Friday, September 25, 2015

Creating Art - the Process

The art league will have a new exhibit at the St Michaels Library in October. It's called 'Creating Art - the Process.' I have found it a lot of fun - and good learning  - to document my process in creating a painting. . .now I will get to see how other artists take on this challenge.

So, here is one of the paintings I will be entering in this exhibit. After I painted 'THE Arrangement' (see post of September 10) I thought it would be fun to try taping another piece of watercolor paper. The first painting was horizontal - this one would be vertical.

My idea for this painting was to just use blue and yellow and see what would happen. This first application of color was very wet. I love to see what the colors will do! When watercolor paint dries, the colors are more muted.



I added more color - with less water this time - and let it dry again. Then I removed the tape. (forgot to take a picture before the next step)

I wanted to bring the sections together so I dabbed a sponge in the blue-yellow-green puddles on my palette and crossed over some of the white lines.


It's looking very much like a lattice. I know I am sort of color crazy - I had a teacher once who said "Every painting needs a spot of red." At this point I hear his voice in my head and can't shake it. . . but, I also don't want to ruin what I have done already. 

It's time for the acetate - clear plastic that I can experiment with on top of my painting. I can paint on it and get an idea of what might work. I try a few different ideas. 


Still not right. Then I decided to stop and take this painting to class for suggestions. 

 "Make the flower look like a real flower." "Add a vine. Make it look like it really belongs there."

After googling 'flowering vines and morning glories' (which are NOT always blue/white as I had thought - yea, I can use red),  I made several more acetate tries and came up with this final product.

"The Lattice" - 16x20 framed watercolor $175
The exhibit will be hung on October first and run through the month. Drop by, see this painting and find out how other artists create, too!


Wednesday, September 16, 2015

...the week after

Last week I posted about 'THE arrangement." The week after I did that painting, I returned to class. There in the arrangement container were four dead sunflowers and some sort of trailing vine. It was difficult to lift - I guess the oasis was still wet and the container was some sort of heavy metal. Barbara asked us if we would take the whole thing and throw it out for her.

WAIT! The dead flowers had their own beauty - I wanted to paint them. Actually, I thought they were much more interesting than the gorgeous arrangement. Needless to say, I was delighted to have found something to paint that I was excited about. (I don't know what that says about ME that I thought the dead stuff more interesting . . .as they say, "I'm not going there.")

So, here is my offering today. I really like the loose, free look.


'The Day After' 8x10 watercolor  $55

It is framed and hanging on the wall at The News Center in Easton. Drop by there to see it in person and take a look at the other small paintings hanging there. That show is up until the end of September.

Thursday, September 10, 2015

THE Arrangement

There was a wedding at my church a couple of weeks ago on a Saturday afternoon. When we arrived for our regular service the following day, we were overwhelmed by the beauty and the abundance of flowers. They were everywhere and they were magnificent! At the end of the service, parishioners were invited to take the flowers home, to give them to shut-ins, to share their beauty.

The next day, I received an email that said "Barbara brought some flowers home from church. Bring a BIG piece of paper to class. We'll be painting an enormous arrangement." I groaned . . .all the arrangements that I had seen were of white flowers . . .and there were so many! I was not looking forward to class that Tuesday.

I am NOT an easy flower painter. I get lost in so many petals.

So, imagine my surprise, when I arrived at class a day later to find, yes, an enormous arrangement - BUT they were NOT the white flowers. It was an amazing display of sunflowers and all sorts of color!

OK, still, I am NOT an easy flower painter (I said that before)  - what was I going to do with the overwhelming mass of color?

I decided to get out of my rut and experiment a bit.  A week or so before (when I had not been there) the class had taped sort of a grid on their paintings. Later they removed the tape and connected the squares to form a whole painting. It sounded like fun.

I started to tape and decided not to just do a rectangular grid. Sorry, I don't have a before picture here. I began to paint the flower display, purposefully leaving out a lot of the various flowers. It was just too much!

When the painting dried, I removed the tape and began connecting the arrangement. I added stems and greenery and voila! Not too bad after all.

"The Arrangement"   11x14 watercolor & ink    $125
To be continued . . .