20140130 - Cardinal

Today I decided to do a pure watercolor painting. Need to keep those skills as sharp as possible! :-) Today's subject is another cardinal. It's a good winter subject, but as you can see, this cardinal is sitting in a dogwood tree. So there's the promise of spring in the painting.

With this painting, I tried several different techniques.

First, as you can see, you can see the sky in the background. But as you know any sky through a tree has leaves and/or flowers that break up the blue of the sky. I tried to paint a mottled sky to represent that. The green and brown faded quite a bit once I added the foreground colors. So, I will need to be bolder in this technique in the future.

Second, I attempted to vary the colors of branches, with the closer objects being warmer or have more red in the color .. than objects that are farther away, which are cooler or have more blue in the color. It worked fairly well, though I see a couple branches that should have been a bit cooler in color following that pattern. I'll remember to keep it a bit more consistent.

To paint the dogwood flowers, I masked them initially with masking fluid. Once the rest of the painting was completed, I removed the masking and painted the flowers. I really only tried to suggest the flowers, rather than attempting to get all the details.

So, here's hoping this cheerful cardinal brightens your day!

20140129 - Gold Finch

Well, I decided to try the Gold Finch on an Aquaboard. This is essentially a masonite board with a clay surface that can be painted:

It provides a smooth surface that is lightly textured, rather like hot press paper. Since it is a clay surface, it is not as absorbent as paper. But unlike paper, I found that the ink tended to not keep as sharp a line as I would prefer. As a result, I'm not as pleased with this painting as I am of the gold finch on the rice paper. It will do, but just doesn't have quite the punch without the fine lines. It will work well for more traditional watercolor painting.

 

An additional issue is that the surface is not as bright a white as paper. This tends to dull the painting quite a bit. Well, lessons learned. Hope you enjoy it.

20140129 - Tilted Daisy

As I write this, it's below freezing outside with "snow" on the ground. The snow we had last night was more like frozen mist falling from the sky. It's a couple inches thick. So, of course I'm going to paint something a bit more cheerful and warm!!  :-)

 

Today's painting is based on a photograph taken by Johnina Payne Young (see below). It is titled "Tilted Daisy 2". This is part of the Paint My Photo website.

 

 

As you can see, I changed some of the background colors to add to the dramatic effect. And as per my usual approach, I used pen & ink to create the outline of the daisy. I used Sennelier Blue and Yellow for the sky and center of the daisy, respectively. I used M. Graham Sap Green Permanent for the green background. I combined the Sennelier Opera Rose with green for the shadow color. And I used Noodler's Black, Yellow and Fox Red for the inks.

 

This did not come out as well as I hoped. But it's at least a cheerful little painting. And that's my hope for you .. that it will help brighten your day and help you smile in spite of your day.

20140128 - Gold Finch

Using similar techniques as I used with the cardinal, I painted this gold finch on a branch. As we brace for winter weather, it helps to have something cheerful to brighten the day. I hope you enjoy the results.

In case you are wondering, the black in the painting is Noodler's Black Ink, which is one of the "eternal" Noodler's Inks. It does not fade, even in direct sunlight. The yellow of the gold finch is Noodler's Yellow ink. It is supposedly an "eternal" ink, but testing by others has shown that it does fade in direct sunlight. So, this painting will need to be put behind UV protecting glass or acrylic. The remaining colors are watercolors.

20140128 - Carinal

Here's a cardinal sitting on a snowy fir tree branches. I decided to take what I've learned with the Chinese Brush Painting (the little that I've done) and mix it into more western style pen & ink with watercolor painting. I hope you enjoy the results.

Chinese plum blossom brush painting

A beautiful brush painting of a tree with plum blossoms. Enjoy!

20140112 - Oriole

On this wonderfully sunny day (as I painted this), it seemed appropriate to use the chinese brush painting to paint an Oriole! Hopefully it will help brighten your day.

This brush painting is done with three different inks. Of course, I used Noodler's Black. the red and yellow are also Noodler's Ink.

The only downside of the yellow is that it will need to be mounted behind a sheet of UV protecting glass or acrylic. It tends to fade with exposure to UV light. Still both the yellow and red are very rich in tone and saturation.

You might wonder how I go about doing these paintings. I'm using Jane Dwight's The Chinese Brush Painting Bible. It is chock full of examples of various animals, fish, birds, plants, and flowers. I use it as a reference to learn how to do the painting. I then add the twist of using Noodler's inks instead of chinese watercolors. And I use my M. Graham watercolors, not the chinese watercolors. The difference is that the chinese watercolors tend to be made with a shellac type agent to help keep the watercolor pigment in place when it is wetted during the mounting process. I find a gentle touch with the brushes during the mounting process minimizes the amount of bleeding of the watercolors.

So, here's hoping you enjoy today's effort.

20140110 - Robin

Here we are in the midst of January as I write this. It's a cold, bleak time of the year. It's a perfect time for a harbinger of brighter days. Isn't it about time to see the harbinger of hope, the robin? Well, probably not. But we can certainly remember their cheerful appearances and allow that memory to brighten our day.

