This is a watercolor I painted last week. I am gathering elements for a new art journal with the theme of Ancient Egypt. I will add this painting to the journal somehow.  It's about 5x7 on watercolor paper.

little pleasures, hidden treasures

 

Little pleasures, hidden treasures #1

Watercolor on paper

3.5" x 2.5"

I am part of a painting group and currently we are painting ATC sized cards. The theme is 'little pleasures, hidden treasures."  As I live near the ocean and often walk the beach, I immediately thought of shells- they really are little pleasures and hidden treasures. This is my first one- I will do more. The idea is that at Christmas we will do a swap of our little cards for each other. How nice! 

I tried to paint rust. I think the background overwhelmed the lock. Next time it's one or the other.
But I tried! I will repaint this. 

France art journal paintung

Roussillon, France

Watercolor journal 

9" x 12"

I visited Roussillon while in France this past May. It is an amazing place where natural ochre is mined. The colors of the mountains are bright yellow to dark rust. Simply beautiful. When the sun hits them, they absolutely glow! It is hard to sense how large this mountain really is. 

decided to not do the 30x30 daily painting

Once I got into the 30x30 daily painting I started reading some posts about privacy. There was a general concern about how the # makes all the works public. I am not comfortable with being public on FB so I've decided not to continue.  I only allow friends so see my work on FB.  There are too many trolls on FB and I do not like that. Ah well, live and learn!

Experimental painting of poppies. I was messing around. I have a gazillion photos of poppies. I like to paint with no outcome or process. Just see what happens. I like the general feel of this. And I love the red splatter. This color- perfect for poppies!  It is Sennelier French Vermilion. Absolutely stunning color out of the tube.

Happy Painting!

#30x30DirectWatercolor2019 Day 1

#30x30DirectWatercolor2019 is a challenge to paint 30 paintings in 30 days. I decided to give it a go.

My goals are to paint some of the gazillion reference photos I take with my phone thinking, "I want to paint that!".   Another goal is to be loose.  I will be using both transparent wc and gouache. This challenge is about QUANTITY over QUALITY. 

Day1 I have hundreds of photos of blooming poppies from several trips. I love poppies, always have. Once I saw them blooming in the world, I fell in love.  This one below is from my latest trip to France- I just got home a week ago. The poppies were blooming all over Provence. 

#30x30DirectWatercolor2019

Day 1

6x9 on 140lb paper

transparent watercolor

shells in watercolor

I walked the beach yesterday with a NY friend who is moving here as soon as she retires. I found these 3 shells and brought them home to paint. Last night I painted them using my watercolor pencils. I wanted to see how they work in detailed painting. I think the pencils worked well. I also used a white gel pen for the reflections. This was done in a paper journal, not watercolor paper.

I usually just grab what is handy to me when I decide to draw or paint. I grabbed my drawing sketch book and painted in it. The paper is a bit buckled but it's ok as it's just a sketch book, not a fine work of art.
HAPPY PAINTING!!

2019 brings a new teaching class

Happy New Year! To start this year, I've been asked to teach a watercolor journaling class. I am looking forward to the get togethers and sharing work and techniques. I will post some class work here as it progresses.

Macrons

watercolor in my art journal

I started a new art journal recently and just did this small painting. I am fairly obsessed with the idea of making French Macrons. I will this 2019. I have purchased what I need and have read up on the technique. Now to start! In the meantime, I painted some. 

Happy Painting! 

Clean watercolors! (It's the little things)

Like most painters, I have several watercolor sets. Over the years I have found the colors I love most. This little box is my current favorite sketching palette. It's small and portable. Folds up nice and small, perfect for traveling and urban sketching.

But WHAT A MESS it was! I wish I took a before picture. It was gunky and muddy and I could not see most of the colors anymore. But what was REALLY frustrating me was that the colors were in the box willy-nilly, no rhyme or reason. So tonight I took the whole thing apart and did some major housecleaning. I refilled the low ones and scrubbed it all clean. Then I made the little squares on the right to experiment with different color configurations based on how I paint. I basically use a rainbow set up, with a warm and cool for each color. The neutrals are next and then Black, white and grey. In the neutrals there is a shimmer that I like to add sometimes. Then I made the little key on the right to keep with the paints. So when they get gunky and messy again, at least this will help me 'see' the colors. It feel great to be clean and organized. YAY!! Now to get painting...

Brusho crystals and watercolor

I've had Brusho crystals for awhile and recently started using them in a new way. I was watching a YouTube video and had an "a ha" moment. Prior to this video, I would sprinkle the Brusho onto wet paper willy nilly and was left with a colorful mess. Nice for backgrounds, but not much else. But the video explained that if I were to either sprinkle the crystals onto dry paper and then paint with a water filled brush...control! Or, make my drawing, wet the area to be colored and then sprinkle in the crystals....again...control! A whole new technique has opened up for me. This is a large painting. The dragonfly in on Arches 140 cold press paper that measures 12" x 16". 

