Monument Valley

I fell in love with some photographs taken by a fellow Watercolor Workshop group member, Susan Roper, who takes lovely pictures. She graciously allows us to work from her pics and so I just finished 2 watercolors from Monument Valley. They are painted on 5"x7" pieces of Arches cold-pressed watercolor paper. This is the first one, and I will post the second tomorrow evening. Thank you, Susan!

Iris on Yupo Revisited

I went back into the iris painting last night and made some changes as suggested by my watercolor cyber friends. Rhonda suggested that the colors were too "pretty" and perhaps it would help if I added some browns in the leaves. I did this - in fact I used yellow ochre and burnt sienna. I also toned down the background by sponging on and painting in some more acrylic white ink over the background. I like it better now:)

Fox Island Construction Crew reworked

I reworked the painting - the face was too small - so I removed the old face with Mr. Clean Magic Eraser and repainted it placing the features more in the center of the face. I also added more blue and a touch of purple in the water to pick up the purple in the toys. At this point I am not sure if it is better or not. One way or another, it is always a learning situation and they all can't be good, can they?

Fox Island Construction Crew

This is a small painting (7"x10") that I just painted for the Watercolor Workshop August Challenge theme of things you find at the shore/beach. Well, what we find at the beach are the grandchildren. I took the source photo for this painting last Friday and the boys were very busy creating 'something!' The painting is certainly not one of my best efforts, but I made a promise to myself that I would participate in all the monthly challenges 'come hell or high water' and I notice that the calendar is rapidly approaching the 31st of August - time is running out. The figure on the right is too stiff...(little boys are all angles, elbows and corners - aren't they?) and doesn't look anything like my grandson...oh well!

Sometimes the paper towel you clean your brushes on is a better painting than the painting itself!!! In this case I think that is true. My iris on Yupo painting needs "HELP!" I am done, done, done with it in either case. Yupo is just not my thing - one of these days I will accept that fact, but I never give up - but I had this nice piece of Yupo laying around and well...................

Anyway...I like the paper towel better - all it needed was a little black ink contour line ...and...VOILA! A painting! :)

Drawing and Painting Sycamore Trees

I did this painting several years ago when attending a watercolor class taught by Marge Brandt, of Wapakoneta, Ohio. She was teaching us how to paint different trees. I have always loved sycamore trees, with their white and grey trunks and branches, lining the street and river banks of Ohio. There were so many on the street I grew up on in Cleveland, West 98th, that they formed an arch over the street in the summer. A tornado came through in 1954 and took them all. Surprisingly the houses were spared with just some minor damage. I think the trees saved the houses. This tree was painted on 1/8 sheet of Cold-pressed Arches watercolor paper.

Oh Happy Day! I went to the gala for the St. Mary's Summerfest Art Show on Sunday afternoon where I was able to view my winning entry and received my prize from the representative of Wright State University. This is such a nice show and I have been honored to received the watercolor award for 3 years in a row. What a nice feeling!

Sea Turtle

The August project for Watercolor Workshop where everyone paints from the same photo is this sea turtle. It was really fun painting it - I did a poured background with Golden fluid acrylics and salt and then finished the painting with watercolors. A cyber-artist friend, Ruth Bodycott, suggested bringing the water in front of the turtle, so I lifted out paint with Mr. Clean Magic Eraser and also added some of the turquoise fluid acrylic in front of the turtle and then it really did look like the turtle was in the water. Thanks for the suggestion, Ruth! Now I like it!

A Fence From The Past

One of my projects during the last few weeks was a painting for a show for the Shelby County Historical Society. The show, which goes up in September, is called "Between Fences" and explores the "Fences" that people put up in their lives - literally and figuratively. The historical society built 22 picket fences, 36" high and 16" wide, and asked local artists to paint or decorate them using the "fences" theme. The artists are also supposed to compose a paragraph which talks about their fences. Following is my paragraph and the decorated fence that accompanies it is shown above. After I drew the hollyhocks and bluebird on paper, a dear friend, Rose Hawkins, cut them out of paneling using a ban saw. After I painted them, I attached them to the fence with construction adhesive, and then painted some more leaves directly to the fence.

