Category Archives: Painting

More Pandemic Art ~~ a challenging composite of personal memories.

Over the last six months, I’ve been zoom-studying with artists otherwise out of reach. Here’s the final project of a recent class with Ed Praybe — a composite of several separate images arranged into relatively natural composition. It is based on an image of my mother Annette, taken in her twenties, a photo of my six sisters and me, taken years later as a reference for a group portrait lost in Hurricane Katrina; and several photos of our Biloxi home, also later destroyed by Katrina.

To make it work, I had to adjust the relative scales of the elements and imagine a consistent light source across the whole scene. . .

The final image:

Composite of family home, mother, and sisters. Watercolor on Paper. 14 x 11.

The 4 images that provided the underpinnings of the composition:

A Diversion to Gouache ~~ Yellow Convertible, Cuban Style!

I came across a photo I took some years ago in Cuba and it made me smile. Pulled out my gouache set and took a stab. It turned out too precise, but I’ll try to be looser next time. It was fun anyway.

Yellow convertible, Havana Cuba. Gouache on Paper. 7.5″ x 5″

Rhodos ~~ wild and wooly against yellow grasses

This is another floral, painted a few weeks back. The little petals aren’t as well-suggested as were the petals on the peonies I posted yesterday. And it was extremely difficult to suggest that vibrant magenta. But ‘it is what it is’. . . . I may go back in and soften the strength of that one green leaf between the flowers. Draws the attention too much . . .

Rhododendrons against yellow grasses. Watercolor on paper. 9″ x 12″.
Photo reference from our garden.

A Bevy of Spring Tulips in Two Media ~~ Digital (iPad) and Watercolor.

We’ve got a fabulous clump of red native tulips nestled under a crepe myrtle tree in our front yard. It’s one of the first shows every Spring and it’s hard to beat. I did a digital portrait of them several years ago on the iPad using the Art Rage app and painted them again in watercolor a few days ago. Thought you’d enjoy comparing them!

Red Tulips. Original Digital Painting using Art Rage on an iPad. 4×3 aspect ratio.
Red Tulips. Watercolor on Paper. 14 x 10.

A Quick Gouache for an Exhibit Cancelled by Covid!

With my painting buddies, the Seven Palettes, I was to mount an exhibition a year ago at Oasis Gallery, Westfield Montgomery Mall, Bethesda, MD. Covid killed that so we got to work and ‘hung’ a digital exhibit online. Here’s one of the gouache paintings I had done for that show. It’s a bit too literal, but I figured some mother or grandmother might like it!

At the playground. Gouache on Paper. 2019. 8″ x 11″.

Informal Watercolor Sketch of Granddaughter

My 3-year old granddaughter and I were painting together during a recent sleepover. She was very engrossed in her art, studiously dragging her wet brush through EVERY block of color before applying the resulting ‘mud’ to her paper. Rather than fret about the growing mess on the palette I decided to paint a quick sketch of her as I looked down on her efforts. Did another quickie the following day from a different angle; different clothes made her look older. . . .

Day 2, Concentration. Watercolor on Paper. 8″ x 10″.

Fun with Compositions

Our most recent Ed Praybe session called for considering types of compositions ~~ various ways to position the components of the painting so as to produce an intended effect on the viewer. We each selected two objects and then experimented moving them around to see how many different ‘stable’ or ‘dynamic’ compositions we could produce. We then painted one of them, using our primary triad of yellow, red and blue.

For homework, we had to paint three objects into a stable composition and then reposition them and paint a dynamic composition. Still using the primary triad color scheme.

Watercolor experiments with the primary colors

Recently our class with Ed Praybe focused on painting a wide range of hues using only 3 colors – a ‘primary triad’ of red, yellow and blue. As you may remember, I’ve used such severely limited palettes many times, but only in oil paints so far. It was fun to try it with watercolors.

We did a test painting, blending the three colors before applying them to the paper. Our homework was to paint three versions of a still life setup: one monochrome to analyze the value (light and dark) structure of the scene; a second in which we mixed the colors before applying them to the paper; and a third in which we applied single color washes; let them dry completely, and then painted additional single color washes on top. This last technique creates new colors as the several layers combine optically.

Pink ballerina and blue attendants

Here’s a quick watercolor done on some super soft and absorbent handmade paper I had laying around. It’s based on a photo of some darling little girls dancing at their school’s holiday production. It only took a couple of minutes and it was a ton of fun!

Pink Ballerina. Watercolor on Handmade Paper. 6″ x 8″.