I am also using another new product as part of this experiment. Daniel Smith's iridescent neutral watercolor. After this was all dry, I painted over it with the neutral iridescent and it SPARKLES, like a wing would do. Amazing. It is subtle and only sparkles in sunlight. 

I am having great fun experimenting and playing with my watercolors. I will post more as this evolves.  Happy Painting!

painting fog in watercolor

fog

watercolor on 140# paper

I've always wanted to paint fog...and I just didn't know how to. I found a technique book that showed me how. Yay! This is my first attempt. I like the sky colors. I found a workbook by Zolton Szabo that has demos on techniques.

Urban Sketching

I've posted this on my crafting blog as well because I think of outdoor sketching as a craft and an art. Not sure why, but I do. Painting outside is not one of my favorite pastimes, but I am trying to get better at it. I prefer studio painting with all my creature comforts and air conditioning and no bugs...lol    But, I do love keeping travel journals- for years they have been written journal and I have filled several journals this way. I love looking back at them because they bring me right back to that place and time.  So, now I want to add images to my written travel journals.

And that gives me a GREAT IDEA!  I am going to make a few travel journals for me- with both writing and painting paper. More to come on that...
happy painting.

Watercolor of a Seahorse for my beach house

Seahorse

14" x 20"

watercolor on paper

This is a large painting I created before I even knew I would buy a beach house. (I think deep inside, I knew I was headed to the beach.)  My goal was to get bigger in my watercolor painting. I generally paint small in my watercolors, 8"x10" or less. So I went large, and it was great fun. I painted with abandon as I figured I could use the other side of the paper if things went badly.  I was actually pleased with the results.  This painting now hangs in my home. 

Painting with no expected outcome often creates the best pictures because I relax and just have fun. No expectations or pressure.

Onions for Sale

watercolor on paper

5"x7"

I really enjoyed painting this painting. It had some design challenges and I had to deviate from my reference photo. There were big bins with different varieties of onions and the large sacks of onions on the left, all for sale. I took this photo at Soon's Orchards in Middletown, NY. They are known for their apples but grow veggies as well. 

marine themed watercolor

seahorses

watercolor on 140#paper

prints of this and others available here.

Living near the ocean has started me thinking about painting marine and ocean paintings. I've been having fun painting sea horses, jellyfish and crabs. I love the loose style and used it in this current series of paintings.  

jellyfish watercolor painting

Jellyfish

watercolor on hot press 140lb paper

I am having fun exploring and making ocean themed watercolors!  I really like this color combination.  I just start painting and see what happens. Reference photos are used. I want to fill up my beach house with ocean art and thats why this new series of paintings. Lets see where it goes...

really blue Blue Crab watercolor painting

Blue Crab 1

watercolor on paper

7" x 9"

I was shopping the other day and saw a print that intrigued me. It was a blue crab on a  map of the Chesapeake Bay. It got me to thinking...that I would do the same type of painting on a map of Delaware. So here is a preliminary painting of a blue crab. When I was a small girl, my family would go crabbing in and around Bethany Beach, Delaware. We would catch a basket full and then my mom would boil them up and we would have a great crab meal. I don't remember exactly what she would make, but my mom was a wonderful cook. I'll have to ask my sisters or brother if they remember.  

Next comes a painting of the small state of Delaware...

walking on the beach in January

Waves and bare feet in January

color pencil and watercolor on paper

8.5" x 5.5"

Last week my daughters and granddaughter came to visit me in my new beach house. It was so great to see them and they picked the perfect weekend to come as the temperature went up to 70 degrees. We went to the beach and it was so warm, we took off our shoes, coats and socks and wandered all around the beach in our bare feet at the end of January! The water was freezing but the sand, wind and sky was warm and blue and wonderful. I snapped a picture of my granddaughter as she stood and looked at the waves. She was laughing and in awe. She loved it and it warmed my heart so much. I drew this yesterday using my photo as a reference. I wanted to catch the awe she felt looking at the big waves. She is four and everything still amazes her. We should all spend time with a four year old to renew our sense of wonder at this great big beautiful world in which we live.

more poppies

poppies

pastel over watercolor

4x4 on paper

Experimenting with colors here. I am obsessed with poppies. I never tire of painting them. 

On another note-  I just signed up for a weekly oil painting class with Susan Hope Fogel and am quite excited about it! I need to step back out and get into the swing of living my life again. Since my husband died, I have not ventured out from my family much. I've traveled with my sisters and almost all of my social time has been with my family. It's time to get back to my other life, outside of my family. 

experiment with inks

6" x 9"

ink and watercolor

I wanted to try a Tim Holtz black distress marker for this drawing/painting. My idea was to draw the poppies and then wet the marks with water so they would run a bit and then paint with inktense ink sticks. His distress markers and ink pads are made to react with water. A property one may or may not like. For this, I liked!

I am pleased with the results. more experiments to come.  I also used some watercolor on the dark brown area to make it darker. I mixed Payne's gray with transparent orange to get a beautiful brown. I made the edges soft.