Holidaze

It's been a while since I've posted and thought I'd post this holiday image...that sums it all up.  The Holidays are here!  Oh Deer!  Wishing you all the best in cyber land and thank you for commenting, following and emailing throughout the year!  Enjoy....

Counting sheep

My sheep series has been new for me and I decided to really push the colors towards abstraction.  I say this in my workshops regarding florals or fruit as well, that a tomato or poppy are not just red out of the tube...they can lean towards orange, yellow, green or even violet, making them that much more interesting...well at least to me...

Strong light

We have several weekly figure sessions around town and I try to go at least once if not twice a week. I think studying the figure has helped in other areas of my work. I try to focus on shapes and light.

World 'o Watercolor

I received my copy of the World Watercolour Competition catalog. What a tome! There are over 1800 paintings printed with the 23 finalists highlighted in the beginning....my two paintings were after that with the 295 artists who made it to the second stage. The remainder of the catalog is filled with paintings from the other participants. Quite visually exciting to see these all in one place!

How do you figure

I found out last week that the painting from my previous post was awarded the M. Graham merchandise award at the New England WC show! Wowie...that makes me happy. I unfortunately could not attend the opening reception in Plymouth, Mass. This painting is a study in light and shadow using just Burnt Sienna.

New England WC Society

My painting "Let me explain it this way" was selected for inclusion in the New England Watercolor Society juried National show.  The show will open on the 18th at the Plymouth Center for the Arts in Massachusetts. This is my fourth acceptance in various NEWS shows and has earned me signature status!

"Yellow Ribbons"

This painting will be exhibited in the annual Vermont Watercolor Society's juried show in Grafton, VT.  It should be a varied show with many interesting paintings.  I have a few more shows coming up that I will update on my website.  I love this little girl's dreamy and far away expression...what is she thinking about?

"Tulip tints"

This is another piece that is being delivered today to the art in the Round Barn show in Waitsfield, opening next Sunday the 21st. (Closing Oct. 13) If you find yourself leaf peeping or just roaming the Vermont countryside it is well worth a visit. A great variety of styles and media is well represented during this short show.

"Birches in autumn"

This painting is one that I am getting ready to frame for the annual Art in the Round Barn in Waitsfield. This is a great show in a picture perfect Vermont setting.  The show is on from September 22 until October 12.  I am delivering 4 more pieces along with this one.

Landscapes

This will be Vermont in several weeks! But not yet....I am trying to incorporate some more landscapes in my work.... Any time you venture in a new direction there is a learning curve and a time of exploration and discovery.  Patience comes in handy...(shhhh I don't have much of that!)

Summer's end

It seems that the summer is slipping away and this rooster titled "feeling blue" is realizing it too!  But fear not the fall is also nice and the seasons are what we make of them, right? I am getting ready for several shows and framing is in my future....

"Solar power"

These yellow beauties are all in bloom across gardens in my town. Some are so tall they are almost 10 feet high!  This painting was inspired by a photograph taken of a large field of sunflowers, but the distant purple hills were made up.

Ewe lookin' at me?

And here is the black sheep of the family...no just a fluffy four legged friend I happened to photograph last year. I'm enjoying the sheep paintings as they are a new subject for me.

Mary had a little lamb

   

This sheep painting is titled "Ewe look baa-velous"...a little fun with word play...it's come to my attention  that several people are no longer receiving my blog posts in their email inboxes...has anyone else experienced this with feedburner? Any input would be helpful...thanks!

Unique drawing eve

      

Two weeks ago I had an opportunity to participate in a unique figure session. They had a burlesque evening which featured three ladies in various costumes and we could draw them for an hour and a half. Afterwards they gave a performance which was great. It certainly was different for me from my regular sessions.

Splash 15

It's here!  I just received my copy of Splash 15 and my painting "Letter Sweater" is on page 89...soooo many lovely watercolors in this book and I'm super happy to be a part of it!  Hope you have a chance to check it out.

White blooms

I've been teaching several classes for the Vermont Art Event these last few days...(one more to go tomorrow).  Last night we painted white flowers...the trick with light colored subjects is painting around your objects and making the background colorful so your blossoms pop.  We had reference pix of a lily and white daisies...it was a fun class and everyone worked hard and achieved great results! Above is my sample exercise trying out different colored backgrounds.

