Little surprises
This afternoon I was rummaging through a drawer looking for a particular tube of watercolor pigment and I discovered some odd-sized blocks of watercolor paper that I’d forgotten that I had. One is a Sennelier brand (I usually stick with Arches paper exclusively except for my recent foray into clayboard) in a wide (or tall) format of about 4″x9″. I decided to just play around with some colors and my fabulous new “mop” brush. It was fun to have no real expectations and I was quite pleased with what resulted…
Read MoreHot off the press!
I know it is shocking. Two posts in the same day. But I can’t help it. I am so thrilled with how my book turned out I had to share. As some of you know I was a bit worried that something would go wrong. Coming from the printing industry myself I know that often the gremlins don’t show themselves until after the printing is done no matter how many times something is proofed! So it was a bit unnerving opening up that package that FedEx threw on the front door step.
Read MoreCoronado Beach: The process
Coronado Beach one of my latest in a step-by-step progression. I’m gingerly working my way up to doing a video of my painting process. Since I don’t usually do a painting in one sitting it will take a lot of editing but that’s coming later.
A few weeks ago Don and I went over the bridge to beautiful Coronado Island. For non-San Diegans, it is not really an island but is called that and feels like it. You can get there the long way by going through Imperial Beach and back up the peninsula but it is much more fun to go across the bridge. Anyway, I’d had some requests to paint the Hotel Del so we took a little photo-reference trip on a beautiful sunny day. This painting was done from one of Don’s photos as he is a much better photographer than I am. Of course I always have to use some artistic license when I paint from a photo so here we go…
Read MoreComing attractions, accountability and cats.
I have another post that I was going to put here but it needs some work so in lieu of that I thought I would just call it a coming attraction. You see when I do this it helps make me accountable for my promises. Lately I have had a lot of ideas and things I want to do swimming around in my brain and it is time to actually put them into action. So here we go…
Read MoreSteve Hanks and ‘Emotional Realism’
For as long as I can remember I have admired Steve Hanks. He is an exceptional watercolor artist and his work is, to me, jaw-droppingly beautiful. This is a bit of a contradiction for me because I’m not normally a big fan of photorealism in watercolors—or even that style of painting in any medium for that matter. It’s not that I don’t appreciate the technical skill required for making a painting look like a photograph, it’s that I don’t really see a point in it for the sake of art unless the goal of the artist is to recreate something that looks like a photograph. Steve Hanks’ work is very realistic but to me it is a different thing all together. I couldn’t really put my finger on it until I listened to him talk about it in some videos I recently discovered.
Read MoreMurder of Crows?
Relax…not those cuties in the picture. This is a little off topic if you are following me for the sake of the stuff that comes out of my studio but since I’d joined the conversation on how blogs should be what you want to write about in your life with some other lovely bloggers (that is you, Kate of Woolwinding and Annie of Knitsofacto) I thought I would go for it. especially since these two lovely ladies are a couple of my favorite blogs to follow.
I’d commented that I’d update everyone on the hummingbird state of affairs here but I’m extremely sad to report that the nest has been robbed!
Read MoreMy painting process—La Jolla Shores
For those that might be interested in the process of one of my paintings I thought I would share this particular one. As I was painting this I snapped some pictures along the way. They are not the greatest as I just used the iPad but I think they work fine for reference. I did this painting from a photo I took at the shores using my iPhone. So, onward to the fun part…
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