Sea Creatures

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I must be easily influenced! One of my friends mentioned interest in Horseshoe Crabs and off I went to work on Horseshoe crabs. Never would I have thought to do a painting of this particular sea creature. But, it was super fun! And, I learned a little bit about them too. I am going to do a series of 3. One more to do. I actually love their shape and design. These lent themselves to the encaustic medium as a finish…and the addition of white broken shells. Both of them are done on cradled birch panel, using a combination of oil bar, watercolor and casein, encaustic and the found natural shells. Lots of fun! I just have to decide the color scheme for the last one!

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Sktchy and Materials

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Along with doing quick simple faces I want to be able to do a more finished drawing. This started with leftovers (I hate to waste paint!) I had painted a blue(ish) ground on my strathmore toned paper…then had some left over acrylic paint that I decided to squash on there. Over that I decided to paint some watercolor…which looked interesting…kind of like a stain. I thought, well, this might be a good surface for graphite.

I am not sure about it. The graphite went down smoothly. But, I felt like I couldn’t get the darks as dark as I wanted. Maybe I just needed to control the ground more in areas. I think that the effect is interesting though, will try again!

Fishing

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I have been trying to finish this one up for a couple of weeks. Fish drawings for my husband! I was doing a lot of birds and he said, how about some fish! So, this is for my husband John.

Our plow guy takes out our house marker (or mailbox if up) every year. Another one bit the dust this past winter. Here is our new sign, found wood on the beach, painted in acrylic–atlantic salmon seemed a good choice for a coastal Maine house. We’ll see how long it lasts!

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Still working on my faces. Work in progress today–taking more time than I normally do.

Boy With Hat

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Yesterday’s face! I can’t get away from the “red cheeks” idea from #sketchbookskool yet. It seems like every face I do is begging for a little cheek color. I imagine I will wander away from that eventually.

I am trying to do the face a day as a warm up to my day. Also working on a few painting projects. My vacation time is coming to a close in a couple of days, so all the sudden I am in an art project frenzy of trying to finish things up!  And, trying to have a little fun on the side with some mermaid doodles.

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Repurposed

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This new expressive line technique seems so perfect for reinterpreting some of my past sketches. It’s difficult for me to draw the same thing again…even though I feel like that is probably a good approach for refining work. But, I tend not to want to do it. I stumbled onto this idea while looking for a way to “try” out the line technique and have discovered a way to explore the previous sketch in a new way.

I liked the way this turned out, I might try a few more in different color combinations and on different paper stocks. This linen type paper seems to work very well, gives some nice “bleeding” effects.

Expressions

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Finally this weekend a return to my #sketchbookskool class. I have been missing it. This weeks lesson was great. The instructor is german and felt most comfortable speaking in his native language. This was actually really cool! It was subtitled of course, but I found myself more engaged than usual. Good lessons on watercolor washes and glazes. This guy does really great illustrations (here is a link to his website: Felix Scheinberger) fun to watch him and see his books.

The one thing I have learned from the lessons is with watercolor glazing you need to be patient and let things dry! I am probably more a fan of the washes, but the glazes are good to know about. A challenge for sure. Oh, and I did the under-drawing with a crayola crayon and that was AWESOME!! I love crayons, and the watercolor works great with them.

He has inspired me to tackle more people and faces. Always nice to be inspired.

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Day 28

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Plumeria are not only beautiful, they smell delicious. The simple shapes are deceivingly difficult to capture. I love the smallest little veins in the petals that go in all directions defining the petal. The variation in these flowers is so nice. A simple shape that says Aloha.

I was going to do the hibiscus, but somehow the plumeria called me away.

Studies

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small study: oil bar, 5" x 6"

small study: oil bar, 5″ x 6″

It’s so interesting to me that sometimes the studies that I do to warm up for a “finished” painting turn out better than the final. Maybe it is the carefree attitude. I suppose I could try to trick myself into doing larger “studies”! No doubt the more I do, the better I will get at being less worried when faced with canvas or large substrates. It’s all a process.

The last few days have been spent working with the oil bars and some ink and water color projects. Ink is a lot of fun. I like going back and forth between these two mediums…they are so different. I think switching over to a different medium helps my easily distracted brain!

Trigger Fish: Ink & Watercolor, 5" x 7"

Trigger Fish: Ink & Watercolor, 5″ x 7″

A Sporadic Inktober

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Watercolor and Ink

Watercolor and Ink

I am doing a miserable job of keeping up with #inktober. But, I am inspired to do as many ink drawings as I can. This year I am not feeling so bound by rules…so while ink is the main ingredient, I feel fine adding color with other mediums.

While I was in Frisco, NC I stopped in to the Indian Town Gallery and they were gearing up for their Tiny Art Fundraiser. I decided it would be fun to donate a piece of art for this. Everyone that participates gets a 5×5 canvas to paint on, at the show all works are $20 donated to a good cause. I am only sorry that I can’t be there for the show! Tiny Art Show

Sardine Surprise: Tiny Art Donation

Sardine Surprise: Tiny Art Donation

Feeling a little unsettled about subject matter right now. Not so much for sketching and experimenting, that comes pretty easy. But, I still feel a little overwhelmed by my goal of completing a body of work. I am not very disciplined…or maybe I am just easily distracted. Maybe I should make a list of what I want to paint, settle on a size for all, and just dig in to that. If I could get 2 oil bar paintings and two watercolor/ink pieces done I would be happy with that. That is two less than I hoped for.

Puffy Fish: ArtSnack materials

Puffy Fish: ArtSnack materials

First in a series

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Orange Tulip

Orange Tulip

Sketch to painting. Imaginary color. Experimental background. Sometimes I wonder…what in the world am I doing? I just launch into a painting using materials that I have either never used or have limited use in…I feel like I should be using materials that I am really adept at. However, I don’t even know what that would be. Painting doesn’t really come naturally to me, so I am approaching it like a drawing.

I had a lot of fun deciding on the colors to use for this piece. I really enjoyed doing the ink only sketch and then re-interpreting that into a small painting. This is 5″x7″ on a cradled birch panel. I really like opaque watercolor and water-soluble crayon, but I wanted to work on something other than paper. So, I found some absorbent gesso ground and made that my first layer, (purposely painted on in several layers with some nice texture) then I did an abstract opaque watercolor background and added some salt. Then I painted my image right on top. I am happy with the translucency almost tissue paper look to it. I am like that some of the background comes through in the flower. Opaque watercolor is a challenge though and some areas seem muddy to me.

I think that I will try inktense or maybe casein next.

Tulip Study: fountain pen, black ink

Tulip Study: fountain pen, black ink