Peek In My Portfolio

It's been quite a while since I talked about my painting, but don't worry, that's not because I've quit! It's just because summer is insane and I forget to share. I am also having a little bit a lull right now because our painting group is on a kind of holiday for a few weeks but I fully expect to continue painting as soon as I get the chance. I thought I'd do a little bit of painting outside of our meetings while we were all adjourned but I am amazed to discover that I have done none. Zip. Ah well...I'm growing big juicy tomatoes and thinking fondly of my brushes.
Here's the latest stuff I've painted, right before our recent break.

Part of the Grand Teton Range, I forget which peak.

This painting and the next three I painted while were on our family vacation this summer out at Yellowstone. I took my brush roll, my paintbox and a small portable watercolor block and painted using a little water in a soda bottle with a cap, whenever the group (we were with a family reunion) had a moment of downtime. It worked beautifully and was really exhilerating, some of the first in-situ work I've done. Another great thing about it was that it forced me to work quickly. I tend to get really caught up in all the slow, picky details of paintings and sometimes overwork things as a result. I'd like to become more quick and suggestive. These paintings were step in that direction.

We stopped for a picnic lunch at this lake and I painted while everyone else finished eating after I was done.

This tree was outside my cabin window and I sat at a desk and painted it one morning while the sun got warm and bright.

This IS the cabin window. Really hard to paint the fog on the windows, the light in the drapes and the shape of the log walls.

This is right around the corner from our house, I stopped the car to look at these amazing tree full of red berries a couple of times before I realized that I needed to paint them.

The above painting was another realy fun experiment in "looseness" as an artist. I worked on all those houses and the stone wall and the angles and geometry and then I took my brush with that bulls-eye red paint and I splattered the berries on those trees! EEP! It was kind of scary and super fun and it just happened to work.

This is one of my really classic-style landscapes. This wonderful tree arches over the little harbor on the lake where my in-laws live.

This painting was really fun too, kind of classic and I really struggled to make it feel like it had depth instead of just feeling flat. I love the colors...that bang of orange on the kayak and all that grey-blue next to it with the sun hitting all those gold/greens at the top. This painting feels like a moment I want to be in.

I love how this painting turned out. The glass jars, 3D effect of all those rows and the peach slices floating inside the containers as well as the metallic lids were a huge challenge but also a major triumph.

 Just as I was starting the canned peaches painting above, and just finishing the apricots in a bucket, below, a fellow painter friend wandered past and casually noted that they were companion works. How funny is it that here I was, painting this golden fruit sequentially and I hadn't even noticed that they "went together." Interesting the themes that develop.

This frame is a sort of goldy-orange metal frame, sleek and simple to counter-balance the sort of country feel of the painting and help it stay more versitile while playing on the same color themes. Love that gold ring of matting he put around the painting.

And now a little framing report. I have a wonderful, creative, kind and very expensive framer. I love, love, love his work but I seriously need to start selling some stuff to afford suiting up many more of my pieces. I thought I'd show you how a few of my most recent paintings ended up looking when he'd had his turn with them.

This painting was framed in a deep shadow-box style frame, and would look great with a small light shining on it to make the sunset scene glow. The colors washed out funny here but you get a view of the thick, chunky frame.

Here's how the painting actually looks. Pretty cool, eh?

And then this last one, which is now actually hanging on the wall in my kitchen! Hooray! I was surprised but pleased when he framed it in a big thick white frame. It's a bit hard to see on the white wall but it is a lovely maybe inch and half to two inch thick edge, and the matting is a big thick white cut on an angle around the painting. He made a pretty small little floral watercolor that could have felt like an afterthough into a much more dramatic, weighty piece.

So, that's what I've got at the moment. I can't wait to update again soon. I hope I'll have all kinds of lovely things to share in two shakes. This whole "taking breaks" thing is getting to me.

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Paint on My Fingers

Had a great time at the art group I attend weekly today. Enjoyed blasting my way through another painting and am starting to really feel like I'm beginning to "get it" a little. The ladies there are so extremely encouraging. I have never been part of a group of professional-something-or-other-doers that was so welcoming, flattering and uplifting. I can't wait to go again next week.

 My favorite watercolor I've done so far, last week's creation.

This is the house I grew up in that my Papa built himself.

Our church is going to have an art show full of member's work (submissions in by June 6) and I'm kind of thinking of entering. I've never put anything in an art show before so, this is very exciting and also intimidating. Everything in me wants to wail, "But, I'm not an artist!!! I don't know anything about that kind of stuff, heavens!" but, I'm trying to pretend I am an artist so I'm trying to not listen and working on imagining myself getting a piece ready instead.

The work must be framed (something I've never done) and named, (something I totally stink at) so that will be interesting. One of the genuine artists in my group told me today that she could teach me how to frame something if I bought an appropriate frame at the local art supply shop and brought along a matting. I am hoping to be able to twist her arm into really doing it. It'd be good to learn and I am hopeful that it would be fabulously encouraging to boot, seeing something I painted all glossy and shining under glass.

The same kind woman lent me some watercolor pencils to try alongside my paints. They're basically colored pencils that smear and run like watercolors when you paint over them with water. Some of the colors run better than others and some of them change values when they are wet which makes them very interesting to play with. I had a lot of fun working with them today. I made this painting.

 My lightest colored work yet...still-life of tomatoes on the counter, mostly green.

I might buy a set for myself to play with. I find that I end up quite detail/realism obsessed in my painting which makes the tiny work tricky to pull off well with a brush. The pencils help there quite a bit. I am also considering getting some masking fluid as I have heard that can help with the slightly out of control way that watercolors can run and bleed into other areas. Making "white" parts of the painting is rather difficult otherwise. Am wondering if I should aquire some professional style watercolor paints too while I'm at the art supply store. I am actually painting with my sons paintboxes. I feel a little bad to be using up their paints and also wonder if I might get richer, clearer colors from higher quality paints. Might do some reading about how much benefit you get from going up class with certain supplies.

My watercolor benefactress has also offered to lend me books and videos on watercolor technique so I might be reading about art next! I do love to read so it would be a natural step. We don't have a video player that could play her vhs tapes but I could sneak off from moment to moment to a friend's house or the church to use a borrowed player I imagine. I am finding it hard to stop this painting business. I'm getting all addicted.