Our peonies were blooming last week so I clipped a few. They were very droopy from the rain so I propped them up with some branchlets from our Japanese maple. Painting flowers with lots of little petals is always daunting! I always like the containers better than the flowers!
Before everything wilted and fell off, I decided to do a second painting of the Peruvian lilies by themselves!
Face Off — Peruvian Lilies vs mountain Laurel Buds. Watercolor on paper. 9” x 9”.
Here’s a new watercolor based on a photo I took while driving along Massachusetts Avenue in DC a couple of years ago. It captures part of our capital’s essence. Painting it was an imperative.
I used a limited palette of 2 reds, 2 blues, and 2 yellows, plus black.
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!
Came across an old photo I took years ago of Multnomah Falls outside of Portland. Since I’ve been practicing my watercolor skills lately, I decided to give it a go.
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. . . .
I did a study of some of my African violets yesterday, using a ‘split primary’ color palette (warm and cool red, yellow and blue tube colors + white). I found it virtually impossible to capture the near neon magenta of the flowers, but did my best with what I had, rather than digging for another tube color.
While on a trek to visit a tobacco farm in Cuba some years ago, I spied this diminutive lady trudging down the dusty road, clutching a load of huge tubers. I snapped a quick photo of her as she moved away and finally got around to painting her as homework for my watercolor class with Ed Praybe. Sweet memory.
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!
