Unfinished Owl

 

Watercolor on Arches 140 paper. Work in progress.This is from a photograph that I took at the Lady Bird Johnson Wildflower Center this spring. This nesting owl is raising a set of  owlets on this ledge for the second year in a row! Rough hill country stone ledge and a cactus  growing right there on the ledge which offers some cover for the owl. 

Unfinished Capitol Skyline

 

Watercolor on Arches 140 paper. This is still a work in progress of an interesting sky and the capitol building in Austin - and I will add other downtown silhouettes most probably.

"For the Love of Books" Art Show - Georgetown Library

 

Please come to see the Waterloo Watercolor Group's paintings at
 "For the Love of Books" Art Show
 at the
 Georgetown Library August 4 - August 30 
 Open for viewing during the library's normal hours.
Join us for the Opening Reception on Sunday afternoon, August 4th, 2013
from 2-4 pm
WWG artists have drawn inspiration from books for the paintings they have created.

Above are my two paintings displayed in the art show.
"Turtle Rock" was inspired by the wonderful Newberry award winning book Turtle in Paradise. My painting was based on a photograph that I took at the Lady Bird Johnson Wildflower Center of the turtles that bask in the sun on rocks in the pond at the entrance - and the Wildflower Center pond certainly is a Turtle Paradise!
"Meadow Bunny" was inspired by the special children's book The Velveteen Rabbit and was based on a photo that I took in the wildflower meadow in my front yard this spring. We have cottontails roaming through the wildflowers and munching on the cool grass. This was taken in the early morning bright light, everything was dewy, fresh and very green.

Unfinished - Red River, NM at dusk

 

This watercolor on Arches 140 paper is from a photograph that I took this past February 2013 behind our condo while skiing in Red River. It was dusk, very cold, light snow. Although the evergreens were deep, deep green, in the late afternoon light everything took on a purple-ish haze. Still need to work some more on this one.

Unfinished - wet, loose watercolor scene

 

After watching a painting video at Kathy Summers' group, we painted. This is a very wet, loose landscape attempt on Arches 140# paper. It was a little too wet, out of control and I used a wide, soft Hake brush. I am going to fine tune it and see if it needs to go to the scrap pile!

Rain on Mt Baldy, Garner State Park, Texas

 

This watercolor was painted on Arches 140 paper and was previously posted on May 11, 2013 in progress. We went camping at Garner State Park over Memorial Day weekend and it poured down raining some of the time, leaving Mt Baldy in a dreamy, cloudy, rain-washed state. Be sure to hike to the top of Mt Baldy when you go to Garner and enjoy the tradition of adding a little rock to the pile of rocks on the very top of Mt Baldy that all successful hikers toss their stone onto.  And enjoy the unbelievable 360* view of the gorgeous Texas ranch country surrounding that area that the Rio Frio winds beautifully through.

Lakeview

 

This watercolor painting is on Arches 140 paper. I started out painting a really vibrant sky then added in the rest, slowly but surely. Kathy Summers, my wonderful weekly watercolor teacher, gave me great help in planning this painting. In class, we had watched a video of a Scottish watercolor painter who had a great "credit card" scraping technique for rocks - and I was pleased with the way they turned out. You can view an earlier unfinished version of this same painting posted on May 11, 2013.

Pastel Portrait Workshop Creations

 

I attended a weekend pastel portrait workshop this past Saturday and Sunday  at Laguna Gloria Art School taught by Austin pastel and oil portrait artist, Eve Larson. We worked on Canson MiTeintes paper in khaki & grey shades with soft pastels. We had 3 different live models who were very different in face shapes and hair & skin coloration. On the left is Candice, blondish and fair with casts of red to her skin from reflected light from her red top.. Center is Ashley, dark brunette and peachy complexion with greenish reflected light from her top and the bright green trees outside. On the right is Dixie with dark very curly hair with auburn highlights and rosy reflections in her skin tones. Eve is a great teacher and gave us wonderful demos of each model to start off with, explaining why she was doing what she was doing, special instruction on capturing and spacing for features. Then we tackled the models and were able to get good one on one feedback from Eve. The spacing & feature work will be very helpful for improving my portraits in the future. Very worthwhile class and Eve is a wonderful instructor.

Turtle Rock

 

Here is a watercolor of a turtle similar to the view that I did in pastel and posted on April 13, 2013. These colorful turtles are in the pond at the entry to the Lady Bird Johnson Wildflower Center.  His rock is partially submerged in the greenish water which highlights his greenish hues. This was done on Arches paper.