Day 11 (but only the 7th paintng)

Well, this is the 11th day of the challenge, and you may have noticed that I have fallen behind.  But I don't want to just bail on the challenge, because I am having fun with it, even though I've procrastinated away a few days.  This is a garden at Skylands Manor that I've been planning to paint for a few years now. 

Day 7 - Pemaquid Point, ME

Day 7's painting is a land/seascape from one of my photos  of  Pemaquid Point, ME.  5 x 7 watercolor.

Day 6 - Snow Day

This is a 5 x 7 watercolor of a snow day at Ramapo Reservation, taken a few years ago.

Day 4...or is it 5?

Okay, I didn't forget to do a painting for day 4 exactly, it's just that this one took me 2 days to finish. LOL! So, let's say it's Day 4-5 ...One of the windows at the NJ Botanical Gardens at Skylands Manor Park. 7 x 5 watercolor.

Day 3 of 30 - Simple Landscape

This is a simple landscape done from an old photo of the Blue Ridge Mountains.  I love this view.  5 x 7 watercolor.

Day 2 of 30 - A Winter Scene

This is day 2 of the challenge.  A winter scene from the Wildlife Center.  5 x 7 watercolor.  #30paintingsin30days

"30 Paintings in 30 Days" - Can I do it?

Against my better judgement, because I manage to not keep up with these things, I joined the "30 paintings in 30 days" challenge started by Leslie Saeta.  http://30paintingsin30days.weebly.com/blog
This little watercolor is 5 x 7, and I am calling it "Rocky Landscape".  It took me way longer than a "painting a day" should take, so I am going to have to pick something simpler for tomorrow.  LOL!

Back to Basics

I've been busy this week going back to basics, painting small simple watercolors.  These are practice for the demos I will be doing while teaching a beginner watercolor class at our local senior center.  So far, my ideas for lessons consist of autumn leaves-(basic wash, glazing, mingling colors), a graded value landscape (glazing, painting evergreen trees), and autumn trees (basic tree shapes, mingling colors, scumbling, painting thin lines).  I'm trying to keep it simple, teach a new concept each week, and hopefully send the students home with a successful little painting. 

Another Gold Leaf - Irises

My third in the series of small gold leaf florals.  I'm getting better at getting the gold on without having to go back in and patch.  I think I'm ready to go for a larger painting this time.  This one is 7 1/2 x 11.

Florals with Watercolor and Gold Foil

Back in March, I took a workshop with Judy Morris, who showed us some samples of her paintings that included gold foil.  I was fascinated and had to try this.  These are my first two attempts.  I had a bit of trouble getting complete coverage and had to resort to patching in a few spots.  These are 7 1/2 x 11, and I think it's time to try something a little larger.

Stamping

Not a watercolor, but I wanted to post what I've been doing the last several days.  I started one of the free Strathmore workshops, this one on stamping, and specifically making your own stamps.  These are all made of Fun Foam.  Some of them didn't stamp cleanly, which oddly enough makes the design look more interesting. 

Workshop Painting

My sister Joan and I took a workshop at Springmaid Beach a couple of weeks ago.  Our instructor was Judy Morris, and we learned how to stamp and stencil backgrounds and borders in our paintings.  I only completed one and a half paintings, because our time was spent learning a TON of techniques.  We also learned to add gold leaf to our paintings.  This was a great workshop, and I learned a lot - now I just have to put all those wonderful techniques into practice.  This is a painting of pink orchids that I completed in the workshop.

Snowy Branches

I've wanted to paint this ever since I took the photo last year.  I loved the way the snow looked on these branches.  I don't usually like masking fluid, but branches with snow on them is impossible to do in watercolor any other way.  I did the background wet-in wet, darkening it a few times to make the snow really pop.  I have a lot more photos that I took that day, references for more paintings?

Leaves and Berries......and Yellow Rose with Colorblocking

Both of these involved negative painting, and the yellow rose (the same rose that I painted traditionally in a previous post), involved designing a colorful abstract background.  For the abstract rose I used new gamboge, permanent rose, and thalo blue.  For the leaves, I used new gamboge, permanent rose, sap green and cobalt blue.  Both are 11 x 15 on Arches.

Daisies - Playing with Backgrounds Again

Inspired by a painting of sunflowers by Karlyn Holman, I attempted to abstract and pattern my background using a photo of a few of the daisies that were in my Mothers' Day flowers this year. 

Two New Florals

These two florals were done from photos I took this summer at The Gardens at Wyckoff.  They are each 11 x 14. 

A Journal Page for my Grandchildren

I recently joined an art journaling group on Facebook started by a friend. They decided to do a different "theme" every week. Just what I need is another group to post things with. LOL! This week's theme is to do a page about something we love. I chose to do it about my grandkids, and then spent all week trying to come up with a way to make a page with all eleven of my grandkids on it, and still make it look artistic. This is what I finally came up with.

Springmaid Watermedia Workshop 2014 - Days 3, 4 and 5

On Day 3 Jerry showed us several of his finished collages, ranging from total abstracts, like shape in a shape; semi-abstracts like his hill towns; and realistic, like Monet's garden.  Then he sent us off to do our own thing.  I started three collages and worked alternately among the three of them, finishing this semi-abstract of the Blue-Ridged Mountains with a field of weeds first.

I went more realistic with the Curtis Island Lighthouse, although there are some abstract elements in this one too.

My final collage was a red hibiscus, which still needs a bit of tweaking.  I will post that one tomorrow.

Springmaid Watermedia Workshop 2014 - Day 2

On the second day, the assignment was to do two floral collages by "making flowers without making flowers".  LOL!  Jerry told us that if he saw a stamen or a pistil he would give us an "F".  These were a little harder to do for me, who is used to painting flowers that look like flowers.  But I was game.  My sister Joan and I had prepared for this workshop by purchasing some washi (oriental rice paper) in several interesting textures.  Some had threads or fibers running through them, some had holes or a lacy effect, and one had swirls that reminded me of "Starry Starry Night".  These all came in handy for the floral collages. 

Springmaid Watermedia Workshop 2014 Day 1

Last week I took a stained paper collage workshop with Gerald Brommer.  This was my second time taking this workshop.  I enjoyed it even more this time. 

The first day we did small 7 1/2 x 7 1/2 abstracts in Bridge, T or Tau, and Cruciform designs, using two colors and black and white.  This year Jerry gave us some pieces of black paper to experiment with.  (The colors on these three collages are more compatible than they look in these photos)