Sigh! Sorry it took so long to post this picture. It appears Blogger is having problems with Google Chrome. But it worked in Microsoft Internet Explorer. Go figure.

I will probably mount this onto a pale golden colored backing paper. Here's hoping you enjoy today's project.

20140108 - Mounted Painting

I've been busy for a few days, but continue to try to practice my brush painting daily. I would like to specifically give a "shout out" to Henry Li of Blue Heron Arts. He specifically provides wonderful YouTube videos to help a novice learn more about Chinese Brush Painting.

For example, the following video shows how to mount a chinese brush painting onto backing paper.

Using the technique shown in this video, I mounted the Sun 'n Bamboo painting. I mounted it onto a green mulberry backing paper that has gold flecks in it. As you can see the the smaller detailed pictyure, the green mulberry paper is quite striking.

As you can see for a first attempt, I am pretty pleased with the results. As you might remember, the original painting that I posted was pretty heavily wrinkled and distorted. This is now much smoother.

Here you can see the painting mounted on the mulberry paper. The scanner can not scan the entire image, as the backing paper shows all around the four edges of the painting. I will then mount the backing paper into a traditional frame with a mat. The mat board will keep the painting away from the glass. And the mounting paper will and painting will be sandwiched between the mat and the mounting board.

With no interest at all, other than as a happy customer, I can recommend Blue Heron Arts. If you are interested in Chinese Brush Painting (or Sumi-E), then take a look at Henry's YouTube channel and store.

20140104 - Sun and Bamboo

I continue trying to learn more how to do Chinese Brush Painting. Frankly, learning a new technique is a lot of fun. And in a way, by emulating the techniques of Chinese Brush Painting, I am learning how to be looser with my painting. The looser style (Freestyle or Xieyi or 寫意畫) is rather impressionistic.

Xieyi is also known as  freehand style. Unlike gongbi (a realistic style), Xieyi does not seek to strictly reflect reality. Ancient artists believed that a painting should reflect how an artist sees an object, in addition to its actual appearance. The word "xieyi" means to "write to idea," and this style emphasizes the artists perceptions and thoughts as much as the actual form of what is being reflected. Proportion, light and perspective are all secondary to the artist’s personal conception of what an object is. (See http://bit.ly/1czohQ4 for the full text).

Learning how to suggest the branches, without all the detail is good practice for me. I hope you enjoy this effort as much as I enjoy learning the techniques. It should be interesting to see how well this does once I am able to mount it.

20140103 - Plum

For my second painting (that I'm showing) for the day, I tried to do some Chinese Brush Painting. This technique uses different brushes and brush techniques than classic watercolor paper. Unfortunately, I don't have the correct mounting paste, so this one is mounted with Elmer's glue. As you can see, the results are less than ideal. Ah well! I'll put together a list of supplies I need.

I'm very happy with the feel of this painting. When properly mounted, it should provide some good results.

Here's hoping you will find this a cheerful painting, full of the promise of spring and warmer weather ahead!

20130103 - Poinsettia

My painting for the day (though I may do another in a little bit) is an attempt at a new technique (at least new for me). Essentially, I am taking a graphic artists slant on drawing a poinsettia. Though I can (and did) paint a poinsettia to be more realistic, I wanted to blend my love of pen & ink with a graphic design. I've seen others add the blank border around the petals of flowers. I like that approach. So I attempted it. Overall, I find the result fairly pleasing. No doubt I'll try this approach again in the future.

Hopefully you enjoy my noodling around with my painting. And here's hoping that this flower helps brighten your day .. as so much of the country is locked in very cold weather. There's something fundamentally cheerful about poinsettias. So, here's hoping you enjoy!

20140102 - Tuareg

Based on a painting that I saw by Elisabeth Morin, I decided to do my own rendition of the Tuareg People. Think of the Fremen of Dune. These are nomadic people who live in the Sahara desert.

While this type of lonely picture could be depressing, I prefer to think of it as looking out over the trials and tribulations of life .. dreaming where we will go and of the eventual goal. Perhaps lonely. But dreaming of the future is always a lonely endeavor. Yet, it is not depressing, since it holds the promise of a future reward. Dream on!

With this painting, I continue using the Sennelier watercolor paints for the sky in this painting. To this, I used my M. Graham Raw Sienna and Burnt Umber for the sand dunes and Phthalocyanine Blue Red Shade for the cloth.

As you can see, I had some problems with bleeding at the horizon line. Since I never intended to make this a permanent painting, I tried to use quick sketching techniques to capture my vision. But I will do this one again to see if I can capture it without those problems.

As you know, this is my first painting of the year. With it, I decided to attempt to frequently paint. More than that, I decided to work my way up toward painting people by doing projects like this. I'll get comfortable painting the silhouette of people and clothing. That will allow me to built up the skills needed to do watercolor portraits of people.

Here's hoping you goals for 2014 are rewarding and achievable!