My Latest Dahlia

This is my latest floral - another dahlia. They are a challenge to draw and paint with all those petals, but I love the shadow and light patterns, and all the "colors" I found in this essentially white flower. The size is 15"x15".

Monhegan Lighthouse

I painted "Monhegan Lighthouse" a year after I took the photo. I "collect" lighthouses. I've loved them ever since I can remember. I found this sentinel on my first trip to Monhegan Island, sometimes known as "the artists' island", since everywhere you look you will find someone painting, and the tiny island is home to a good many galleries. I enjoyed hiking to various cliffs and doing small paintings while I was there, and have a nice collection of photos for future reference.

Watercolor Shows

This is the time of year when many national and regional art societies are having their annual shows. My painting "Dahlia", 22x30, is currently showing at the NorthEast Watercolor Society's annual members juried show in Middletown, NY. I love participating in these shows, as well as meeting the other artists and seeing their work.

More ACEO's

Last night I was painting some little floral ACEO's (2.5 x 3.5 art collectable cards) in watercolor when I got the idea to try collaging a few. I did these with scraps from my mulberry and rice paper stashes. I put them up on eBay. It will be interesting to see if any of them get bids. I think they turned out rather well.

White Irises

I painted this today for a project in WatercolorWorkshop, a Yahoo group for watercolor artists. The object of this project was to paint something white without using white paint, and to see how many colors could be found in a "white" object. For my irises I used cobalt blue, permanent rose, burnt sienna, permanent yellow, and a little scarlet lake in the centers.

Lighthouse Collage

I've been reading the collage books written by Gerald Brommer. I like the way he sometimes leaves some vertical whites and adds linework to make his subjects a little abstract. This is my original painting of the famous Pemaquid Lighthouse, done with various types of rice paper, based on the methods suggested in Brommer's book "Watercolor and Collage Workshop".

Port Clyde House - from Camden Workshop

After not posting here since Christmas, I have managed to put up three paintings in one day. I started this painting in August at a workshop in Camden, Maine. It was my second painting of the day and I had only managed to get in the drawing, the sky and a few green washes before it was time to quit for the day. The barely started painting lay around in my studio for months before I picked it up last month and decided to finish it. "Port Clyde House" measures 11x15.

Abstract Rocks

My Thursday painting buddies and I decided to have some fun doing abstracts. This is what I came up with after wetting the paper and dropping in quinacridone gold, permanent rose, and Winsor blue. I laid some Saran Wrap on the initial wash to texture the paper. When it dried I "found" rocks. I have to say that I have not been very successful with my previous attempts at abstracts, and I was surprised and pleased to watch this one almost paint itself.

The Red Amaryllis

I started "Red Amaryllis" (15x22) in January, but got sidetracked and just finished it recently. I used just about every red I had on my palette, plus a couple of yellows. This was the first year in a long time that I did not have a new amaryllis for Christmas, so I had to make to with one of the many photos I have taken of them thru the years - easier to paint this way, but not nearly as much fun.

Merry Christmas

This is the image I used for my Christmas card this year. I can't believe how fast the Christmas season arrives each year and this one is no exception. I've been in a painting slump for several weeks due to Thanksgiving/Christmas preparations as well as the usual seasonal cold/flu thing, but I'm looking forward to a new and exciting year of painting.

The Pet Project

This month's project for WatercolorWorkshop, one of my favorite groups, is pets. I found a terrific cat photo on WetCanvas (hope it's okay to mix groups) and painted this fluffy critter for my entry. It was the first time I've painted "fur". I was drawn to the softness of the cat, and the bright blue eyes. I really enjoyed this one. P.S. The reference photo for this watercolor was taken by Sandy Derry. You can view her artwork at www.countrycottagestudio.homestead.com

Curtis Island Lighthouse - Camden workshop painting

This is one of the paintings I started in the Camden watercolor workshop with Joel Popadics. We had a good view of the lighthouse and I'm pretty pleased with my painting, with the exception of the size of the schooner. I added it from memory because I thought it would be a nice touch, but in reality, a schooner would have been much larger. I may have to call this one "Lighthouse With Toy Schooner".

