Fish Watercolor in Progress

 

This fish is on Arches 140 paper. I used undersea green and turquoise for the background radial wash. Lots to do still but here is my start. I have taken a break from painting for the holidays and I am "itchin" to get back to painting. I am working on this fish as well as some landscapes and quick pen & ink and watercolor sketches from my photographs taken on the Amalfi Coast.  I am going to also be starting a pastel portrait of a friend's granddaughter. Stay tuned for more posts soon! Happy New Year!

Peppers in Amalfi Market

 

A crate  of peppers in the Amalfi market - beautiful fruits and vegetables.

Lemoncello Shop in Amalfi

 

Another sketch - lemoncello!

Stairs in Amalfi, Italy

 

Here is the first series of little sketches in pen and ink/water color around the Amalfi Coast - there were so many little scenes begging to be painted but, alas, I only had time to snap  a picture so I decided to document these little scenes with pen&ink and watercolor.

Mama Agata's Terrace Ravello, Italy

 

Here is the completed watercolor of Mama Agata's Terrace. Painted on Arches 140# paper, lots of wet on wet painting to keep  it hazy as  it looked,  hard to tell where the ocean stopped and the sky began.  I started with a horizontal underpainting with midnight blue and cool yellow. Look at the work in progress posted on November 28th to see the changes.

Bronze John Calvin Sculpture

 

 Here is Carol Smith's completed cast bronze sculpture of John Calvin. He was cast at a foundry in Bastrop, Texas, finished with a patina, mounted on the wood base. John Calvin will be residing in the office of Reverend Jack Smith, Carol's husband.
This was Carol's very first sculpture and she has captured so well Calvin's features and expression as well as the remarkable texture of his beard and clothing. Stop by  Jack's office to take a peek at this wonderful sculpture.
'

Another Fine Pencil Sketch by Carol Smith

 

Here is another of my friend and fellow artist, Carol Smith's fine pencil sketches. Carol captures  beautiful highlights, shadows and form in her pencil sketches, they radiate!
And soon I will post her finished John Calvin sculpture - I have posted the clay model before and it has now been cast in bronze, finished and mounted on a wood base.

Mama Agata's Terrace - Ravelo, Italy - September 2012

 

Here is the beginning of a painting from a photograph that I took of Mama Agata's terrace in Ravelo, Italy. We took a cooking class with our group of friends at Mama Agata's home which overlooked the Amalfi Coast. The day of cooking was amazing as was all the scenery in the Amalfi area. Rich, soft color everywhere. it was hard to tell where the ocean ends and the sky begins. This watercolor is done on a half sheet of Arches paper that I did a horizontal gradient wash on first to establish a good rich underpainting. The colors will become richer  and deeper as I continue to add washes of color.

Progression of Young Woman in Prayer pastel

 

Here is the rough portrait on the left and the finished portrait on the right...I toned down the skin, added highlights back in, molded the cheek and nose shapes more fully, worked the head scarf to be more molded to the shape of the head and added a background with some highlights in it.

Young Woman in Prayer - pastel

 

Here is my completed pastel portrait of a young woman, eyes bowed in prayer. This was done from a photograph that my teacher, Deb Richardson provided. Great learning experience! and I am pleased with the final portrait.

Pastel Portrait - still a work in progress

 

Still working on the pastel portrait - compare to the last post. I have darkened the darks and since doing that I have lost the vivid highlights so I will work next week on brightening the highlights again. I  do think that I am beginning to capture the "volume" in the face. I still need to work on the shadows in the nubby scarf on her head. Of course,  the background hasn't been worked at all so the grid lines will disappear once I begin to fill in the background.
This has been a super class, wonderful teacher-artist, Deb Richardson, and great fellow class members who work really hard on their own pieces as well as being able to give very observant and constructive critique. In a few weeks we are going to bring our cameras to class and work on photography of models (each other in the class) and get tips from Deb  on what works and what doesn't work when photographing a model.

