Which Came First?

The cocoon or the bug? Well, in this case, the chrysalis. I used Adirondack Copper mixative on the bark of the branch. It has great texture that works well for this type of application. When the inks were dry and the frisket film was removed I went over everything with a wash of Da Vinci green gold fluid acrylic thinned with a little water and let it puddle and dry. That produced some nice texture in the background.

Dragonflies on Canvas~Complete

I've sure had fun with this one. I finished up the dragonflies yesterday but today thought it needed a little something else. I've had a 'thing' for metallics lately so I got out my gold Zig Painty and went to town.

Dragonflies on Canvas~WIP

This project seems to defy photographing. Everywhere light strikes an area of high texture it shows up as a white spot and the colors are nowhere near as garish as they appear but I did my best.

Jerry's Artarama ran a sale not long ago on pre-stretched, pre-primed canvases so I bought six 9" x 12" canvases with the intention of mounting and varnishing some of my watercolor paintings on them. There they sat, in the box they came in because I have no supplies to complete the job. A few days ago I decided to try my hand at coating one of these canvases with gesso and painting something with fluid acrylics. I protected my main subjects (the dragonflies) with masking fluid and just started painting...mostly amorphous, vaguely leaf and grass-like shapes and applying color with no thought of realism or 'sense' to placement of color. I'm ready now to remove the masking and complete the 'flies.

Peacock Orchids~WIP 2

A quick update on my progress. Poor quality photo but it's the best I could manage today. At least the colors are more accurate than the image in my previous post. There's still hours of work ahead so I may wind up having to set this one aside (it will haunt me)so I can start my Beach Babies commission.

I love Doris Joa's work (link) and hope to capture some of her style for the Beach Babies. I checked to see if she had a book out on painting figures, particularly children but I found nothing available so I'll be winging it. Under these circumstances I'd better get a jump start as it may take more than one try to get it the way I want it.

Peacock Orchids~WIP 1

I've done all my shadows with fluid acrylic, then started glazing over that with watercolor, in this case Daler/Rowney's Vivid Green. The actual blooms are still protected by frisket film. I'll be tackling those last.

It seems like ages since I updated my blog, probably because I was locked into what I call analysis paralysis ie. over thinking. I'm also not the type of artist to have several projects going at once. If I have a piece that's not completed pushed to the side it tends to haunt me to distraction. This is also my first full sheet piece. It may not be a big deal to some but it's huge to me. I'm loathe to waste anything, especially paper so the thought of ruining a full sheet was rather numbing and counterproductive soooo.....I've been 'pecking' away at this for a few weeks. I'm not crazy about Arches #140 HP paper either. I've had problems in the past removing masking fluid and frisket film from the surface which tends to rough up very easily and I'm having the same issues with this recent batch. I should've ordered Fabriano. :(

As my reference for this piece, I used one of the photos I took last month in my Moon garden. I used frisket film to protect the flowers and foliage, masking fluid to protect areas of smaller growth at the bottom. I chose to pour my background using Da Vinci fluid acrylics. I took the whole painting, board and all into the bath tub and did my pouring there. Worked like a charm..no muss, no fuss. I washed the excess paint down the drain with my detachable shower head. I may do all my pours in the tub from now on.

Pat's Sunflower~center reworked

This painting won't be going to market but I've sure had some fun with it. I used white acrylic gesso and dabbed it on the center of the flower with a small brush. My goal was to recover all the texture I lost in the first go-around. Today I went over the gesso with color. I didn't follow the reference too closely, instead putting various colors wherever I thought they looked good to me. I used a mixture of watercolor and fluid acrylic this time but stayed with the original palette. I truly like the results and would do this again, the next time a little wiser for my trouble.

Pat's Sunflowers~WIP continued

I transferred my drawing to Fabriano HP paper, then applied a layer of frisket film over top. I started cutting away areas of frisket and just kept going, basically deconstructing this sunflower. I have no idea if this will be a success or not but I had to try. I mixed up three containers of Da Vinci fluid acrylic...one with a mix of Phthalo blue/Hookers green, one with the same mixture plus Burnt Sienna added and the last with just Burnt Sienna, all diluted with water and I started pouring. I won't be able to update until Friday. My camera batteries died and they take 24 hours to fully recharge. In the meantime, I'll keep pouring and see what comes of it.

Texture

I'm calling this 'Sunset on Pluto'. I don't know if Pluto even has a sun much less a sunset but that's what popped into my head when this was dry.

Love the little tendrils the paint forms working wet into damp. Nick Simmons calls them dendrites(sp?).

Here I didn't wait for the dried perm yellow to fully reconstitute before pouring. After the painting was dry I brushed away the tiny 'chunks' of paint to reveal what I thought looked like a field of yellow daisies.

Even though watercolor has the ability to be reactivated on the palette after drying , some colors like cerulean blue like to remain in nugget form no matter how much water you add so I left them on the paper. I liked the look! I think I also see the ubiquitous cat hair that seems to show up in all my paintings.

