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.

20131229 - Tree

Well, it's time to get back to painting. As I may have mentioned, I had a partial vitreous detachment in my one good eye. Though it's not a problem and did not lead to a retina detachment, as I first worried, it did leave a "big honkin' floater" (per the senior ophthalmologist, who examined me) in the MIDDLE of my field of vision. But they are right. Eventually your brain mostly ignores it. And after several weeks of playing various computer games, I mostly don't notice it, or can rather automatically flick my eye to move it out of my way.

So, let the paintings begin. I went to the Art of the Carolinas during the beginning of November. While there I received a sample of Sennelier watercolor paint. Like my M. Graham watercolor paint, it uses honey as one of the binders. This allows the paint to retain a moist quality. Surprisingly, the prices are similar to the M. Graham. And the colors are wonderfully vibrant. I might add some of them to my palette. I'm happy. I now have two paint lines from which I can get the type of watercolor paint that I like.

This 10" x 14" painting is done on a Daler-Rowney The Langston Prestige watercolor block. I only used three paints to create this painting. It includes a yellow, red and blue. The yellow is Sennelier Yellow Light. The red is Opera Rose. And the blue is Cinereous Blue.

The yellow and red are transparent watercolor paints. But the blue is opaque. So, I laid down the sky before anything else. Likewise with the green (blue and yellow), I assumed (correctly) that it would cover any other paint.

Unlike most of my pen & ink paintings, I added the ink to this painting after painting the subject. I usually add it before as an underpainting. There were two reasons I did not do it this time. First, and foremost, I wanted to try this paint without the confinement of the pen & ink underpainting. Second, I decided that just a touch of details to the landscape and trees would help.

This painting is not based on any reference photograph. It's solely pulled from my imagination. My intent is to portray a bit of a windswept hill in the area of transition between grassland and woodland areas. The time of year is early summer. It is past the yellow/green of spring, but not into the deep greens and dried browns of summer. Additionally, this is an early morning or early evening sky, with the sun just starting to set and casting a pink and yellow glow. I've seen a few of those sunrise / sunsets to know that when that happens it tends to dramatically increase the color vibrancy. It's almost as if we suddenly see a new color in the world.

Here's hoping this painting helps brighten your day, offering both warmth and hope for your day.

20130925 - Pacific Sunset

Some of the most attractive settings to paint are sunsets. This painting is based on a photograph a friend took while on vacation.

I can't say that I spent a lot of time on this painting. However, I was trying to capture the different layers that you see in a sunset over the pacific ocean. You of course start with a darker sky the farther it is from the horizon. You often have light clouds reflecting the sunset. And of course there are often clouds closer toward the horizon line. Then the ocean line has several layers. The first is a deeper zone where the waves show a darker color. Then you have a lighter zone which typically reflects the sunset. Finally you have a wet beach before you reach the vegetation at the beach line.

And if you frame it just right, you'll have the edge of a tree in the upper left or right corner.

Here's hoping you enjoy this painting. If you hear the breakers rolling into the shore, don't blame me! It just seems to come with this type of setting! :-)

20130924 - Moody once again

Once again I attempted to capture a mood from a picture. The original of Bryce Canyon shows a stark outcrop of mesa from the side of a canyon wall. It's that out thrust in stark contrast that I wanted to try to capture.  I was not terribly worried about the actual detail, as much as that stark out thrust. Thus, the painting does not slavishly try to reproduce the original photography.

Yes, the sky is not right. This was just a sketch and I was playing with it a bit. Additionally, I realize that the colors are not quite the same. Nor was I worried about getting all the details of the scrub land below.

What I do like is the strong contrast between the colors (reds vs. greens .. a complimentary color pair) and values (light orange color versus dark green blue .. both a color compliment and light versus dark value). These contrasts help capture that sense of stark out thrust in the landscape.

20130923 - Setting a Mood

This week the lesson for art class is how to create a mood for a painting. For example, a misty coastline in Oregon provides a great example of how you need to create a unified painting that expresses a mood more than just "capturing" the setting.

