Then select the next largest area or palest area and work on it, and so forth. During the process of painting, most of the white shape will probably be covered up with at least one layer of paint.

At this point, the background was completely painted with a cool wash, and more popcorn salt was added to the barely shiny wash. The dissolving salt revealed the warm color under it, creating a bit of mystery and depth to the atmosphere around the cardinal, with that first layer of salt texture showing through to add more dimension to the painting also.

Think of Step 3 as 'painting like you normally would paint a painting.' Ignore the white shape. The background has been resolved here and the whole branch darkened. There's hardly any evidence left of that original white shape.

Painting the rest of the cardinal shape included painting a warm yellow over most of the bird, then adding magenta and orange to the moist yellow. Careful attention was given to the changes in values in the reds. Keeping the lightest areas really light helped give roundness to the bird's body.

Step 4 involved finishing details and removing miskit. If you like details, you'll be in heaven doing this step. A few select darks were popped in to help add dimension to the bird and bring more emphasis to his face. All the miskit was removed and more adjustments were made to those edges, too.

The distant branches in the painting were actually an afterthought and slightly suggested already in the first two washes on the sky area. The background needed to be balanced against the strong shape of the cardinal, so a 1" flat brush was used to jab in some very pale "Y" lines to indicate branches here and there. The color used was actually just dirty water, which was perfect for quiet gray branches out of focus in the distance. Some of the lines were blotted lightly with a tissue before they dried. That helped make them look less conspicuous. They were not carefully done, but slapped on and blotted off randomly.

Colors used in this painting were all from Daniel Smith Company in Seattle and included Ultramarine Turquoise, Indanthrone, Phthalo Blue-Green Shade, Transparent Pyrrol Orange, Permanent Yellow Deep, Raw Sienna, Quinacridone Magenta, Quinacridone Burnt Orange. Except for miskit application and signature, a 1" flat brush was used for the whole painting. Any colors or brushes would work, but those were the ones used for these painting this time. More important than the colors or the brushes was the fact that each painted area was allowed to dry very thoroughly before painting on it again, to avoid dullness or a muddy look to the colors.

The completed painting, begun with considerable planning and shape making, scarcely shows any evidence of all that shape making work. So what's the point of going through all that good white shape business?

John Salminen explained that the shape would 'hold the painting up' just like our bones, though not at all visible, hold our bodies up. Indeed, it does.

Applying that first opposite temperature wash around the good white shape eventually helps neutralize colors that are furthest away from the focal area. The colors added later in the white shape are pure colors, rather than grayed ones, and enhance the luminosity of the painting where it really counts.

The other thing that using this process seems to accomplish is this. Since the focus is on 'shape making,' which is a right brained, creative activity, more of the expression of the artist is released.

So often, painters duplicate the things they see, like tails, and eyes, and hands, etc. The result is a well rendered duplicate of their reference. But by focusing on painting shapes, not things, more of the artist's hand and heart will come out in the painting. Expression is more likely when we're in our 'right minds.' Painting shapes (not things) is one good way to be in our right mind and to increase our artistic abilities.

Although the 'skeleton' of this picture is very hard to see, it IS holding the picture together in a way that wouldn't have happened if I'd painted the background first, then the cardinal, etc. My normal background sky might have been a sweeter, prettier blue overall without the subtle nuances that exist painting this way. Those first couple of steps of the good white shape process make all the difference in the unity as well as the strength of the painting.

In the earlier post on Jan. 8 of the demo cardinal, you can 'find' the great white shape there by looking at the purity of color in the background and on the bird. The sky area is a beautiful, clear blue near the bird's head and chest and is slightly grayed as it moves toward the edges of the paper.

As a teacher, it's been rewarding to see the improvement of so many of the artists in my classes who have embraced this approach to painting. It is challenging to apply at first, yet the results are so worth the effort. If you want to see a variety of paintings done using this good white shape process, check the lower right hand side bar of labels under great white shape.

Thank you, John Salminen, for sharing this process and being such an excellent teacher and encourager. And thank you, again, Lynne, for allowing me to paint from your beautiful photo of this glorious bird.