"A Fence From The Past"

I have entitled my entry "A Fence From The Past." We look to the past as an idyllic time with no problems...when everyone had chicken on Sundays and apple pies cooling in the open windows during the dog days of summer. While this image is beautiful, we all know that in many ways the past was no different from today, and in some ways worse, with prejudice, unfair labor practices and many other social woes. I designed my fence to represent the ideal picket fence from 100 years ago, with the bluefird of happiness and the hollyhocks we remember from fence rows at our grandmother's houses. Yes, the hollyhocks and the bluebirds existed, but unfortunately, the idyllic world we associate with that time, didn't. Thus, fences that were barriers to happiness, withe multitudes of social problems, existed then... and now.

Kreativ Blogger Award

It appears to be that Ginny Stiles has passed me the Kreativ Blogger Award and asked me to list 7 things about myself as a result of her passing along this honor. You need to see the 7 things she wrote as she is totally creative!!! You can see these things by clicking on her Blog - An Artist Labyrinth: Ginny Stiles - in the column next to this post.

So - I am going to tell you about my early creative pursuits during my childhood in the city:

1. I guess my creative impulses were present at a very early age when I was famous in our family for drawing on the walls and my parents had to hide pencil, crayons, and most collagraphic tools to stifle some of those impulses.

2. It wasn't long before I was in school and in first grade got into trouble for drawing pictures instead of doing my lessons - needless to say I was and am a very right-brained individual. My parents heard about this and I was threatened within an inch of my life and had to concentrate on class work and no drawing. Did you know that you aren't supposed to draw in textbooks or bibles?

3. I don't want to paint my parents as those who would stifle my artistic urges forever - they did send me to Saturday art school at a local community center which we were lucky to have in Cleveland. I was also lucky to attend an elementary school that was an experimental school for the time, so there were many creative opportunities there also.

4. I was always looking for drawing materials, and I discovered that you could draw with the burnt end of wooden matchsticks - like charcoal. Unfortunately I really got into trouble when I was caught re-burning them to get more "charcoal" by catching them on fire from the flame on our gas range. Not good for a 3rd grader, eh? (I was innovative, no?)

5. My favorite subject to draw was people with flowing robes floating through forests of trees - I thought they were really cool, but my parents thought they looked more like ghouls:) Sometimes I think I worried them. teehee! I always went for the dramatic:)

6. I was very lucky to be raised in the city, Cleveland, which had and has, a wonderful art museum and I was also lucky to have parents who took me to the art museum often. I was absolutely enthralled with it, especially the displays from the middle ages with their armor and also the wonderful Egyptian room with it's wonderful decorated mummy cases. There is a statue of Rodin's "Thinker" in the front of the museum and he looks out over a lake surrounded by gardens, one of God's beautiful places. I was fascinated with this statue at an early age and still can see it in my mind. Rodin remains my favorite sculptor.

7. Most importantly, I was blessed with loving, supportive parents who didn't laugh when I said I wanted to be an artist, but did encourage me to teach art instead of make it because in those days there weren't too many women making a living at making art. When I retired from teaching art, I announced that from that time on, my passion was going to be painting, and I have pretty much stuck to that (except for the wonderful, loving husband, 3 children and 6 grandchildren who get their share of my time- such blessings.)

THANK YOU FOR PASSING THIS AWARD ON TO ME, GINNY!

Now I am going to pass this award on to another blogger I enjoy immensly...the blog is Watercolor by Brent Perkins-www.watercolorsbybrentperkins.blogspot.com

Abstract Autumn

This was one of my first efforts at "negative painting." It is very tight, but is a good example if I am trying to teach the concept, and I like the abstract approach and the limited palette (fall colors) and I tried to balance the color areas. The leaves are very stiff because I drew them from my mind rather than from life, though I like the way the eye is drawn to the yellow area in the center, which is the focal point.

All in all, today I see many problems with this painting, but it was a good learning tool at the time.

Plein Air Painting

I went plein air painting with my Thursday painters this week and had a wonderful time. We went to the Maria Stein Shrine of the Religious Relics, Maria Stein, Ohio, run by the Sisters of the Precious Blood. The day was mostly cloudy, but very comfortable, except for the occasional threat of rain. I decided to paint this little chapel which was built in honor of a child who was healed there. As you can see, it is a very small building in relation to the objects around it, large enough to walk into, but just! It is a charming, inspirational place, but my painting ended up looking like an illustration in Winnie the Pooh, because of the black Sharpie marker that I outlined my drawing with before I did the watercolor wash. David Lobenberg had some posts on his blog using this technique which he created during a plein air class he was teaching in California. His paintings are beautiful, but I am convinced that he used a very fine Sharpie as compared to my 'fine.' You should check out his blog - it's great! There is a link to his blog on this blog.