Digby Redux ~ complete

I finally settled on a palette for this one and after that, things went pretty fast. I've painted this on Fabriano 140# HP with a color combo I love...Quin. Gold, Carbazole Violet and Quin. Sienna. I added a little FUB to the violet and the camera really picked it up. Hopefully I'll be able to get a better photo with colors that are more true to life when the light is better. It's too sunny today. I worked from the original photo and the posterized version so it turned out slightly stylized but I kinda like it! 

Xmas Card ~ wax paper & alcohol ink

I've been laying down a few sheets of wax paper to protect my work surface when painting with the inks. Today was cleaning day which included replacing the wax paper which had become wrinkled and covered in dried ink. When I removed the tape that held it in place I realized the patterns that had formed from all the excess ink runoff were beautiful and shouldn't be wasted. I belong to a group of alcohol ink artists on Facebook and many of them have posted images of glass ornaments they have transformed with alcohol ink. Idea! The colors were not only just as vibrant on the wax paper but the crinkled texture was very intriguing as well. I cut out an ornament shape and glued it onto hotpress w/c paper with Mod Podge. I dipped a small sponge in a little of the gold mixative and stippled that around the ornament to create a subtle background. Ta Da! A Xmas card!

Chocolate~in Progress

Meet Chocolate, a Great Dane and what a beauty he is. My niece, Megan Russell graciously sent me the photo so I could paint him. He is actually a Chocolat Dane, the chocolate color being a recessive gene carried in the harlequin (white with black spots) danes and his blue eyes are considered a flaw so he is not considered 'showable' by AKC standards. According to Megan, technically the spots make him a chocoquin, the spot color combined with white. There are also merlequins (white with blue spots), fawnaquins (white with tan) and brindlequins (white with tiger striped spots). None of these colors are AKC acceptable. What a shame.

I'm painting Chocolate on #140 Fabriano HP and the finished painting should be approx. 12" x 18". My palette is just FUB and burnt sienna. I did use just a little very dilute cobalt blue deep for his eyes.

Trillium Trio with WIP

Trillium Trio~5" x 7"

I'm still playing with the trilliums. I also plan to continue experimenting with different palettes. In this painting I added DS Moonglow (just love this color..it mixes with practically everything) to the Phthalo turquoise and perm. yellow left on a previous palette. Moonglow's purple-y/grey served to neutralize the other colors and brought what I consider a slightly old fashioned look to the finished painting. I also used a working drawing and a small amount of misket to save some edges. I'm not particularily happy with the flower on the top left. The angle is too sharp and horizontal and leads the eye off the painting.

This painting was done on #140 HP and I'm still using Kemp's paper prep technique. I like the ability to lift paint on this surface, especially when dealing with white flowers.

Trilliums~Fast and Loose

Last year I took several photos of trilliums for reference but never did a thing with them. Instead I went off on another tangent and the images were forgotten. In 2009 Spring came about 6 weeks late and stayed all summer so trilliums were scarce. This year Spring has arrived very early in N. Michigan. The trilliums aren't blooming yet, though. The poor things probably don't know what's going on!

This is more of a study than a finished painting. I wanted to try Kemp's paper prep technique with HP Fabriano w/c paper. Hotpress paper contains a lot more sizing than coldpress so I was able to achieve more detail and definition but it tended to dry out much faster which presented it's own problems. Lesson learned? HP paper needs to be soaked to maintain the same moisture levels as CP. Just brushing water on both sides of HP won't work. The good news...it all depends on the end result you want which paper will work best using Linda Kemp's prep method.