Pastel Portrait Class

 

This is my beginning effort from Deb Richardson's pastel portrait class that I am taking through Cordovan Art School at Jerry's Artarama in Austin. Deb has shown us how to do a "landmark grid" to transfer a picture to the pastel board (this is an 8 x 10 light grey ampersand board worked with Rembrandt soft pastels) - with this landmark grid you don't do a conventional 1" x 1" grid but you make note of the important features & their location - eyes, nose, nostrils, brow, lips,  etc. You can see the soft pastel pencil lines of the grid in the gray background to the right of the face. These will be completely covered and invisible when the portrait is completed. This style of using a grid is much more practical and gives you the information that you need to transfer the picture- the picture is then drawn in grid by grid. Then, after the picture is transferred, we work the piece UPSIDE DOWN! This disconnects your brain from seeing the entire portrait and helps you focus on the individual grid pieces so that you can get the highlights and darks laid in correctly. It also helps you actually  "see" all  of the color that is in the flesh - not just crayola crayon flesh tone but oranges, pinks, blues, browns, purples, greens. It is amazing the different colors that you use to render the flesh  tones correctly. We also use pieces of white paper to section off areas of the reference picture to work on  the portrait grid by grid - again separating the areas into smaller pieces helps to see and render what is there, not what you  imagine that the face should look like. This has  been a great class, I have learned a lot already. Deb is a fantastic teacher and artist, a good communicator, and makes the class fun too! She brings out the best in each student and helps timid artists blossom.

Poppies - finished

 

THESE POPPIES HAVE A NEW HOME IN GEORGETOWN WITH KERI AND DUANE!  

 I finished the poppies painting. I used a reversed-L design pattern to complete the picture which highlighted the poppies and preserved the delicate yet vibrant under-painting. This wasn't my original design so I wouldn't show this painting or sell it SO if you would like this piece, please shoot me an email or comment thru this blog.  You can HAVE it!

Watercolors in Progress...

 

These two watercolors are projects from Kathy Summer's watercolor class and are in progress right now. Both are done on Arches half sheets.  The original designs that I am  painting on both of these pieces are by Kathy Summers. The one on the left is of poppies swaying in the wind.  I  did a swirling under-painting with  washes of Indian yellow, midnight blue and Da Vinci red.  The painting on the right, although hard to see the penciled pattern right now, is of  koi and the under-painting is done  with undersea green and turquoise. The under-painting is washed onto very wet paper. After it dries then I began to work on the designs,  re-wetting some sections and drybrushing others.  
CLICK on the pictures to see them larger and get more detail.

Having Fun at Pearls Before Swine Art Show 10/25/2012

 

Thanks to all my buddies for coming out to Elgin for the art show! Next year we have GOT to remember to bring our tiaras!

Pearls Before Swine People's Choice Winner!

My "Painted Bunting in a Stream" pastel painting won a Judge's Honorable Mention ribbon and was THE PEOPLE'S CHOICE WINNER!  All of the guests attending the 2012 Pearls Before Swine Art Show Reception were able to vote for their favorite piece of art and I  won the People's Choice!   I am honored to have participated in this show and we had a really fun time this evening. Many fine art works are being shown Friday and Saturday from 10 am to 5 pm. Please stop by to enjoy this wonderful show.  SPECIAL THANKS to the Elgin Arts Association for sponsoring this show -  organizing, judging, hanging, hosting  this entire show. And the proceeds from the show fund  scholarships for Elgin area high school art students.

2012 Pearls BeforeSwine Art Show Elgin,Texas

 

Here are my matted and framed pieces for the Pearls Before Swine Art Show.  The very top picture is a watercolor - Blooming Prickly Pear. Going clockwise, the next one is also a watercolor - Prickly Pear at Midnight. The bottom picture is a pastel - Texas Longhorn and this piece I am donating for the Pearls Auction. The picture on the left is a pastel - Painted Bunting in a Stream. Both cactus watercolors are for sale at the Pearls Show. The Painted Bunting is not for sale.
Please come join Robert and me at the Opening Reception for the 2012 Pearls Before Swine Art Show on Thursday, October 25th, at 14 North Main Street, in historic downtown Elgin. The show runs from 6:30 pm to 9:30 pm. The art show will also be open on Friday, October 26th, 10 am  - 6 pm and on Saturday during the 25th Annual Hog Eye Festival from 10 am to 5 pm again in downtown Elgin on Main Street. See y'all there!

