Peek-a-Boo completed

Armed with green gold, olive green, perylene green and sap green I began this painting adventure.  Although the lily pads took a lot of concentration - they were fun to paint.  Monochromatic.   But fun none the less.  The little leopard frogs were trickier to scketch in than they were to paint.  Almost my favourite bits of painting are the tiny little bugs.  I had to take my glasses off to work on them.


The work in progress post is just below!

Work in progress - 'Peek-a-boo"

We have a backyard pond.  The novelty has never worn off.  Each season it is different - offering us many new things to enjoy, much like a natural lake.  Only much, much smaller.  In the spring we have froggie visitors that delight us.  And last night - a frog spooked me when it jumped in front of my path into the pond. 

In the summer months, the lily pads and water lilies captivate us.  They are really parking spaces for dragon flies and darners and the likes.

We make a point to visit each day and look for the changes. What is ready to bloom, what has grown seeming overnight, you get the idea. The daily feeding the kio and gold fish are a huge part of this routine as well.  (We really do not necessarily like to talk about the daily cleaning of the filter basket and other pond maintenance activities that presented this year.)  

We sit on our deck in the evenings and wish the pond was really the ocean with waves or a huge lake.  We imagine the sounds of waves lapping at the shores.  And on more than one occasion during the times of high temps and humidity wished it was large enough to swim in.

So, it is not a stretch that I must paint it (er… again).  The lily pads and water lilies are from our pond.  The leopard frogs are actually residents at the pond at Hooper’s Studio in Hampton, NB.  Their pond is also small and is providing haven to over 40 leopard frogs (at last count).  Beside their pond is a rather large net.  When I inquired what the net was for I was told to catch the bullfrogs.  My puzzled look brought about this explaination “they eat the leopard frogs so Kathy catches them and relocates them to another area of the yard”.   I love this story.

Anyway, after photographing the frogs I knew I need to incorporate a few of them into this painting.  Along with the odd lacewing and dragon fly.  Enjoy looking for them. Peek-a-boo!

Petunia Cascade

I have been working on this painting for about three weeks now.  Between the layering of colors and alternating with masking compound and waiting for it all to dry.  I am so not patient!

I love how deep and rich the colors are.  I went back in with magenta and a really bright pink to add more detail and create more dimension. And of course, viridian green and indigo for the leaves.

After I removed the masking compound and sat back to look at the work - it reminded me of a serigraph print.  I actually thought about leaving it as is.  It had depth and the shaped were interesting.  But, being who I am, I had to go back in with more detail.

Interesting enough, the most difficult stage of this painting was titling it.

WIP - Poured painting of petunias - fingers crossed

This painting is being developed by careful planning and a solid preliminary drawing, pour an application of paint and then mask then repeat.  To get to this stage, the work has gone through six paint pours and six mask applications. I masked our the white areas initially then poured a light shade of pink.  There were three pink pours in total and two shades of green and one of dark blue.

Removing the masking compound is a bit of a work out and somewhat stressful.  The work has to be completely dry prior to removal.  One of the key elements of this method is to not allow the mask to sit on the paper for too long.  Also, I am nervous when I think I should use a hair dryer to accelerate the drying process.  I am really timid that the mask will bond to the paper and ruin the effort.

I am at the stage now where I soften us any harsh edges created my masking.  Then I will start to further develop the painting.  Although this method is laborious, it it still faster than my normal approach.  At least this is what I tell myself.

 

Plein Air painting - Bloomin Artists in Hampton this past weekend

Bloomin Artists

Pretty Potted Petunias

Smiling Sundrops

What a wonderful weekend!  

Painting plein air in beautiful gardens in Hampton.  Wonderful gardeners, mingling with artists and no appreciable amount of rain.

As artists, we are normally working solitary.  When we have a change to participate in events like this, we get to mingle and catch up and view the work that was produced.  Certainly gets my creative juices flowing.

Garden Tigers

I produced five paintings over the course of the two days,  A few are shared below - I forgot to photograph the honeysuckle vine.  On Saturday, the humidity was very high.  The excess moisture caused some softening or blurring of details while working with watercolor.  On Sunday, other than the threat of rain the main hazards were the blood thirsty midges.  You know, the little black flies that will even fly into your eyes and up your nose. Nasty beasties.  Distracting.  Irritating and annoying.

Sit a Spell

Ah, plein air painting.  I love it. And all for a good cause.

Artists-By-the-Sea, St. Andrews

Wondering About Supper

Weather Uncertain

 July 9^th & 10^th, 2011

Could Clear up - Could Rain

The annual fundraiser for Hospice Charlotte County takes place this coming weekend.  

