Daytona Beach Refection

This little girl's picture was taken on Daytona Beach. The sun had set and there was just a pink glow in the horizon that gave a rosey glow to everything. Since Daytona is on the east coast of Florida, the light on the water at sunset is very different than on the west coast where I live. She was just walking along but just as I snapped the picture she bent over to pick up something. It made such and interesting pose to paint with her reflection in the water. The beach there is so smooth and hard and when the water is calmly washing it, the reflections are mirror like.

Blown away

This looks crazy, I know, but I had to try something differnt for the Different Strokes From Different Folks blog. The original picture for everyone to paint was a Victorian house with a wrought iron fence and a bare tree. Instead of painting it just the way it was photographed, I decided to take it apart. What if it was like Dorothy's house being blown away by a tornado to the Land of OZ? So that's what I did and I don't think it's in Kansas (or San Francisco) anymore. It's on the way to a new place, but don't worry Dorothy, there's still a candle burning in the window for you.

The Jefferson Memorial

This dark painting was done using the pouring method, too. I started it in the same workshop as the sunflower painting. I found that pouring was a good way to get the dark night sky in nice an smoothly. The dome of the Jefferson Memorial was masked with friskit after the first pour of light blue and red. I gradually kept masking off the areas until I got to the final dark. I had to paint in the tree shapes with almost straight paint right out of the tube. After taking this picture I noticed that my dome looked rather uneven from the friskit and I went in with a brush to even it out. That ruined the smooth dark sky and I think I would have to remask the dome and pour again to get is smooth again. I'm not sure I'm willing to go through that again, I'm not a big fan of friskit. I did this painting for the blog "Different Strokes From Different Folks" www.differentstrokesfromdifferentfolks.blogspot.com It's so interesting to see how this scene was painted by so many different artists in so many different ways.

I can't believe how quickly the days go by. I finally got my sunflower to the point where I'm sort of happy with it. It took a lot more pouring of pigment than I thought it would to get the dark backgorund that I wanted. Then, when I took the friskit off the petals of the flower, the bright yellow came off with it (just like the instructor said it would). I gave up with more pouring and rewet and painted the petals with a brush, put in some dark areas, touched up the leaves with some green and called it a day. I should have taken pictures of the in between stages but I'm always getting things done late, like right now.

What I do like about the pouring is the luminous quality of the background. The pigments underneath the last burnt umber pour still shine through. I don't think you could get that any other way, except maybe airbrush and I have never tried that.

So, thanks to Jean Grastorf for teaching me a new way to paint.

My first pour

This week I'm taking a workshop from Jean Grastorf, a nationally acclaimed watercolor artist. Jean does very little painting with a brush. She dilutes the pigments in cups of water and pours them on her paper on which she has drawn her picture. So I thought for my blog this week I would post my first pour and hope that by the end of the week I will have that painting finished in order to post the sequence of events.

Love/ hate relationship

I have a white bird of paradise plant. I love the big white bird shaped flowers with the dark purple pods it gets on it's stalks. The contrast of the purple against the bright green stalks is wonderful. But I hate the size of the plant. It grows very tall and sends out baby plants that also grow very tall. It requires constant thinning and since it is growing next to our pool cage we have to make sure it doesn't poke it's way through the screens. When I bought it I thought I was getting an orange bird of paradise; those don't grow tall but they multiply by sending up baby shoots the same way. The orange flowers are on a stem and can be picked for a stunning arrangement, the white ones cannot. They are fun to paint no matter what color they are.

Small paintings of a small island 2

Painting a gazebo is not an easy task, especially when it's only 2.5 inches square. As I look at my photo I think it looks a little "catywumpus". (Is that a real word or something my husband made up?) Anyway, I think it may require a "do over" with more careful drawing. The gazebo seemed to be more ornamental than functional; there were no chairs where one could sit and enjoy the view of the water. It made a nice shady spot and would be a wonderful place to sit and read a book or sip an iced tea.

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...