The porch railing

A few years ago, as I was going down our main street in St Michaels, I spotted a porch railing that was tangled with a wonderful flowering vine. Of course, I got out my camera and began to take pictures. Then I forgot all about it.

Recently my watercolor class has been working on a project that we are calling "Painted Ladies." We are looking for Victorian houses with interesting features - windows, porches, carpenter's lace, interesting colors...  I went through my picture file and there was the porch railing picture I had taken - waiting to be painted.

I sketched in the railing and vine...and then began painting...

I went a little nuts with leaves, but loved the flow of vines. If you look closely, you can see part of the window sketched in above the vine. I realized after I got this far that the shutter was too small, so I drew it larger and added paint to it. In the photo, the house was gray and the shutter was black. That seemed a little boring to me. I wanted my painted lady to have color!

So now I have a yellow house with green shutters. I got this far and oh no, I made the shutter bigger but had left the clapboard siding too narrow.  Too many lines - too busy. I stopped and took it to class for a helpful critique.

It is so important to stop and really look at my work. Listening to others - what they see and say makes such a difference. Being too close to what I am doing gets in the way of making it better!

Comments: 

Define window sill

Add shadow under shutter 

More shadow under and at side of railing

Connect window to railing by having vine touch window

Add weight to vine in lower right hand corner - it will balance the shutter

What a difference!

I can always learn from others. Thanks!

Mat scrap inspirations...

My husband is a writer/photographer - we have a darkroom in our house where he develops, prints, mats and frames his photographs. A couple weeks ago he was having problems with the mat cutter (which, since I began to paint, we are now sharing).

I joined him at the mat cutting table and we began to practice cutting mats with some odd shaped scraps that were left over from another project. We solved the trouble issue and ended up with some long, skinny mats that were really interesting.

Now, normally I paint something and then cut a mat to fit what I have painted. Hmmm, what about doing it the other way around? Paint something to go in the mats we just cut! Here were some challenging shapes - yes, that would be inspiring...and fun.

I was looking for something light and whimsical - some watercolor and ink sketches would be perfect! It's a hot summer day...the ideal thing for the vertical shape would be... 

and then I tried a horizontal - 

That started me on a whole lot of other sketches - for another blog. I think they may end up being for sale at the annual art league Labor Day Show and Sale in St Michaels on September 3 & 4. Mark your calendars and come see them in person!

Once upon a time...

A few weeks ago as I was leaving my watercolor class with a couple of other students, one of them stopped and pointed to a tree, "Look at that!" she said. I turned around and saw a rusty old wheel in the crook of the tree. It had obviously been there a long time as the tree had grown around it.

I have passed by this tree dozens of times and never seen this before! (It makes me wonder how much else I have missed...) "There is a painting", I thought - I took a picture of it.

I have also been intrigued by some 'rivulet' paintings that I had recently seen. Perhaps I could do a rivulet painting of the old wheel.

The rivulet technique is one is which you begin by doing a drawing on watercolor paper. Then the paper is wet and a raw umber is applied. I covered the paper with a raw umber wash and then dabbed on some heavier blobs of the raw umber pigment.

Next, while the paper is still pretty wet, I held the painting up vertically and sprayed the whole thing so that the rivulets began to form. This takes a little while, but the texture is really amazing.

Here are some close ups - 

The next steps are to add various washes to define the picture and then lift some of the paint to capture the highlights and, for this picture, to identify the old wheel. 

"Once upon a time there was a cart..."   11x 14 watercolor $225

So, there you have it - interesting technique, texture and story...although the story has yet to be written. I don't have a clue as to how or why the wheel got into the tree. I/we need to make up something great and write a book about it!