I love palm trees and have had to practice quite a bit in order to capture a semblance of one. I’ve been procrastinating on this beauty for a number of years — based on a photo I took in LA.
Here’s a new watercolor based on a photo I took while driving along Massachusetts Avenue in DC a couple of years ago. It captures part of our capital’s essence. Painting it was an imperative.
I used a limited palette of 2 reds, 2 blues, and 2 yellows, plus black.
Our most recent Ed Praybe session called for considering types of compositions ~~ various ways to position the components of the painting so as to produce an intended effect on the viewer. We each selected two objects and then experimented moving them around to see how many different ‘stable’ or ‘dynamic’ compositions we could produce. We then painted one of them, using our primary triad of yellow, red and blue.
For homework, we had to paint three objects into a stable composition and then reposition them and paint a dynamic composition. Still using the primary triad color scheme.
I took some photos of lily pads while boating on Lake Ariel about ten years ago with my husband and friends Roz & Jim Morgan. I particularly prize one of those images and have been wanting to paint it ever since. Here’s the rendition I did a few weeks ago. I had fun with this one.
After painting that cauliflower a few days ago, I started regretting that my collector had selected my dinky mushrooms as part of her four-veggie series for the kitchen. I decided to do a more ‘fulsome’ substitute for her consideration — celery! Here it is. She’s happily taking it instead of the ‘shrooms!
Celery. Watercolor and gouache on paper. 11″ x 14″
Celery Painting and Subject.
OK. So, the leeks turned out well, aaaannnndddd ~~~~ I got sassy & decided to paint some portobello mushrooms the next day.
Bad idea! There’s not much ‘there’ there. Dull colors & shapes, arranged (by me) in an overly simplistic composition. Certain artists could make a good painting out of such drab components (Morandi?), but my first effort at ‘shrooms falls short.
I was so pumped up after Wendy Artin’s workshop that, after a day of R&R, I pulled out my paints and a couple of elderly leeks from the fridge and painted another watercolor in the manner we had been practicing during the workshop. Here it is.
Leeks at Home. Watercolor on Paper.
I was tickled that it turned out nicely. Maybe I’ll have to do more!
On the last day, Wendy brought in some a bag of asparagus and I snagged three with which to wrestle.
Asparagus 1. Watercolor on Paper.
Asparagus 2. Watercolor on Paper.
Here are a few other paintings I did last week during the Artin watercolor workshop. No more nudes for now!
Radish 2. Watercolor on Paper.
Beet 1. Watercolor on Paper.
Beet 2. Watercolor on Paper.
Sorry sorry sorry, y’all! My last blog entry contained paintings of two full length nudes, neither of which was ‘out of bounds’ (IMHO). So, I was aghast when I checked to see if Facebook had re-posted it and found that the images had been sliced and diced in an unexpected manner (to say the least). I hope you clicked over to my blog to get a better sense of the overall paintings!
In any event, here’s a ‘palette cleanser’! It’s one of the radishes I painted during the Saturday afternoon session of my Wendy Artin workshop, followed by one of Wendy’s gorgeous still life watercolors — also of radishes.
Radish 1. Watercolor on Paper.
Wendy’s radishes — again, quite a difference:
Radishes, 2001, watercolor on cotton Khadi paper, 11″ x 12″