In addition to offering the Plein Air paintings that artists complete around St Andrews during the event, the organizers have requested that artists bring along some small works with them – to kick start the silent auction process.   I have been very busy this holiday long weekend getting ready.  

Lone Sentinel

Coming In or Going Out

These are a number of the small paintings (5"x7" matted to 8" x 10") I that I completed for this event.  Hope to see you there!

Peppermint Candy Petunias

Somehow, the whole time I was working on this painting, I kept thinking about Peppermint Candies.  You know, the ones with the swirl of red and swirl of white?   It first occured to me as I was sketching them out - and then as I started to apply the watercolor paint I just kept thinking about them.  

Awhile back, I checked on my framing inventory and realized I had five really nice frame sets for watercolor paintings and so I set out to complete five in one month.  And I did it.  This is the last piece that I told myself I had to do in this timeframe.  

I love the colors of this flower.  The pinks are flaming and yet there are so many subtle shades.  The photos that I worked from were actually more on the bluish side - I chose to modify the colors to the impression they had on me.

This painting is 12.5 x 8" wide (unframed size) and is painted on Arches 300lb paper.

Fair Ladies

These lovely flowers grace the inside of our chicken wire fenced in garden.  We moved all our lilies into this rustic enclosure - in hopes to foil the white tail deer population that absolutely belive lily blooms are deer ice cream.  Well our plan work surperbly...well, until last year.

They have leaned longingly into the fence for a few years now - and managed to bend down a section making it easy for them to leap over.  And well, we cannot figure out how to repair it with out completely rebuilding it!

The deer love lilies.  All kinds of lilies - as much as we do.  Only we do not eat ours!  The lilies grow amoung the asparagus (which deer do not eat) and the mint (wish they would eat) and the clematis (crap shoot on this one, well they will sometimes eat the blooms).

And so, in a effort to get to enjoy these lovelies, I must paint them.  This ia a 12"  x 12" watercolor on Arches 300lb paper.  I think as time permits I will paint this again on Ampersand Aquabord in a larger size.

wanna play wanna play

This is a painting of our doggie.  Sadie is a highly spirited border collie lab cross and is always looking for someone to play with or for someone to pay attention to her.  She is very expressive and communicates with us quite clearly - Almost always about attention and/or food or food and/or attention!

She is getting on in years now.  We think she is about eleven - not sure as she was a resuce dog.  Her hair is turning quite white and she has started to slow down some.

This is a mixed watermedia painting on Ampersand Aquabord.  This surface is wonderful for painting textures such as fur and hair.

Whatzthat....Sadie

Sadie

Stormy Sunday and what shall I do. Sounds like the perfect day to lock myself in my studio and paint away.  This is a mixed watermedia piece on Ampersand Aquabord of our dog Sadie.  She is so inquisitive. Either looking for trouble or looking for food.  I could not resist painting her.  This was c ompleted in about five hours - the background gave me trouble. You cannot be in a hurry with this painting surface.   


Sadie is a mixed breed - cross between a lab and a border collie - the border collie being dominent.  She has us completely trained!

WIP - Carpet Roses - "Rosy Red Roses"

Apparently I underestimated the time and effort required to complete a detailed full sheet mono chromatic painting.  I always do.  And at this stage-I ask myself — what in the world am I thinking?   Obviously I am attracted to complexity.  And color variances.  And details and textures.  What am I thinking?

I am at the half way mark with this painting.  I have been working at this for about three — four weeks. Ok, I admit I took a divergance with the poured daisy painting.  And I spend as much time studying it as I do painting it.  Part of the process.  Looking for color balance.  Looking for scale.  Looking to see if it is working and what subtle tweaks it may require.

Daisy Fresh - Work in progress -completed

This painting was pure fun to work on.  Layer after layer of poured colors in combination with layers of masking compound,  When working in this fashion, you really have to plan you work - as it is not quite as intuitive as painting directly. The toughest part of all this is actually removing the mask.  

Then the fun really begins when you go back in and crispen (is this even a word?) up the edges and freshen up certain colors.The most challenging part is knowing when to stop and resisting the urge to overwork the painting. 

This painting is custom framed.  I haad to resist the urge to use a goldenrod colored inner mat - too  trendy - the finished result is quite lovely.  Greenish inner mat - off white outer mat with a v-grove.

"Follow Me" is finished finally!

This is the finished result of pouring, masking, pouring , masking over and over and over.  This process reminds me of batik - only on paper.  Once I have removed all the mask, I go back in and crisp up the details and intensify the colors as required.