One of my favorite tricks to create texture involves spraying a fine mist of water over (not directly on) damp paint. This creates tiny blooms that add a neat effect. I'm not sure if it's visible in this image, tho. The purple you see is Dioxazine Purple fluid acrylic by Da Vinci. I applied it straight from the bottle onto wet paper. After it was dry I dripped on some cerulean blue watercolor, fully reconstituted. Applied onto the dry fluid acrylic, it retained it's vibrancy and it's semi-opaque qualities created a really cool passage in the painting.

Here fluid acrylic is interacting with straight watercolor, wet into damp. It's fun to play with your paint and you can learn a great deal in the process.

When you mention watercolor I doubt most people immediately think 'texture'. Sure, you can take a brush and recreate texture...the textures found in nature, in man made objects, etc. What I find intriguing is the exciting and often times unexpected textures that simply happen when working with watercolor. I'm also discovering that those same wildly interesting textures can be achieved with fluid acrylics used as watercolors.

I had some yogurt cups on the shelf in my studio that contained long dried watercolor from a pour I had done last year. I almost threw them out as there was nothing but a thin crust of dry paint left in them. Then I thought ...well, I'll try to reconstitute them and see what happens. When I think texture in watercolor I think of Ann Blockley's book, Watercolour Textures . I've referred to this book on my blog more than once. Her beautifully textured backgrounds in the book make her subjects almost incidential....almost. Somehow she manages to balance the subject matter and the background so the subject is not lost but rather enhanced by it. Anyhoo, I'm posting my results with the dried paint. No subject, just lots of pouring to see what happens.

Side note: Speaking of backgrounds...I received my August issue of Watercolor Artist yesterday. On the cover is a beautiful painting of bearded irises by Heidi Lang Parrinello. The actual painting is large...60" x 40", the attention to detail and skill involved in painting these irises is undeniable and must be stunning to see IRL but I have one problem with it...the background. I can only assume the problem lies with the crop for the cover but the over abundance of colorful and amorphous shapes in her background is extremely distracting and not only is it distracting but also looks so contrived. I suspect she did one heck of a lot of lifting to achieve that effect, too. I enjoyed looking through her portfolio on her website. She does seem to like busy backgrounds.

Midnight in the Moon Garden I

Moon gardens have fascinated me since I first became aware of them. Probably because I tend to be nocturnal. They are basically a color themed garden, employing both white/light colored blooming and foliage plants that seem to 'glow' when lit by moonlight. In my experience these gardens are both dramatic and ethereal, especially during a full Moon. I worked the second shift at my prior job and in the summer I looked forward to coming home to a garden I could enjoy late at night when it was cool and quiet.

This was my attempt to capture the unique beauty of these gardens. I saturated both sides of Fabriano #140 HP paper, poured on DV indigo fluid acrylic straight from the bottle along with Prussian and cerulean blue watercolor and tipped my paper in different directions to allow the paints to mingle. Before the fluid acrylic could dry I lifted out the petals of a few blooms with an oval brush, then added more detail with soft pastel. I like how the blooms seem to float which is exactly how they appear in the garden at night. The stems are 'lost' in the darkness and all the white blooms seem to hover in mid-air.

Gingko Leaves~Fluid Acrylic on Gessoed Paper

Here's a much better image, taken on a sunnier day. This painting tranforms with each change in light which isn't an entirely bad thing.
SOLD

Here's the completed piece with gold metallic oil paint added. It's actually a terrible photo. The lower righthand corner appears much too dark and dull, the top is too bright and washed out. I had to rely on indoor lighting as we're having a run of cloudy days. If I can get a better photo I will repost.

The second leaf has been added as have a few new colors...mostly Phthalo blue, Green Gold and Burnt Sienna. With each application of paint I allowed it to dry for awhile, then rinsed away the excess revealing some pretty cool textures.

I transferred my gingko leaves onto the first coat of gesso after it dried. I wasn't happy with the texture in the gesso so I added another thin layer over top. Fortunately, my drawing was still visible through the second coat. I traced around the shape of the leaves and added some veining using the tip of an awl, basically indenting and exposing the paper. The plan was to let the paint settle into the indentions but I couldn't get that to happen. I had hoped that the exposed paper beneath would grab the paint but it didn't. It simply rinsed away with each application of acrylic. Maybe I didn't dig down deep enough?

Lately I've been more interested in trying new techniques than in my actual subject matter. Here I've chosen something simple that has a pleasing shape to me(gingko leaves)and finally broken out my Da Vinci fluid acrylics. The good news...they're permanent when dry. :) The bad news...they're permanent when dry. :( Working with acrylics, even fluid acrylics which are similar to watercolor, is a new experience. I felt as though I was in a race with the clock to get the effect I wanted before the paint dried. On the bright side, I didn't have to worry about washing away areas that I liked (if I waited until they dried first) before adding more paint.

I'd like to share my first experiment with the fluid acrylics. It's not a masterpiece by any stretch but gave me a feel for the medium. It also gave me a chance to try adding metallic oil paint to my composition. I've been dying to try this. I added a few flourishes of metallic gold here and there to embellish the painting after the acrylics were completely dry. Between the sheen of the acrylic and the shine of the metallic paint this was a real bugger to photograph but I did the best I could. It might have been smart to spray the painting with matte fixative beforehand but I didn't think of that until just now.