While I think I accomplished that in this painting, the scan does not convey the subtle misty blue sky. Oh, and as you can see from the reference photograph, I decided to emphasize the misty, lonely mood of the original setting.

While this is nothing to write home about, it definitely is better than my first attempt, which while it captured more of the detail of the setting, failed miserably at capturing the mood I wanted to convey. It was hard edged and did not have that misty, lonely feel. This one does capture that feeling.

Of course my wife wondered if those were boy scouts camped along the shore. Next one that I do like this, I will need to try to incorporate that idea into it. Hmmm....

Anyway, I hope you enjoy my ramblings as much as I enjoy creating these paintings.

20130922 - Playing with color

Using some of the lessons that I learned during the past couple months, I decided to tackle a larger version of the Blue Ridge Parkway painting. You might remember that was one of my first pen & ink with watercolor wash paintings. While I liked it, it just lacked the vibrancy that I see in various landscape paintings.

So, my thought was to accentuate the color compliments (opposite colors on the color wheel) as well as accentuating the difference in light versus dark.

First I started with a pen & ink with waterbrush wash. That provided the outline for the painting. It also provides the "under-painting", which helps determine how light and dark portions of the painting should be.

Then I added the watercolor. I decided to change it to a later afternoon / evening and change some of the colors. Until I can get it copied, the following photo using my phone should show you the difference in my color choices.

While it's still "not there" yet, it's interesting seeing the difference in the way that I see and portray a scene. The sky is much more dynamic and the color choices are much more vibrant. It just pops with color.

Sure, there remain some problems. The red of the leaves below is too cool (too blue). It should have been a warmer (scarlet) color. And I got a muddy side of the hill. But the color choices are much more vibrant than in the past.

20130916 - Misty Marsh and Golden Koi

First of all, our objective today in the art class (Pen & Ink with Watercolor) was to create a misty marsh scene. As I've noted, I'm not very comfortable creating a very loose painting. This was my third or fourth attempt. I was doing wet into wet. Perhaps if I try a wet onto dry painting technique, I will have better success. I'm not completely upset with this one. But it's clearly not one of my better paintings. A clear sign that I have a lot still to learn. I knew it, but this clearly demonstrates that.




Of course, when I go to a more structured pen & ink with watercolor painting technique, I am much happier with the results. It's the engineer in me that wants the structure of a detailed drawing before I just start painting. I am not sure I will ever get past that completely.

Additionally, today Brian (my son) gave me a three bottles of Daler-Rowney FW Pearlescent Acrylic ink. So, I had to try it out. The result was a combination of pen & ink with the Pearlescent Acrylic Ink. The three inks were Galactic Blue, Mazuma Gold and Silver Pearl. So, I also decided to do a golden koi. As you can see, the pearlescent inks my son gave me work very well with pen & ink. I am much happier with this painting. You will no doubt see more of this type of painting in the future.

20130911 - Blue Ridge Mountains

Living along the Appalachian mountain range most of my life left me with a clear image of mountains. They are rolling hills that go as far as the eye can see.

Here's a painting that tries to capture that sense of rolling hills at sunset. You get a slight orange/pink hue tinging the mist and highlighting any remaining clouds.

It's very restful and I highly recommend this to anyone who visits the area.

Hope you enjoy!

20130720 - Aspens in Vail

A friend recently posted a picture of a train through an Aspen forest in Vail, CO. The result is the painting that you see below. She liked the painting so much that she had it printed on canvas for hanging in her house. That's pretty cool! So, enjoy!

Here is the original picture:

Though the photo shows a darker sky, the fact is that a photograph can not capture the brightness and open airy feeling of an Aspen forest. That's the sense I attempted to capture in the painting. Enjoy!

20130425 - Butterfly on Rocks

This is one of my earlier paintings. I had managed to leanr some of the basic techniques. I decided to try a more difficult picture. Using Google Images, I was able to find a photograph of a butterfly on rocks. I decided to add dew drops. Enjoy!