Blue

A few weeks ago a friend sent a notice about an art show in Ocean City, Maryland that had "Blue" as its theme. I thought that was an interesting challenge...

But, our art league has its annual Labor Day Show and Sale coming up this weekend and I had been pretty busy getting paintings ready for it. About a week ago, I had everything framed and ready to go. Well ahead of time...

It was then that I began to think 'blue'... As I was cleaning up my painting space, I discovered two blocks of watercolor paper that I had been given. It was not the brand of paper that I usually use  - it would be nice to get rid of it by experimenting on it. I also had a tube of Ultramarine blue that I wanted to get rid of (it had a terrible odor)...

Then I found some of the experiments that I had done on yupo paper. I could 'repurpose' them. I decided to wash this one off and see what else I could do with it.

Interestingly, when you wash yupo, some of the staining colors (red) won't come all the way off - I had sort of a pink design left over. I wet the paper and began dropping on the ultramarine paint. I added a little indigo to have some darks. Then I stood the painting on an end so that the dripping paint would run and create interesting patterns. I let it dry and voila! The original 'pink' painting I think enhances these new colors.

So, on to some other ways of playing... I enjoyed the wet dripping paint. Here is another: I began with wet paper and just let the paint run.

This time I mixed the ultramarine with another color called June Bug. It's more toward green. I let the paint continue to drip down.

When the paper is really wet the color looks faded.  I kept adding color and as the paint began to dry I used my spray bottle to give it some texture. But, I think I added a little too much water. When I picked it up.some of the drips ran off at an angle! I also tried looking at it from different directions...

It was getting more interesting... I spattered it with a little white gouache and cut a mat so that I could crop it a little...

I'm calling it "Winter."

Now, I am on a roll... playing with paint! I began with a large sheet of paper. I did not wet the paper this time, but instead dropped some very wet paint on it in three places. Then I got out some straws and blew the paint around. That is always fun and surprising...there is no way to know where the paint will end up!

And finally, I decided to use masking fluid... I had never tried masking quite like this. I poured a little of the fluid on the paper and blew it around with the straws. I set up two paintings this way. It takes a while to dry. (like overnight)

The next day, I wet the paper on the first one and really slopped on some blue. I surrounded it with yellow and watched as the greenish/yellow mixed around the masked image. It was very wet - lots of drips!

The second image was done in a similar way although with not quite so much color. As the paint on this one was drying, I sprayed it to find some texture.

The fun thing about masking fluid is to see what happens when it is removed. The yellowish dried mask keeps the paper hidden...

Finished paintings...

So, here's the surprise ...  I took all these crazy paintings to my class this week and everyone loved them! In fact, they all said to put them in the show this weekend! I have spent the past two days matting and framing and am now ready to go with a brand new display.

Invitation to all... stop by St Luke's Church in St. Michaels on Saturday - 10-5 or Sunday 12:30-5 and see all these in person! I'll have all of them for sale and a few other things, too. Copies of the book that I illustrated "Thoughts from my bench" will be available also!

Kieran

Kieran, my 16 year old grandson, lives in Vermont. He and his sister recently came for a summer visit. I painted this portrait before they came and hung the framed painting over his bed.

I had gone back in my photo file looking for a picture of him that would be fun to reproduce. I had always loved this one. We were visiting in November and had gone out looking for a small Christmas tree to cut down and decorate. We set the tree up in the living room between two windows and as the kids began to put decorations on it, the light made behind him just made him glow. I love the softness of this.

I began sketching on 600 grit UArt pastel paper and then did a watercolor underpainting.

I began adding pastel...

I continued to add definition...

And then some highlights.

In the original photo, his hand was partially covered by a tree branch as he was hanging an ornament. I did not want the distraction of the tree...so what to do with his hand? I asked the artist friends in my class what they thought and we talked about a favorite toy.

So then I went back to the photo file and looked at various toys... he was really into Spiderman...I sketched that in...

Oh, no! It looks like he is squeezing Spiderman!
Hmmm, he's all boy...maybe holding a frog...

No way... I knew I didn't want to add a new color...as in 'frog green.'

I liked the color palette that I had already established. Maybe just something of color in his hand that would not call attention to itself. After all, I want to look at his expression, not focus on his hand.

So, now I have a mystery toy (maybe a ball?) and need to finish up. I realized that his face was partially lost into the background so I darkened the area behind him and strengthened the highlights on his face and clothing.

I could probably keep tweaking this for days to come, but knew I needed to get it behind glass and into a frame or I would 'work it to death.' 

Hard to believe that he is now taller than I am and old enough to drive!