I just finished this palette knife painting of a rooster this afternoon. This is painted from a photograph taken by my friend Deb Holmes while she was visiting the Florida Keys! This painting is 8" x 10" and is painted on a canvas panel. This colorful rooster is really this colorful - unbelievable!

Craig's Bowl

The Muses, our Thursday painting group, painted yesterday ... another monochromatic watercolor still life because they enjoyed doing it so much last Thursday.  We featured a ceramic bowl created by Rosie's son Craig and incorporated some fruit, leaves and a wine bottle.  We pulled it all together with our two pieces of fabric - a dark tone and a light tone. 

This is my effort from yesterday and I am basically happy with it.  I used cerulean blue from my watercolor palette.  I discovered that I have two different brands of cerulean blue and since they were in the same well on my palette, this painting, although monochromatic, is a mixture of my two cerulean blues.  The painting is 9" x 12" and is painted on 140 lb. cold pressed watercolor paper.

Underwater Fantasy

This is a mixed media painting I finished a couple of months ago.  I was experimenting with watercolor crayons over acrylic ink washes.  I did a background wash in acrylic inks in several colors and then covered the entire surface with crinkled saran wrap, and allowed it all to dry.  Then I looked at the images that appeared and saw a fish/underwater creature and decided to develop that image.  I love linear design, so decided to use the watercolor crayons to further develop the image and then added linear textural design with repeated shapes and colors.  It is pretty wild, but then I love COLOR!

Jana's Jars - My Latest Swap Painting

This lovely painting arrived in the mail Saturday afternoon from my latest SWAP partner, Jana Dahmen.  Oh My, how lucky can I get?  An original "Dahmen"!  How I love her paintings!  This painting is alive with color and spontaneous brush strokes.  There is no one who can paint glass and reflections better than Jana!  Thank You, for this beautiful painting.

Milk and Cookies

This is my latest knife painting in oil - finished it this afternoon.  It is 5"x7" and is painted on a canvas panel.  Just thought I would share it with you.  The cookies were baked by my friend Patty - she bakes the BEST cookies!

Grandma's Bean Pot - Monochromatic Painting

This is a painting I did this afternoon with my Thursday painting group, Muses Mix Media.  We decided to set up a still life and paint it monochromatically.  We had a great time  - such a good time that we decided to do another monochromatic still life next week.

This painting is 9" x 12" and is painted on 140 lb. cold-pressed watercolor paper.

Crystal Bowl - Watercolor Workshop March Project

This is the March project for the Watercolor Workshop - the project in which we all paint from the same photograph.  This photo was provided by Vicki Greene.  The instructions for the project were provided by Susan Roper and we were to work monochromatically and use the lifting technique for the highlights.  I worked on some inexpensive paper I bought at the Office Depot and found that it does not hold up to wetting, rewetting and lifting techniques with a scrubber...something to keep in mind.  My color was sepia, and the size is approx 5" x 8".

Chocolate Pot With Pear

I finished the knife painting today - I painted with the Muses - we had such a wonderful afternoon.  The subject is the same as the monochromatic painting I finished this week and posted.  It is interesting to see the same subject done in different media.  This painting is 10"x8" and is painted on a canvas panel.

Monochromatic Painting for Watercolor Workshop

This little painting is 12" x 9" and is painted on 140 lb. cold-pressed watercolor paper. I bought the paper at Office Depot in a "book" of 15 sheets of watercolor paper.  It was $4.99.  Actually it responded very well.  My only criticism is that it is more absorbant than Arches. It is acid free and is good paper for practice and cards.  My color was Indigo and this was painted from a still life that we set up for oil painting on Thursday in our Muses Mix Media group.  I am doing the knife painting in oil.

Dahlia Painting from RAC Class

 

This is the finished painting of the Dahlia from the last painting I taught at Riverside Arts Center this winter session.  I was happy how it turned out.  This was finished from the example where I masked the edges of the petals.  (See earlier post in this blog.)  I have not yet finished the other example which was not masked.  This painting is  9 " x 13 " on 140 lb. Canson cold-pressed watercolor paper.

Intermediate Watercolor Painting Class at Riverside Art Center

Our Winter Session classes are now completed.  We had a great time painting, eating and drinking together.  Our painters were: Back row; Jody, Dave, and Cindy; Front row; Kathleen and her husband Kevin.

Our first project was  a painting of spring blossoms.

Jody mentioned that she would like to do a snow scene, so our second week we painted birch trees and cardinals...

We discussed a subject for our third paint and it was suggested that we do a street scene.  I prepared a drawing from a photo that a friend gave me from Tuscany - these are the outstanding results in this photo below...

Our next project was one I found on the internet - a very challenging painting of a tree in the shadows in the autumn - the colors are intense and the shadows deep ... the painters attacked this with their usual enthusiasm ... it was difficult, but they did very well.

Our next painting was one we drew of some mugs I brought in - a lesson in drawing as well as in painting.  Not everyone had these paintings with us last night, so I don't have a picture of that project.  I discovered that these talented students are very good at drawing as well as painting.

We then did a version of the Clematis that I posted earlier on this blog.  As you can see from the picture below, the results were very varied, but all creative paintings.

Our last project for this winter session was a lesson in pouring.  As I mentioned earlier on this blog, we poured with liquid acrylics after masking out the edges of the dahlias to retain the whites.  Now they are painting with transparent watercolor, working on the petals.  We are doing a wet-in-wet background in 3 greens and a blue and they will finish the background by using negative painting techniques in the leaves.

This was such a great 8 week session - I enjoyed teaching this group very much, and hope that they also had an enjoyable experience.  They are a wonderful bunch of creative painters and great people!  KUDOS to all of them!