I finished this painting this evening. It was painted for the Watercolor Workshop March project for something shiny. This was painted from a Wet Canvas photograph and is a full sheet of Arches cold-pressed 140 lb. watercolor paper. This was my first attempt at transparent bottles and was an ordeal, to say the least. Jana Dahmen told me to take it one stroke/area at a time and actually that helped. Jana is the "queen" of glass! Thanks, Jana.

This is a group of ACEO's I painted recently. I attempted to do some plein air type paintings without drawing first and just painting directly. I have only attempted to do an ACEO once before so this is new territory for me. I thought it would be best to do what I am most comfortable doing - realism. So - here they are! I will have to say that they are much fun to paint.

I finished this painting of the Watercolor Workshop March project photograph this evening. It is 1/4 sheet of 140 lb. Arches watercolor paper. This was a chance to use all those intense colors that I love. It was fun to paint. Now on to the painting project of "something shiny!" I am going to do a painting of two glass bottles with some red onions and garlic. It will be a full sheet of watercolor paper and will be a challenge because I have never painted transparent glass before. LOL!

Winter's Deep

This is my second painting using the 'bubble technique.' I prepared 4 papers at the time I was doing this so will eventually get to the other two. This is one that I dipped several times and the textured background is very busy. I have also noticed that this technique does change the surface of the paper somewhat - it does react to the watercolor differently. I also noticed that it is way more difficult to lift the watercolor once it has been applied.

Martha's Painted Lady

We spent a week on Martha's Vineyard in 1992 - a wonderful family vacation. Late one sunny afternoon, Rock and I went sight-seeing and took some photos. This painting is from one of the pics I took of one of the famous "painted ladies' you see in abundance on the island. The shadows were just right. The "light" is really different there. I painted this in the late '90's. Such nice memories!

I read about a technique on the blog "Sandy Maudlin's Art Journey" that described a method of texturizing w/c paper with bubbles. It sounded fascinating - everything on her blog is fascinating- so I tried it the other night. I used blue acrylic as my color. I think I could have used more paint since my texture wasn't as dark as I thought it should be. Otherwise, it is a very interesting effect. I thought a snow scene would be nice on it, so I used a photo from Doris Glovier's Flickr site of a cardinal in a tree. Thank you Doris - you are so generous to share your photographs with the WcW members.

Best of Class Grandchildren

Rachel and Ryan were with us this afternoon. They like to wear my ribbons on their chests when they are playing in my studio, strutting around acting like they have won something. I decided I had to have pictures of this. They have a ball investigating all my art supplies and it takes me a while to get the studio back in order after the invasion is over. BUT - it is definitely worth it! They are wonderful!

Rick's Work Boots

I finished this painting this week ... it is a picture of my son Rick's work boots and is painted on a full sheet of Arches 140 lb. hot-pressed watercolor paper. I used liquid watercolors to pour the background on wet paper. Then I painted the boots, and then finished by working back in to the background by sponging more color (brown/violet) on the bottom, going over it with a 2" wash brush and then adding the brown/violet paint and yellow to the background (which caused the poured background colors to lift/run/bloom.) I also spattered the dark violet/brown on the damp areas in the bottom of the painting and sprayed clear water over the background at the top. I used indian yellow, violet, blue-violet and paynes gray for my palette and did have to touch up some parts of the shoe laces with gouache where I accidently painted over them. Overall, I was happy with the results.