Framed Art from Amalfi Coast, Italy

These two pictures are from the Amalfi Coast - matted and framed by my wonderful husband and in-house framer! The one on the left  is a lithograph that I purchased from a street artist in Positano. It shows off the lemon trees, amazing turquoise waters, sail boats, and the lovely town strewn over the mountainside.
The second is the wine label for the estate made wines of Mama Agata's cooking school in Ravello. Our group took an unforgettable all day cooking class with Mama Agata and her lovely daughter, Chiara. They grow on their  mountainside terraces all of their lemons, herbs, tomatoes, grapes, olives, assorted other vegetables. They make their own limoncello, olive oil, wine, tomato sauce. Their wine label captures some of the beauty of their lovely place. We learned to cook lemon chicken, sausage with peppers and onions served over pasta, eggplant parmesan  that was the best ever eaten by all of us -including the professed eggplant haters!  We also cooked a savory fritter with minced herbs, prosciutto, cheese  - and the batter would be delicious as a sweet fritter as  well. We learned to make a basic marinara sauce and Mama Agata's famous lemon cake. 

Texas Longhorn

 

This Texas Longhorn is painted on Wallis pastel paper with  soft pastels. The picture for this painting was taken in a pasture near downtown Elgin.

I am donating this painting for the auction at the 2012 Pearls Before Swine Art Show. The auction will be Thursday evening during the show from 6:30 pm - 9:30 pm. The proceeds from the Pearls Show benefit art scholarships to Elgin high school students. 
Come enjoy the art show and reception and bid on some wonderful art!

2012 Pearls Before Swine Art Show

 

I have the great honor to have had 3  paintings selected for the
 2012 Pearls Before Swine Art Show in  Elgin, Texas.
Thursday, October 25, 2012   6:30 pm - 9:30 pm
14 North Main Street in historic downtown Elgin
Directly across the street from 
Robert Goodrich's State Farm office
The Pearls Before Swine Art Show will also be open to  the public on Friday, October 26 from 10 am - 6 pm and  Saturday during the HogEye Festival  from 10 am - 5 pm.

Painted Bunting in a Stream - pastel
Prickly Pear at Midnight - watercolor
Prickly Pear in Bloom - watercolor

Please join Robert and me  for this evening to meet and visit with all the artists whose work has been selected by a jury panel. Enjoy all the art and refreshments with your friends and neighbors and bid on both the silent and live auctions. Much of the art exhibited will also be for sale.
My painted bunting is not for sale but both cactus watercolors are for sale.

Dottie Mae - Queen of the Coupland Beefmasters

 

This is Dottie Mae - a lovely Beefmaster cow owned by the Spellings family out on their ranch in Coupland, Texas. This is a pastel on gatorboard that has been primed with terra cotta with a fine tooth. This pastel of Dottie Mae is going to live with the Spellings family having been gifted to Tracy in honor of his birthday.

Framed Watercolor - Sailing At Dusk

 

Here  is  Sailing At Dusk, a watercolor, framed and now living in friend Carol's home. It is such a delight to see my art  framed,  appreciated and living with someone else!

Duke of York

 

Here is my friend, Jean's dog, Duke, the Yorkshire terrier. He is a spunky, happy little fellow. This is a pastel on gatorboard that has been primed with a lightly sanded medium. Dogs have so much personality and it is fun to capture their spunk!

Collage - Sunset Over The Water

 

Here is another collage, Sunset Over The Water,  but I prefer Autumn Trees over this one. Collage is messy, abstract, rather slow as you wait for layers to dry. Not all that appealing to me but it is a great way to learn the principles of design which is what our teacher, Kathy  Summers, is working on with this collage experience.

Collage - Autumn Trees

 I prefer this collage of the two I have done and posted.  Layers of handmade paper with lots of texture in it and tissue paper of various colors. The base for both of these collages is a heavy piece of art board. Thinned Elmer's white glue is used to tack down the various papers. There are some watercolor accent spots over the papers. I am going to work more texture into the tree trunks and some more grassy accents as well. I will post the finished work later.

