Cinnamon Pink

Watercolor - Think Simple

In a past issue of Watercolor Artist, there's an excellent, and comprehensive, article by Charles Reid on how to stop overworking your watercolor paintings. He provides four valuable tips to achieve this goal:

• Once you start losing your concentration, stop.
• Don't go back and make forms more defined.
• Don't add small darks at the end of the painting.
• When you make a stroke that's "off," stop.

I think I'm going to keep his tips by my side when I do my next watercolor painting.

Reid also suggests that you study the watercolor paintings of John Singer Sargent. If you visit Reid's site, you'll find that he keeps it beautifully simple in his paintings. I especially admire his Venice paintings.

Here is a painting by John Singer Sargent, entitled Gondoliers' Siesta (1910). (Note: I just realized that I'm continuing to follow Michelle Ward's Challenge: To Learn Something New. And that's a good thing.)

Watercolor in Progress

With watercolor painting, sometimes I think it's not the technique, paint or substrate that is most important. What is really crucial is coming to the page, every day, and painting. 

This is a watercolor painting in progress. I like to draw, and paint, chairs. My sketchbooks are full of all kinds of chairs. I've been drawing them for years. What do you like to paint?

Back to Square One

I purchased a new laptop - and a new printer - and upgraded from Photoshop Elements 3 to Photoshop Elements 7. Well, it's back to Square One, on the Learning Curve, in regard to all three purchases.

I just tried to edit a watercolor painting, which I did today, in Photoshop Elements 7. And I wasn't able to change the font color.So, I booted up Elements 3 and I easily changed the color of the font. The joys of new technology!

 

Watercolor - Blending Exercise

Yesterday, I worked on a couple of small watercolor paintings to practice blending techniques. Here is one of the paintings - a simple pear.

Reinventing in Watercolor

I was recently inspired by a Pochoir print (from the 1920s) which I saw online. Instead of using the stencil process, I reinvented the print by turning it into a mixed-media work, using watercolor painting and art stamps.

The original print consisted of a man and woman - and more detailed background. I chose to portray only the woman and a couple of trees.

Revisiting 2009 Goals

About every three months, I like to review my goals for 2009. This year my major goal was to draw daily. Due to my recent vacation and family visits, I neglected to draw daily.

Since I hadn't been practicing, I felt a little rusty when I worked on the watercolor (below). But I decided to recommit to my goal and continue to do a daily drawing or more.

I believe drawing is like any other skill. The more you practice, the better you become - and the more satisfied you are with the end results. Then one day, after a lot of hard work, everything seems to fall into place. And you are surprised at the progress that you made and the skill that you have achieved.

Set aside some time today and revisit your Goals for 2009.

Quick Watercolor Painting

I only had time for a quick watercolor painting today.  I had to take my Shih Tzu, Tia, to the Vet this morning.

This was her second Vet visit in two weeks - She has a UTI. Hmmmmm.....Gave the Vet $159. last week and $116 this week. Did you ever notice that big bills seem to come in bunches. We just replaced our ride-on lawn mower and then our air conditioning unit needed $600. of repair work. And the unit is less than five years old. I know these financial bumps in the road happen to everybody.

I think I need to set aside a few more hours, later on, to make more Art to soothe my soul. I find it very healing to work at my Art. So, here's my little coffee cup painting. I played around with the colors in Photoshop Elements.

Quick Watercolor Experiment

Here's a quick watercolor painting experiment that I did this afternoon. First, I put a wash of blue ink on some vintage sheet music from the early 1900s. I then applied Gesso in the middle of the page. I dried the Gesso with my trusty heat gun. Next, I made a quick sketch of a female face - and applied watercolor paint and watercolor pencil to enhance the image.

I've tried this Gesso/watercolor technique before. It's interesting how the Gesso background allows you to (both) wipe out areas of paint - and add additional paint to your composition.

My goal was to make a quick watercolor study - and not strive for perfection. Sometimes, I think you can learn more from your materials when you work fast.

Watercolor - In Progress

At my last watercolor class, we worked with masking tape and/or Mylar. I chose to work with masking tape.

First, I added a wash of ultramarine blue to the middle of the watercolor paper. To create some foliage, I tore very thin strips of tape and pressed them along the bottom of the painting. I covered the strips with a wash of yellow paint.

Since I wanted to paint birch trees, I tore off small pieces of masking tape to cover my sketched tree limbs - leaving varying degrees of thin, horizontal white spaces. I filled in these spaces with burnt umber paint. I then stroked on some light-colored branches. Next, I used a sea sponge (coated with burnt umber) to add brown leaves.

When the paint dried, I removed all the masking tape. I added in some more leaves using the sea sponge technique. I then stopped painting. I'm going to take my unfinished painting (see below) to my next class. I want it to be critiqued by my Instructor and fellow classmates so I can get a better idea of the next step to take. I don't want to overwork the painting - LOL - like I did last week.

In the meantime, I wrote up this tutorial in case you might want to try these ideas.

Have a creative day, Darlene