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Ahhhhhhh... The first day of spring is here! Pansies are blooming in the hanging basket outside the studio, and so far the squirrels have only dug them up once. Why in the world does this little still life of last year's pansies have an apple core in it? .....must've been desperate for something to put there. So glad spring's here. We had a light rain last night that smelled so fresh and clean. Our daffodils and magnolia are blooming, too. Hope you all enjoy the weekend!"PRANCING" Transparent Watercolor on 140#CP Arches, 15 x 11" COLLECTED
This simple still life was painted within that first year that I began taking watercolor lessons in Kokomo, Indiana. Shirley Quakenbush painted a wonderful demo showing how she glazed many layers of color to build up a glow and depth in her beautiful work, then we had to come up with our own painting. I'd rushed from work to get to class on time and had brought a couple of apples along with some cheese and a knife to make my 'supper.' They made up a great still life after I peeled and devoured the golden delicious. I left out the cheese - probably ate it since it's one of my favorite foods.My husband grew apples in our mini orchard behind our nursery business, and I think these came from the orchard. I'm posting them today because it's his birthday, and he grew up helping his grandparents on their apple orchard. Happy birthday, honey. And Happy Birthday to LYNNE, too. Isn't it great to be archived?"ONE FOR THE ROAD" Transparent Watercolor on 140#CP Arches 9 x 9"
Happy Birthday to Suzanne G:-) today, who's looking forward to learning more about painting reflective surfaces like glass. This painting's for her to study. Check out the shapes created by the darks and light values. Check out the placement of the darks and lights. Examine the edges carefully. Some edges are sharp, hard. Some are soft, fading away. Some values literally disappear into another value, never having an edge.Seeing what is there is so critcal in making something look real on a flat piece of paper. We all tend to observe what's around us fairly well. But I think the trick to painting realistically is not to just observe, but to carefully see and slowly look at the shapes, values, and their edges, then paint what we've seen. Keeping the really white shapes pure white helps a bunch in creating the depth in a watercolor. Painting really good darks where it's the darkest gives great dimension to the reflective surface, too.At the end of this month, we have a special demo planned for Thursday morning's class on reflective surfaces. I'm looking forward to it. Painting glass and brass is easy to do as long as you look slowly and see where the edges and values are. We'll make it look REAL, three dimensional. Wish you all could be in class."APPLESAUCE SOON?" Transparent Watercolor on 140#CP Arches 10 x 22" Collected