Texas Hillcountry at Sunset

This watercolor is from a  picture of the hill  country at sunset and I tried to capture the brilliant color of the wildflowers and sunset then the dark shadowed appearance of the tree and background foliage. This was painted on cold press Fabriano paper.

Agave Cactus on Yupo

 Yupo is a unique surface for watercolor. Yupo is a synthetic paper that is imported from Japan. It feels like a piece of plastic, it doesn't absorb the colors but they sit on top of the surface so it puddles and makes some really interesting textures. You do need to use a  stronger saturation of color, which I didn't do on this painting but "try,try again!"

First & Completed Pottery Still Life

 

Here is the completed watercolor of the pottery still life with dried chilies.

Carol Smith's wonderful drawing of her husband, Rev Jack Smith

HOORAY!!! Blogger's problems are resolved! So here I am back with more pictures.

Here is a wonderful pencil drawing by my friend and fellow artist, Carol Smith.
Carol's  previously shown clay sculpture of John Calvin is at a foundry in Bastrop being readied for casting in bronze! I  can't wait to see  it! 

PROBLEM!!!

There is a problem within either Blogger or Picassa and I am unable to upload any pictures to my blog. I have been doing lots of painting but please check back, I hope this problem is resolved soon.
Thanks

Watercolor Cacti

 

These 3 small watercolors are done on Fabriano paper. They were based on photographs that I have taken of cacti in and around Central Texas.

Sadie Tussling with Brandy's Ball of Yarn

Sadie is a lab mix, a fun-loving, mischievous  dog who belongs to Grant & Brandy, my older son and daughter in law. Sadie decided to tussle with a ball of yarn that Brandy was knitting with and ended up all tangled up and Grant captured this cute picture of her-caught in the act! This portrait is pastel done on Gatorboard that has been coated with lightly textured  gesso in a light clay color. 

Kaleidoscope Beginning

This is another kaleidoscope design  - a flipped version of the finished one posted yesterday. This is watercolor on Arches 140 paper. I have laid down a cruciform wash in aureolin yellow and turquoise. Since the turquoise and yellow have mid-values, I will make darker tones by adding neutral tint not their compliment which won't alter the actual color of the pigment only darken the tone. These are great exercises for value and composition.

Agave with Hummingbird & Flowers

This is watercolor on Arches 140 paper.  It was a value exercise for Kathy Summer's class. First I went to the light table and traced only the lights in the scene and then painted those. Went back to the light table and traced on only the mediums and painted then the same for the darks. It was extremely abstract while painting it but then this close up of the agave with the details of the bird and flowers really gave the finished picture a lot of character. 

Pottery & Chilies Still Life

This is a  still life that I started on last night in Deb Richardson's painting class at Jerry's Artarama. It is a Mexican clay pot filled with dried chilies and has some spilling over. I am trying to paint this a little looser  than I usually paint. The one figure holding up the pot in the foreground will have more detail than the others. The chilies too will have some detail.The pot is sitting on a burgundy drape and I also have attempted to paint that very loosely...easy to get bogged down in detail on a drapery. This drape looks fairly nice at a distance. This is painted on Arches cold press paper from a block.

Churchscape Kaleidoscope - in progress

Here is the churchscape kaleidoscope in progress. This is painted on Arches coldpress 140 paper.

More Sunflowers!

Here is the same group of sunflowers that I have painted before. This one on Arches cold press paper has suggestions of sky and ground with very light sponging of sky and ground. This painting is for my young friend Alyssa.

Variations on Sunflowers

Here are more sunflowers! These seem so symbolic of Texas in the summer to me.
The painting on the left and in the background was done very wet on Cansen paper which I am going to toss out, it just isn't a good paper for me. The painting on the right was done on handmade cotton paper and it was so over absorbent that it dried too quickly, almost as the brush touched the paper, and it bubbled up. couldn't really get a very nice blend of colors on it. But I am going to try colored pencil and Gamisol on this handmade paper, I think it might just work!

New Kaleidoscope Watercolor

Here is a new kaleidoscope watercolor that I am painting. I put in gradient washes of Indian yellow and  French ultramarine. These kaleidoscope designs are really fun to paint and a great learning tool as well. 

