Small paintings of a small island.

I'm doing a series of very small paintings using a type of watercolor that is opaque; gouache (it rhymes with squash). This scene was from a picture I took on an island off the gulf coast called Useppa. It's a private island but you can get permission to be on the island and have lunch at the hotel if you are not a regular guest. It's very "old Florida" laid back, cute cottages and a little path around the island. This part of the path goes in between a banyan tree. The banyan spreads by sending roots down from the upper limbs. If these tendrils are not cut, the tree will grow immense and choke out other vegitation. This little painting is only 2.5 inches square. It will go in a frame with two other small paintings from the same island. Those will come later.

Happy New Year!

The Dominica canal

I am blessed to live on water. It's man-made water but water, still. It's a 130 ft wide fresh water canal. It's on this canal that we see the kingfishers, osprey, bald eagles, annhingas, and a variety of herons. It's miles of fresh water so you can take a boat out on it as some of our neighbors do, but you can't access the Gulf of Mexico, there are damns that block that. I'm going to try to get an evening shot of the Christmas lights that are across the canal at night. They reflect on the water and they are quite lovely.

The Gift

My friend, Dot, likes to work in clay as well as paint. She throws pots with abandon, she even paints with abandon; which my Spelling Ace defines as "an easy, breezy way of doing things".

She gave me a sugar and cream set for Christmas and they made a perfect set up with a pear for a still life. My first attempt was in wet in wet watercolor, the second in acrylic on wet paper. The acrylics are much more stable and leave hard edges, the watercolors are soft edged, an effect I like very much. Tell me what you think.

Kingfisher sighting

This little guy was sitting on our dock the other day. He looks like such a character with his punk head feathers. He is really fun to watch diving straight into the water. The water quality of the canal is not the greatest, I sure can't see any fish in there but the birds seems to find them anyway. We also see osprey, and anhingas fishing in our back yard. I painted this one wet on dry, I think I'd like to try it wet on wet, a looser approach.

Another idea for a Christmas card

Cardinals are wonderful subjects for Christmas cards. I think they are common birds around the country. We have them here in the more wooded areas. Their bright red feathers are cheerful all year 'round as well has their song that seems to say "pretty, pretty. pretty".

The Christmas season

Everywhere you go you see evidence of the Christmas season. There are decorations in stores and homes, there is music of the season on the radio, endless ads on every TV channel and I'm getting a few Christmas cards in the mail everyday. I have painted a Christmas card again this year. It was just a quick warm up painting for a class I was in but when I got it home and tweaked it a little, I thought it would do quite nicely. Poinsettias are one area where Florida shines at Christmas. Many people put their plants out in the landscaping after Christmas and enjoy them year after year because they do so well in this climate. We don't have snow for the traditional white Christmas but we have lots of poinsettias.

Painting and blogging

I'm finally back to blogging, I'm determined to learn how to do this stuff. I recently entered the world of facebook to see if I could communicate once and awhile with a granddaughter in college. It might work.

Today I painted a picture for a web site called different strokes from different folks. She posts a picture every two weeks and the idea is for differnt artists to post their painting of that picture/subject. I've been experimenting with a product called Interactive Acrylic. You can use it like watercolor, wet on wet and the colors will stay intense and will not fade back as watercolors do. They also don't darken as regular acrylic will do. As you can see, the subject was a pair of work boots.

Looking forward to more blogging...