Miss Willmott's Ghost...again

I can't get enough of this plant, it seems. I took more photos, this time closer to sunset to capture different lighting. The Aglaya daisies are blooming now and they look wonderful alongside Miss Willmott. This afternoon I did another painting, this time more loose. I painted the entire piece with a #2 squirrel quill. All very wet into wet.

Bandit & 8 Ball~update

Bandit~closeup

8 Ball~closeup

I made a few adjustments last night and called this done. Working without a reference photo certainly has it's challenges. I also added whiskers with colored pencil. They aren't as prominent IRL as they appear in my images. I wasn't able to tone them down in my photo editor unfortunately.

Painting 'Jean Haines Style'

I recently received my copy of Jean Haines's new book, How to Paint Colour & Light in Watercolour . I've admired Jean's style since I first saw her work on Wetcanvas.com. During my early days dabbling in watercolor I followed a class Jean was giving on the w/c learning forum and found her style was beyond me at that point. I had just left realistic drawing and was relatively new to this medium. My intent was to pursue a medium that would allow (ok...FORCE) me to be more free and expressive. I found Jean's 'beyond' loose watercolor paintings fascinating but I just could not let go of that much control at the time. I'm better now (I have been able to loosen up) but this is taking it to the extreme , IMO and it's exciting.

This is my first humble attempt (I'm not counting those horrible paintings I created in her class years ago) at watercolor 'Jean Haines style'. My subject is one of my own cats. I'll leave my visitors to figure out what the cat is doing. Please take time to post your answers or guesses. Thanks!

Landscape w/small rant

I'm calling this Twilight Time. It started out as nothing more than a way to use up excess paint on my palette and turned into a landscape in the process. I'm fighting the urge to criticize it to death and instead just let it be what it is.

Landscapes are not my forte but I've hit a point in my journey as an artist where I'm not satisfied with my work anymore (it's happened before, btw) so I need to stretch. I'm not saying I don't like my past work but I've reached a point where I'd like to take it to a new level. What level remains to be seen. Maybe I'm a victim of the caprice of my own moods which has lead to this recent dissatisfaction but irregardless, it's a chance to grow and explore with paint and paper.

I reached one goal last year which was to 'loosen up'. Now I want to become more expressive. I want my emotions to enter the picture (no pun intended) and not strive to simply recreate the emotions of my subjects. What better vehicle to convey my own emotions/moods than landscapes? I read a thread on Wetcanvas yesterday, started by a member that was in the process of taking a workshop from Alvaro Castagnet . This quote (the member quoting Castagnet) caught my eye:

"What makes a painting? A painting is a vision. Don't copy the subject. Representational artists run a huge risk of becoming illustrators. Illustration is not art. As artists, we have to capture something beyond that. We all can fall into the illustration trap, and the more we know, the harder it gets to stay out of that. We are constantly battling craft vs. art. Craft is illustration. A painting should reflect your spirit. Art is spiritual and there are no rules. Illustration is second hand art. If you are too literal, there is no enjoyment in the painting.

If you think using your intellect is the answer in painting, you're wrong. Painting is intuitive. It cannot be learned mechanically. Painting is about capturing the intrinsic side of life, with it's mood and feeling. There are no shortcuts and no formula. Painting is based on insight and perception, not logic. If the painting lacks ambience, it is worthless. The mood is the only creative side of representational art. The painting has to have magic to it. Search for the surprising element of the day. Paintings shouldn't be "pleasant" or "pretty"; they have to have GUTS. If we try to just copy nature and be illustrators, nature will beat us every time. We need to look deeper than that."

For the record, I don't agree with everything Castagnet had to say but some of his views did ring a personal bell with me. I thought by loosening up my style I would automatically become more expressive but that didn't seem to be the case. Even though I've changed my way of applying paint, I don't get a sense of heart and soul in my work. OMG, I think I'm going all artsy fartsy! I'm not giving up my cats, especially Crabby Cat, no matter how far afield I may wander.