Revised Winter Trees

Here on the right is a revision of my Winter Trees watercolor. I added a third tree, off the main picture, and  pulled white down in a reverse S  from the right side of the upper tree down through the middle to the mid-bottom of the  painting - both improved the composition. And  I added flakes of snow!

Grapes & Bottle

This evening in Deb Richardson's watercolor class at Jerry's, we selected 2 items for a still life and  painted away. Deb challenged us to "see through" the  glass bottles and record the shadows and colors that  we were seeing. I was pleased with the  results and my cork looks really detailed and cool up close. This was done on Cansen  smooth watercolor paper which I don't like to paint on. No texture and it roughs up very easily if you are trying to pull color off to regain highlights.

Watercolor Apple

This apple was also painted this evening at Deb's class. We did a very wet run of color for the background then painted in an apple & shadows from a still life. Remember, I said I would post the good, the bad and the ugly! This was ok, I did like the background and will probably work more with wet background runs of color - very atmospheric.

Winter Scene

This was painted in watercolor on Canson fairly lightweight and not too textured watercolor paper at Deb Richardson's watercolor class at Jerry's Artarama this evening. I was pleased with the abstract nature of the sky, mountain, snow. The sky and mountain were done fairly wet and the snow foreground was painted wet and had salt applied to it for a bit of snow texture...hard to read in the photograph but better in person.

Jack the Boston Terrier

This is a pastel on ampersand board of our beloved and departed Boston Terrier, Jack. This was painted from a picture my older son, Grant, took of Jack in 2001 when Jack was about 6-7 years old.

Positano, Italy watercolor miniature

This miniature watercolor of Positano, Italy was presented on a miniature easel and gifted to my friend in honor of her special birthday! Especially meaningful to me was that she and her husband, who have traveled a lot in Italy, both recognized that it was Positano!
This was done in watercolor on Strathmore cold press watercolor trading card paper.

Work in Progress - Autumn Leaves Kaleidoscope

Here is another kaleidoscope painting of autumn leaves. Still in progress. The turquoise color is so nice with the quinacridone gold & burnt orange colors.

Poppy Kaleidoscope - COMPLETED!

Here is the finally completed Poppy Kaleidoscope. I had trouble with some of the darker red washes but was really pleased with how the lighter washes changed shades depending upon the gradient wash that was underneath it. Arches 140 paper.

Farm Fresh Eggs in pastel

Deb Richardson, artist and teacher at Cordovan Art School at Jerry's Artarama in Austin, brought fresh, colorful eggs from her sister's hen house for us to paint this evening. These are done in pastel on taupe ampersand board. I really prefer ampersand board to pastel papers - is easier for me to get a good base of pastel down and build on it.This is the first time that I have ever laid in a black background on a pastel and Deb had us lay the background in first. I was pleased with the piece. Robert thought the shadow to the left of the brown egg looked like another egg and originally I had it a bit darker and more "shadow" colored but there was a lot of blue reflected in the actual shadow so Deb suggested that I  put more blue in the shadow. It is really fun to capture the highlights in pastel as there is such  luminosity to them. Everyone in the class had a lovely finished piece this evening. Deb has us draw eggs to practice for portrait painting- the shapes in eggs certainly mimic the rounds in cheeks, noses, chins. 
Next Monday, we change over from pastels to watercolor for a month and I am looking forward to learning new techniques for my watercolors from Deb.

Carol Smith's Clay Sculpture of John Calvin

Here is Carol's amazing sculpture of young John Calvin! This is her first ever attempt at sculpting!

Carol Smith's pencil drawings

                             PERFECT VASE
Carol has achieved such great volume, highlights and symmetry in this lovely drawing.


                                                                                                EYES!
My friend and fellow artist, Carol Smith, did these wonderful pencil drawings. Carol also is a graphic designer who designs book covers for publishers.


Carol recently visited her artistic sister in Kerrville who introduced her to sculpting in oil base clay. Carol has done a wonderful sculpture of a young John Calvin and hopes to have it cast in bronze soon. I will post her finished product. She is delighted with this 3D medium and plans to continue her efforts in sculpture.