White Heron

I cannot seem to stop painting this weekend. We are having a quiet weekend due to my husband's accident and his need to recuperate, and I can't say I have missed any of the activities we might have done, it has been so nice to stay home and paint!

I am letting this marinate on the board for awhile while I ponder where to soften more of the edges, or detail the water more, etc. I submitted it to the WcW for critique, hopefully some of the wildlife painters in the group will help me decide if I am through with this or if anything else needs to be done.

Thanks go to Fred Reed for allowing me to paint from his excellent photo.

Marsha's Peony Final

Rhonda, one of my WcW buddies is working on this same photo for a painting, and suggested that the center of this needs to be warmed up with some of the warmer colors. So, after looking at the photo again on the computer screen I found that my print of the photo had printed mainly the cooler colors so I had missed that. This version of my painting is more representative of the original photo and I think I am calling it done.

Marsha's Peony WIP 2

Here I have added deeper colors to the shadow areas and have come closer to finishing the stem and whatever those things are that open when the buds open. I guess I should research more about plant anatomy!

Next, I will step away and ponder whether to deepen the sky color and add more darks. the peony petals are so translucent I don't want to lose that look, so I may be close to finished with this.

I'll post the final version when I figure out if I am finished.

Marsha's Peony WIP 1

I am starting another floral painting based on the photographic talent of an online friend, Marsha, who submits photos of her flowers for the group to use for reference photos. I am so envious of her ability to grow flowers like this, here on the desert we would never be able to grow them! She is also a fabulous photographer!

This will be the underside of a peony blossom and I have done the first three steps so far: Painting the sky area, tinting each petal with a pale pink and then painting the shadow areas with the same pink to establish where the lightest lights will be left. As I finish those little yellow-green thingies at the base of the flower I will start going in with the darkest darks, that is the fun part since it immediately makes the lightest lights even brighter and the petals more translucent-looking. It has been an evolutionary process for me to get over being scared of committing darkest darks to a painting for fear of ruining it. Now, I usually can hardly wait to get to that point since it always seems to be a magical turning point, taking the painting farther away from the awkward teenage phase and more toward the phases of a good, grown-up painting.

More to follow as I have time to work on this one.

Iris Macro Revisited

I added a bit more modeling shading to the petals of this and some more orange in the deepest part of the throat of the iris. I am not sure if this does it for me, still, but I can't say I hate it....it just isn't what I set out to do with this great photo I used for a reference. I have new subjects waiting on the drafting table so will just move on.

Iris Macro

I just finished this iris painting, I used a photo shared by an online group friend who took the macro photo from one of her irises. The photo was stunning, my painting of it just doesn't do it justice. This was a fun painting to do, despite the struggles. I love painting using wet-in-wet techniques. Irises are among my favorites from the flower world, they are just complicated to try to paint. I think I struggle more with roses and irises than any other flowers.

Aubrey at the Beach

I finished this painting of our granddaughter early this morning after painting the bulk of it on Mother's Day (apropos, huh?). I just love the toddler postures they all have at this age. This will go into my Grandma's Gallery of paintings.

Now, on to an iris painting I have been planning.

Magnolia

This painting was done by watching an online demo and a subsequent challenge by one of my online artist buddies, Cecilia (Cia) Price and the reference photo used was from her magnolia tree. She lives in Alabama so understands magnolias much better than this southwestern desert rat.

I was more successful this time than in any others in saving the white of the paper for the sunspots on the petals and branches, so I am proud of that. I like the technique of painting wet-in-wet by dropping-in of colors and letting them blend on the paper, I thought it worked well in this case. Some of my branches are a bit funky, but as far as I know this may be normal for magnolia branches? That's my story and I'm stickin' to it anyway.

Now, on to painting my grandbaby, Aubrey, in her race-to-the-water pose in the photo below. That one is just begging to be painted, so I will give in to the urge.

Beach baby

No art news to submit today as we are in Las Vegas (what goes on in Vegas stays in Vegas!) but I received some beach baby photos of our granddaughter in some e-mail today so will share it. I didn't crop out her mama for any malicious intent, I just thought little Ms. Aubrey looked so precious striding purposely toward the water that I wanted her to be the main focus of the photo.

I am winning big at the casinos...I won $18.95 in nickels this morning! That has to be some kind of record for me to be on the plus side at all!

Madrona Tree - Final

I have deemed this one as finished as it will get. I am not as pleased as I had hoped to be with it, but it was a great learning experience and fun to do. I am trying to incorporate more negative painting of shapes into my paintings, so that will come along more easily after I do more of it.

Madrona Tree WIP 5/1/07

I think that every painting goes through an "awkward teenage phase" and here is my teen painting. At this point, I usually wonder if this will go into the round file or whether it will be saved. There is much to do to make this background acceptable, so I will press onward.