Farm Living

And now for something a little different....I've been shuffling some pictures around of this red barn structure on a hill for quite some time now and decided finally to tackle it...The hard part was to make the foreground interesting without taking away from the barn...what do you think?

Teaching

Next week is the Vermont Art Event in Colchester, where I'll be teaching 4 classes including one on how to paint a feathered friend...That should be fun.  I just submitted this one, "Standing his ground", to a local juried show...hopefully I'll find out soon if it got in.

Bearded man

Another portrait practice...this time trying to work on hands as well as the rest..hands are hard!  So the only way to get better is to keep practicing them...This was a somewhat muted, limited palette...Raw Sienna, Cad. Red and Cerulean...with a touch of Prussian for the jacket and Alizarin to lean towards the violets in the shadow side of his face.

"How ewe?"

I've been painting sheep lately....Here is the result of one such painting session.  Their fleece is not white as snow in my watercolors, but very multi-hued...it's been fun....and different.

One of 295

It was fun to see my name in print in the latest issue of the English version of the French magazine "The Art of Watercolour".  I had entered the World Watercolour Competition and made it through several stages...unfortunately I didn't make the last cut of artists who will exhibit their work in France.  Still..I'm happy I was a part of this list of fellow watercolorists from across the Globe!

Three's a charm

Hello!  It's been a while since my last posting...but here I am.  Just returned from teaching a floral workshop in Southern Vermont...a great 3 days, but I'll post about that soon... Here is a triad portrait just using red, yellow and blue...alizarin crimson, aureolin and ultra blue.

shapes vs. objects

Same image, different color palette...This one is called "the Blues".  It's amazing how much information you can put down with just a few simple "shapes".  It's better to think of the eye, nose, mouth etc..as shapes and not objects to be painted.  Sometimes a nose is defined by the shadow shape that is right next to it, or the lip is defined by the dark swath of value under it...

Double duty value

Loose portrait work, playing with value...this is basically done with two values, but with color changes.  The base washes were done with siennas and oranges and once they were dry the top washes were done much darker with sepias and purples to define the details of the face.

show shipping

I just found out that this painting was accepted to the Adirondack National Exhibition of American Watercolors in Old Forge New York at View Arts Center.  So framing, packing and shipping will be happening soon around these here parts..  She is titled "Burdened".

Red Hat

I've been practicing my portrait painting and decided to continue along my Vermeer tribute...this time painting the "girl with a red hat".  Learning from the masters....may some of their genius rub off!

Goldilocks spring

Finally it's starting to green up around here...it seems in the last several years we've been saying "oh everything is two weeks early"...or "wow we are so late this year in the garden"...but it seems this year we are right on time...a Goldilocks kind of spring.  My little tree tribute to everything popping up.

Scales

 

These two little sketches were done at our annual watercolor meeting.  The b&w photo was taken after painting the color one to double check values.  This was done with my phone and in the camera application you can convert to grayscale....pretty handy these tools we have available today..

Florals

Just a quick reminder as we head into May...I'll be teaching a 3 day floral workshop in Landgrove, Vermont June 12 - 14.  Come join me as we explore all the colors of florals and have fun painting posies.  Here is the link for the awesome Inn where we will be dropping pigment onto paper!

two steps

Hollyhocks in two steps...It is hard to stop and photograph along the way...Once I'm on a roll with a painting it is difficult (plus I forget) to stop and take pictures of my steps, but I will try harder.... here you can see how I build up the layers of negative painting to emphasize the foliage of the plant, especially in the lower left.

"Morning Stroll"

A more traditional looking rooster..by that I mean that the colors are more like ones found in nature and not "invented" like I sometimes do.  This fine fellow is 15"x11" and is out for his morning stroll to survey his vast estate!  Join me at the Vermont Art Event this July 22nd where I'll be teaching a 3 hour class titled "Birds of a feather"..and we will paint a portrait of one of these colorful crowers.

Fellow Dutchman

After a week off from my blog..here is my tribute to Rembrandt...trying in watercolors to imitate what he did with oils so many years ago.  Not really possible, but a fun project nonetheless.  The next step would be to set up a mirror in the studio and do a proper "selfie"....

