Tag Archives: watercolor

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:

Another new watercolor ~~ Los Angeles Palm with golden necklace!

I love palm trees and have had to practice quite a bit in order to capture a semblance of one. I’ve been procrastinating on this beauty for a number of years — based on a photo I took in LA.

LA Palm, with Golden Necklace. Watercolor on paper. 7” x 5”.

My DC Place ~~ new watercolor

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.

My DC Place. Watercolor on paper. 7” x 5”.

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.

Waterlilies in Watercolor

I took some photos of lily pads while boating on Lake Ariel about ten years ago with my husband and friends Roz & Jim Morgan. I particularly prize one of those images and have been wanting to paint it ever since. Here’s the rendition I did a few weeks ago. I had fun with this one.

Waterlilies at Lake Ariel. Watercolor on paper. 8″x10″

Painting #13 – Another Veggie Watercolor-Gouache for a Collector

After painting that cauliflower a few days ago, I started regretting that my collector had selected my dinky mushrooms as part of her four-veggie series for the kitchen.  I decided to do a more ‘fulsome’ substitute for her consideration — celery!  Here it is.  She’s happily taking it instead of the ‘shrooms!

Celery. Watercolor and gouache on paper. 11″ x 14″

Celery Painting and Subject.

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Irrational Exuberance ~~ Painted Mushrooms? Or Toadstools?

OK.  So, the leeks turned out well, aaaannnndddd ~~~~ I got sassy & decided to paint some portobello mushrooms the next day.

Bad idea!  There’s not much ‘there’ there.  Dull colors & shapes, arranged (by me) in an overly simplistic composition.  Certain artists could make a good painting out of such drab components (Morandi?), but my first effort at ‘shrooms falls short.

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Painting Leeks at Home in the Aftermath of Artin Workshop!

I was so pumped up after Wendy Artin’s workshop that, after a day of R&R, I pulled out my paints and a couple of elderly leeks from the fridge and painted another watercolor in the manner we had been practicing during the workshop.  Here it is.

Leeks at Home. Watercolor on Paper.

I was tickled that it turned out nicely.  Maybe I’ll have to do more!