Syd 2

My work area is currently covered in work that has buckled because of the unusually high humidity we've been experiencing. Everything is weighted down under glass and books to keep it flat until this weather passes so I decided to add a background to my Sydney Revisited painting while I wait. Of course once my brush was wet I felt the need to tweak Syd, something I don't recommend when doing a loose style watercolor painting. I don't think I did too much damage but some of the spontaneity was lost. My mantra for loose style paintings: "get in, get out and don't go back unless you absolutely have to".

Sydney Revisited

I'm currently working on a commission on gessoed paper. The humidity level here has been unusually high lately and the gesso seems like it's taking forever to dry. It's like waiting for grass to grow.}:( In the meantime I felt the need to paint something so I used another of Kali's photos to paint Sydney, this time strickly watercolor...no pastel. This painting came together very fast and I found a new favorite color...DS Perylene Violet. So far I haven't met a Perylene I didn't like. It's possible to get a full range of values from them and they are great mixers as well.


p.s. I think Syd needs a background of some sort. Maybe just a few splatters.......

Delphiniums~Loose Style

I act as the moderator on a Michigan gardening site and recently someone started a thread asking members to name their favorite flower. I didn't hesitate to choose delphiniums as mine, particularily the Pacific Giant cultivars. Delphiniums are one of the few true blue flowers found in nature. Related to the buttercup (can you believe that?!), their common name is larkspur. Like roses, many gardeners have excellent luck growing them while others do not. I've been one of the lucky ones. They make the perfect subject for a loose, juicy watercolor, too.

Maine Coon Kitten~WIP

As you can see, I have a ways to go yet. I don't really want to get into too much detail on this one but it won't be as loose as the others. Closeup of the face. Notice the eye color is so similar to a dog's. Btw, I haven't removed the masking yet.

I'm taking a big chance and posting a WIP that's actually still in progress. I don't normally do that. I have no idea if this little guy will turn out to my satisfaction but I couldn't resist posting a quick update. Last week was a busy one for me. Two trips to the printers that take half a day each, shopping to do(and I hate grocery shopping}:( ), getting work ready to deliver to the gallery...blah, blah. Anyway, not much painting went on around here. I had planned to do another dog but I kept coming back to a reference photo of a Maine Coon kitten, submitted by SNAG on WC. Finally I gave in and started painting it. This one won't be as loose as the others. IMO, it demands a bit more detail and time.



Tracey Costescu(see her blog link on my link list!)kindly gave me some pointers on using the masque pen and I've now made friends with the thing. It sure came in handy on this project because Maine Coons have lots of whiskers and an abundance of hair sprouting around their ears. I also noticed as I was painting that Maine Coons have eyes a lot like dog eyes so the timing on this was perfect. I hesitated to use mask on the catchlights in the eyes. I just don't like the results and avoid it whenever possible. However, I knew I'd be spraying water on this as I went along so I had to preserve the lights somehow. While doing the previous several animal paintings I discovered if I paint around the catchlights first, then apply my masking fluid allowing it to extend a tiny bit over the nearby color, I don't get that really hard edge. The masking fluid will lift some color when it's removed so the result is a softer, more natural catchlight.

Catnapping III~Tired Tonkinese

Here's another in my latest series of sleeping cat paintings. I found the reference photo in the WC RIL courtesy of Crias. Tonkinese cats have beautiful but tricky coloring to duplicate with paint. I finally went with Warm sepia, DS Moonglow, cobalt blue deep and a very, very light under wash of quin gold. I did fiddle with this one more than I would've liked but I kept seeing things that had to be tweaked. My inner control freak was nagging me to distraction this time around and I gave in more than a few times. I think for that reason I'm not as happy with this one as I was with the first two. Constant tweaking and loose style painting don't even belong in the same sentence, much less the same painting.

The background has a more greenish cast to it than appears in the image. I was unable to recover it in my photo editor.