Iris on Yupo - WIP 1

This is where I remembered to take a photo so I could share another WIP series. This is a painting that was requested to be "just like" one that had sold at our Oktoberfest sale recently. Well, I hope this person will settle for something "kinda like" since I don't think it is humanly possible to paint an absolute replica of any painting. Maybe I am not disciplined enough, or can't remember what I did to get an effect in a prior painting, but I just know this will have to be similar to the first one.

The second WIP photo I took will not be submitted here since I will wash off what I did in that step. I think I was just enjoying the fellowship so much of our large group of watercolorists yesterday that I let my hand do the painting instead of listening to my head. Since it is Yupo I should be able to correct what I did and do not like. You'll just have to stay tuned to see how that turns out. I'm still lovin' the Yupo.

Nuthatch SWAP Painting

It's swap time again, and I received this charming, cute, sweet, masterfully painted nuthatch from my partner this time, Lenora from West Virginia. Isn't this just great? With my limited knowledge of ornithology, I at first thought it was a bird standing on a log, but Lenora corrected me by saying it was a nuthatch, which run up and down the trees looking for bugs. So, I rotated it to show correctly. This made it even cuter!

My painting arrived to my partner and I received mine, life is good!

Giant Argentinean - Final-ly

This is the same Giant Argentinean that I started last Spring, before Tom got sick. It has sat on my easel, waiting for me to finish it, since then. As often happens when I don't get back to a painting very soon I find that I have lost my enthusiasm for the project when feel guilty enough to try to finish it. That happened here, but I did do as much with it as I care to do and call it finished now.

It is on a full sheet of Yupo and will be framed under glass ASAP.

Maroon Bells - Final

I finished two paintings yesterday afternoon, but for some reason I am not photographing the second one very well so will wait until there is better light outside for that one.

This is from the Maroon Bells area of Colorado. I really played up the maroon colors in this, but another artist saw it yesterday and asked if it was of the Maroon Bells since he had been there and recognized it. That made me feel very good!

This is a combination of acrylic ink, transparent watercolor, gouache, and finally acrylic. It was an experiment so I am not sure I accomplished much after using so many different approaches. At any rate, it is finished!

I haven't worked on this as much as I thought I would but have gotten it this far in two more sessions. I have switched to acrylic paints for this and feel very far out of my comfort zone. I cannot remember doing the darks first and then the lights! Anyway, I will keep putting paint on this, trying to make something happen so I will like it better. It may end up weighing 50 pounds before I toss it but I want to keep trying. I will still push those mountains back more as well as add more pine trees on the mid right side.

Maroon Bells Experiment

Last week I took this whole-sheet painting to my art group and did this loosely organized underpainting of the Maroon Bells area of Colorado. The photo is from Freefoto.com and I loved the composition of it when I first saw it. My plan was to do a transparent watercolor underpainting and then do the detailing with gouache. As I attempted to do the gouache part I just didn't care for the appearance of the dull gouache so yesterday I took the painting outside and gave it a shower with the garden hose, let it dry, and have changed my plan of attack to using acrylics. I have lots of acrylic paint and will take my Stay-Wet palette to my art group this afternoon and see how this goes. If all else fails, I will try something else, I feel like I just HAVE to paint this scene since I like it so much.

Maybe,....gasp, an acrylic on canvas?