I’m truly behind in my quest for 3 versions a week for the 100 painting challenge, but still in there! I haven’t decided on any theme for some of them, but who knows how I will feel next week. This one just painted itself with wild and crazy colors! For those new to the site, the size is always 5X7, pastel, 30-minute time limit (although on this one I think I pushed that to 45 minutes).
Enjoy!
Tags: 100 Pastel Challenge, Color, Flowers, landscape, pastel, Sketches, Watercolor
This is another type of veriation that I’ll be exploring in the challenge to do 100 paintings. My pastels tend to look soft and, some might say, mushy. But I like the almost water color effect that I get manipulating the pastel. In this case, the largest amount of pastel was applied with individual strokes. Sometimes, pastelists will use a vertical stroke…..I don’t think I’ve ever seen any with purely horizontal! I was so into this picture that I ran over my 30 minute limit and took 45 minutes…..but I think I’ll keep it anyway. Otherwise, it fit the remaining categories of same picture and size (5 X 7) I’ve now completed 5 paintings in my quest for 100. I hope you enjoy this one! Do you think I like color?
Tags: 100 Pastel Challenge, Color, Flowers, landscape, pastel, process study, Sketches
This was such an unusual yellow rose with red edges and red and green leaves that I took a picture of it while walking the dogs earlier in the year. Watercolor, of course, in my 7 X 9 sketchbook. I actually liked the bud more than the opened flowers as the red seemed more intense. Unfortunately, this shot doesn’t show the brightness of the original painting. I may go outdoors tomorrow and see if I can get a better shot. All comment are truly welcome! Remember, this is a learning adventure…..and I can take it 
Tags: Color, Flowers, garden, Watercolor
Well, I thought I’d give those colored flairs another try. I’m not as happy with them as I am just the black flair, but it’s fun trying to blend and smear the ink.
I decided that I couldn’t wait any longer, so I sat down and had some fun with watercolor! Funny how life keeps getting in the way these days. So, my new personal goal is to get something done daily and not worry about it. This is a quick watercolor (4 X 6) done in my sketchbook of a very small amount of the monster Morning glory taking over my back yard. My efforts at controlling it’s goal of world domination have been insufficient in this heat. I’m expecting to hear from the City of Lakewood about possible lost animals soon!
Tags: Color, Flowers, Watercolor
Wednesday night was the first meeting of the Lakewood Artist Guild after the summer break. I really enjoyed getting together with artists I had met before the break, plus several new members. The visiting artist was Ernie Marjoram. He is a Los Angeles Professional Artist and teacher. In fact, he is leaving soon vor Vienna and Italy…..is my envy showing? Ernie did a wonderful job talking about how to design a painting (he uses oil, but the info was useful for any media). It was a great demo and lecture and I’m anxious to put to use what I learned. I asked Ernie if I could take his picture during the demo and you will see that below.
Members are incouraged to bring a painting each month to share. I took a small (4″ X 8″) pastel I had done some time ago. You’ll see in the pictures that the majority brought much larger paintings….but sometimes special things come in small packages, right?
My motto: when in doubt, paint flowers. I have some ideas I’m working on, but I find that if I go too long planning something, it’s like I’ve actually done the artwork. So, while those ideas are tumbling around in my head, I thought I’d throw in a watercolor of flowers. I don’t know what kind they are. I saw something like this group and did a small sketch some time ago. I painted them in my 6 X 8 sketchbook with Prang watercolors. I’ll try to remember to show the steps next time. I think it’s been awhile since I’ve done that.
Tags: Color, Flowers, Sketches, Watercolor
There’s a saying…..”when life gives you lemons, make lemonade”. I’m posting my lemonade today.
As you saw in my coastal village sketch a couple of days ago (and I have lots of other
examples in my blog), I love sketching with a flair pen and then moving the ink around with water. Obviously non-permanent ink! In fact, you can’t always know in advance what color the wash will be….I suppose depending on how they mixed their black. I’ve had everything from pink to blue show up.
The other day I found a package of 12 flairs in 12 colors…….I imagined the fun I was going to have washing all those colors around. BUT, what I found was that only the black worked. The rest just sat there….and I expected to have a really bright sunflower scene again.
So, using the black flair here and there and mushing as much as I could, I came up with the drawing above. I’ll have to find another use for the other 11 flairs, but for today, they made lemonade!
Just a quick flair drawing with water brushed on. Size 7 X 5
I decided to paint the poppies, later the same week… Size 6 X 9.
Tags: black & white, Color, Flowers, garden, pen & ink, poppies, process study, Sketches
Another quick watercolor of a spring flower. This was one of our many yellow/orange nasturtiums last year. Size 5 X 7.
Tags: Flowers, garden, nasturtiums, Sketches, Watercolor
