Still Life, New Product

Orchid 1

Watercolor 5.5 X 6.5

Orchid 2

Watercolor 4.5 X 6.5

I was so excited that my orchids were blooming for a second time that I just had to try painting it. It's quite tiny, white with purple speckles. I could have protected the white areas and tried to splatter paint from my brush to make the speckles but I thought an easier way would be to use a new product that I recently bought. It's Brusho Crystal Colors. It's a powdered watercolor that comes in little plastic jars. You can punch a hole in the top of the container and shake the pigment out like a salt shaker. So, I wet the area where I wanted the purple and shook a little onto it. Voila! I had my speckled orchids. Then I could go in with my brush and make the petals and the centers. Of course you get a little bit of pigment outside of your wet area which you can blow away or make into a light wash. I did both. The purple pigment was a combination of red and blue so it made a nice range of color in the flower. The yellow in the top painting was from a spray bottle with a little powdered yellow pigment and water. Like instant sunshine. 

Orchids For Sale

I've been working on this painting on and off for several months. I needed to punch up the color and white edges on the center orchid so I decided to make the painting mixed media and use a little acrylic white. I also stamped "Orchids for sale" on some Unryu paper and collaged them on the square in the upper right so that it would look like a sign in the window that you see in reverse from the inside. It's quite subtle even though I punched it up with a little gold acrylic. I didn't want them to stand out too much. The whole thing is meant to be quite illusionary; are the orchids on a mat or in a window? Let the viewer decide. The background was painted first with a lot of texturizing techniques then the subject was painted. It was done in many layers of glazes on a half sheet of CP watercolor paper and framed to 22 X 28.

One More Orchid

I have one more little orchid painting that was done before my surgery so after this I will have to get busy and do some more little paintings. I have a one year anniversary of my blog to celebrate on Friday so I want to do something to get a blog posted on that day. I'm able to do more sitting so it should not be too difficult to paint a little each day. It's good to have a goal.

Mini paintings

In order to enter paintings in our art league's February show and sale each participant must paint and donate six little paintings, 4 1/2" X 3 1/2" which are called "Mini's". I find doing them in watercolor is difficult but acrylic and gouache are easier for me. So far I have done three in watercolor with and orchid theme. This is the first. I decided to paint the background today, and now I'm wishing I had left it white. Oh well, I can always paint others and leave the background plain.

I won't be posting a blog for probably a few weeks because I'll be recovering from knee replacement surgery. I'll be back as soon as I can.

Orchids in acrylic

I took an acrylic workshop with an artist friend of mine, Karen Knutson. I don't ususally do paintings in acrylic but I thought it would be fun to learn something new. I'm always up for a challenge. The most frustrating thing for me was mixing the colors to get the color I wanted. Usually I ended up with a big pile of too much paint, but that should improve with practice. It was quite a process of building up successive layers of colors and removing by using water of alcohol to reveal the color underneath. There were also layers of collage to add interest and texture. I'm posting my last painting first because it is the most completed. I hope to have time in the coming week to finish my other attempts.

Purple Orchid

My friend who was visiting from Minnesota bought me an orchid plant one day. I have wanted to paint it so I took it to class last week and worked on this painting. I don't know why I get so tight; I guess I'm concentrating on the shapes and colors and forget to render it in a more watercolor fashion. Perhaps I will take it to class again tomorrow and have a "do-over". This is one of the times in life when a "do-over" is possible, unlike so many other times when we wish we could have a "do-over" but we can't.