#4

Here is the final installment in the lily series of works in progress...I guess this one could still be considered in progress, but at some point you have to put the brushes down and see if you like it..either like it enough to leave it, or like it enough to tweak it...in other words "step away from the painting" and assess.

third round

Here is stage 3 of the lily painting...you can see the changes, but they are more subtle...small tweaks as the painting nears it's completion. I often get asked the question, "When do you know it's done?"...for me personally it's when I start "picking" at the painting and adding blobs and bits that aren't helping the overall cause...so when I start "fussing"..it's time to put the brush away for a while and just live with the piece.

Stage 2

 The second stage in my lily painting.  Here I've worked with more of the background and started with the other blossoms and buds.  This piece was done with my new color palette and I am figuring out how the pigments interact and which ones I like and which ones I'm not too keen on...For those of you who have asked about the brand of paints on my new palette...I've updated my earlier post to list those.  Click on this link to go directly to that post.

let it mingle

Here is a start of one of my latest paintings..I have 3 more pictures in progress and I'll post those in sequence.  I start with a contour drawing without any shading or extra graphite...I've been known to roll a kneaded eraser over the paper to pick up extra graphite. Then I try to work with connected shapes and allow the watercolor to touch and mingle letting it do what it does best if we just let it!

Test run

I was asked to list my new palette colors from my post the other day, so here goes (starting top left): Permanent Yellow Lemon, Imidazolone Yellow, Cad. Yellow Dp (DV), Isoindolinone Yellow Dp , Brilliant Orange, Quinacridone Rust (MG), Vermillion (R), Pyrrole Red, Perylene Maroon, Pyrrole Rubin, Crimson Lake, Bright Rose, Quin. Violet, Permanent Violet, Horizon Blue, Turquoise Blue, Antwerp Blue (WN), Indanthrene Blue (DR), Anthraquinone Blue (MG), Indigo (WN), Bamboo Green, Shadow Green, Marine Blue, Viridian (S), Olive Green, Neutral Tint, Burnt Umber, Raw Umber, Imidazolone Brown, Gold Ochre (DV), Green Gold (DV), Naples Yellow (WN). I am currently playing with these colors and testing mix combinations etc...already drawing some conclusions, but it's too early to tell for sure...the above piece is my homage to Vermeer and a test run for the new palette. (All are Holbein unless otherwise indicated) ( DV DaVinci, S Sennelier, MG M.Graham, WN Winsor Newton, R Rembrandt, DR Daler Rowney)

New colors

I spent the better part of a day last week putting together a new to me palette.  I have my regular tried and true palette, but decided as a challenge and to spark some excitement to clean up a Holbein white plastic one and squeeze out colors that were all new and different for me from my vast collection of tubes.  I also divided the larger wells on this palette using glue from a glue gun to create a "dam" so I could fit in more colors!

Spiky leaves

 It's about that time for spring thoughts and tulip dreams...but alas dreams they must remain since we are going to get walloped by a Nor'Easter!  So I'll huddle in the studio and occasionally come out to shovel some heavy wet snow.  And in the meantime I'll focus on negative foliage painting like these spiky tulip leaves.

Schedule

I have the schedule for the classes that I'll be teaching at the Holbein Vermont Art Event this July.  It is as follows:  Tuesday 7/22 Birds of a Feather 8:30-11:30am (paint a colorful rooster), Wednesday 7/23 A Passion for Portraits 8:30-11:30am (paint a unique portrait), Thursday 7/24 The Many Shades of White 4:30-7:30pm (paint a predominantly white floral), Saturday 7/26 The Colors of Summer 9:00-12:00pm (floral composition).  Here is the link for their Facebook page..Hope to see you there!

measures

This will be my figure of the month painting.  For those of you who don't know...I have a sidebar on my blog where I post a monthly figure painting.  Sometimes I will post the painting here first...but not always.  Thanks as well to all of you who responded to my last post's question.  All valid suggestions.  My ongoing inspiration and/or jump start when I'm feeling a bit uninspired is to go to my figure session..it always sparks me to look and see in a new way..especially light and shadow and to measure, measure, measure!

A question

The winter continues here and I try to enliven the white, cold and windy landscape with an imagined "warmer" one with a rooster occupying his space in it!  This one is titled "out and about" and measures 7.5"x7.5".  I have a question for readers of this blog...what do you do when you hit a creative block?  Leave a comment on the blog so everyone can see your answers.