Drawing

Okay, so it's not watercolor. I just had to share this one. A good drawing is the foundation for a good watercolor. I was not happy with my drawing skills, so when I saw an online drawing class starting on WetCanvas, (www.wetcanvas.com) I decided to try it. Our first assignment was to draw something that we felt was too difficult for us. We are now up to lesson #26, and in this lesson we re-visited our first drawing and did it again. This is the drawing I did today of my grandson, Matthew, at about a year and a half old. Forgive me if I don't post the "before" picture. I learned a lot in these 26 lessons about being patient, really looking, and starting very lightly and progressing until I was happy with the drawing, and then pushing the darks. I'm quite happy with this one and discovered that I like pencil drawing not just as a preparation for watercolor, but as a medium of its own.

Camden Workshop

I recently attended an outdoor workshop in Camden, Maine. We learned to paint harbors, schooners, sailboats, fog (lots of fog), and lighthouses. I also learned that I need to consolidate my painting gear more as it was tough lugging it all around to the various painting destinations. I highly recommend an outdoor workshop to anyone who wants to paint landscapes/seascapes in watercolor. Here are some photos from the workshop. The workshop was given by Joel Popadics (www.watercolorpop.com), shown giving a demo at left. That's my painting of a schooner in the second photo, and that's me in the red shirt in the middle one, painting sailboats with Mt. Battie in the distance. During the 5 day workshop I started 10 paintings, which I will try to finish at home from notes and photos. I will post some of them here when they are completed.

ACEO's

Until several days ago, I had never heard of ACEO's (Art Cards Editions and Originals). In case you haven't either, they are tiny paintings measuring 2.5 x 3.5 inches that artists have been trading for quite some time. They fit in the plastic sleeves or pages made for baseball cards. Recently they have become popular with the general public too, and have been appearing on ebay. They are cute, made with a variety of media, some are realistic, some cartoonish and funny, some collaged with photos, fabric and beads. I decided to get in on the party and have turned out a few that I have listed on ebay. Let's see what happens with them.

Michelle

Grandchildren and Art

I love doing art with my grandchildren. I have eight of them, and they all like to paint with me. This week I had my 8-year-old granddaughter here for a sleepover. We did a lot of fun things like swimming, shopping, and a carnival. We also did some arts and crafts, like watercolors, origami, rug hooking and painting on rocks. These are the watercolor and rice paper collages we did yesterday.

First we stained washi (several different types of rice paper) with bright watercolors and let them dry. Then we collaged tulip shapes on a support of watercolor paper. It was exciting to see the colorful bits of paper as they began to look like tulips.

Online Art Groups

Rose In Border

I belong to several art groups online. It is fun to interact with the other artists, and you always learn something. This painting was done as a project for one of the groups, WatercolorWorkshop, a Yahoo group hosted by Susie Short. The goal of the project was to paint something surrounded by a border. Procrastinator that I am, several other artists had already posted their entries and I was still trying to come up with an interesting border. I smiled to myself when I thought of this one. I painted the winding branches first, and then the background. I normally would have taped off the white rectangle to be sure to get clean lines, but I was afraid that the tape would ruin my nice green branches, so I carefully painted the straight border (yes, it is straight, although I couldn't get my camera to cooperate). The flower was painted last. I slid my painting in just before the deadline. I can't wait to see what the next project will be.

Some groups I belong to:
WatercolorWorkshop Yahoo Group
WetCanvas
Aquanet
Sharing With Artist Partners (S.W.A.P.) - a swap group for small paintings
Articulation
Watercolor Passion, Maury Kettell's site which has quarterly projects

Whenever I am stuck for a painting idea, one of these groups has something that will inspire me to keep my brushes wet.

Michelle

How It All Began

Pemaquid Point Light 1989

The other day in one of my watercolor online groups there was a discussion about first watercolors, and a few of us posted ours. It's fun to look back at our beginnings. This painting was done in 1989 on a vacation in Maine. Oh, I had tried watercolor before, back in the 60's, and I remember hating it. I probably tried to use them like oils.

I remember being attracted to watercolor seascapes in the various gift shops and galleries and decided to try one of my own. I kept my investment to a minimum, buying a watercolor pad and two tubes of paint - ultramarine and yellow ochre. I had read somewhere that you could do a painting with just those two colors. It came out a little pale and wishy-washy, but I must have liked it because I kept on painting. Many books and a few watercolor classes later I'm still at it.

I did it!

Well, after about an hour, I managed to post a picture. This is my latest painting, finished yesterday. It is 11x15 on Masa paper, which was wet and crinkled before painting. I love the batik effect with this technique. I had previously painted the peonies in a traditional manner and wanted to do something different.

Michelle

Masa Peonies