Finally

I should call this Much Ado About Nothing. It has taken me about two hours to get this picture downloaded only to find I could do it much more easily. Ah, technology, where we "save" time. I accept this as something I needed to know. *sigh*

Enough grousing. I decided to share the painting of my flower garden--the reworked and re-reworked version (who says you can' t rework watercolor?--and the result is not bad, at least in my estimation, considering where this piece came from. (as in trash heap). I am tempted to try again, maybe in different colors, just to see what will happen.
More later. Must get to work.

Not Quite There

I just read my last post and realized that I had given my art her head and she had galovanted (is that a word?) down a different path.  Flowers, however are key.  As I looked again at Georgia's "Black Holly hock"  I was again taken by the stark richness of it all.

My adventure into flowers has been quite different (and I can see right now that I am going to have to learn to get some pictures up!)

1. First, I had had NO, repeat NO intention of doing flowers at all.  It just came to me after an attempt to do an abstraction of a sky the other day.  How I love Winsor Blue (red)!.

Unfortunately, as a sky, it just didn't work.  I did my usual thing of getting everything nice and medium with no contrast.  Fail.  I took out the charcoal to see if adding contrast in a redo would work.  Double fail.

2. Impressionistic.  I had looked at the sky...and saw....flowers everywhere. Everywhere!  I put on Mozart's Piano Concerto No. 23, second movement (a slow, mournful Mozart, if you can imagine), and began to paint in details; the results were, well, mixed. 

A couple of great tulips, roses (white with Winsor blue shadows) and poppies, and a garden path, but that charcoal did absolutely nothing for the piece.  I am faced with:

3.Redoing.  This is OK.  If Georgia could repaint a mesa three hundred (300) times, I can repaint this once.
Problem:  I am scared to try because how will I get that constellation of shapes again?  It IS, I must remind myself an EXPERIMENT, not Van Gogh I am ruining.  Just a piece of paper...Just a piece of paper....just a piece of paper....Unfortunately, in my real other life, people are being somewhat critical of everything (not YOU dearest), and times are, shall we say, stormy. (Ha! Does that make me an Artist now?).  I can see them all--ghosts standing in my studio, looking over my shoulder, making snide comments.  Need to leave the criticism where it belongs--a very big trash barrel outside the Solar System.

4.  Editing.  Yup, get out the scissor and judiciously cut out the worst of the charcoal offense.  Not sure this will work, but may give it a go.  Anyone need artistic bookmarks????

I will probably do all of these. 

And my ideas?  Not even sure what they were, but right now, have a desert piece on the board, and am working on People with the idea of going Icons.  In this case, it is a matter of using a pile of very small frames a friend is donating to me.  Form follows function. ;p

She's BAACK! from New Mexico

Yes, yes, YES! I am back--camera full of pictures, head full of more and heart full of Georgia O'Keeffe. This trip I finally got to see her work.  The real deal.  The textures, the colors, the life.

I say that my heart is full of Georgia O'Keeffe, which is a bit, I guess, off the wall. I would have said so too until I saw the Black Hollyhock with Blue Larkspur, a work that no photography or print process seems to copy true to color.



This thumbnail does NOT give the full affect of the actual painting which is actually quite large, full of the rich colors and textures of oils, and well, a stroke (pardon) of genius. But there was something else there-- a spiritual quality that made me feel as if I was looking into the Heart of the Creator. And although this is not something readily admitted, I admit it now--inexplicably, my eyes brimmed with tears.  It was one of those few moments in life where an overwhelming sense of awe had left me motionless and speechless.

I can only hope for a reaction like that to one of mine.  If it ever happens, it will be by G-d's good grace.

More later.  I have to catch up ALL that I learned--and talk about some new projects!

This week's tips

So I spent what I would call an almost gluttonous day of painting on Tuesday. Did four demos and only one really didn' t turn out that well, which made it a very, very good day.

So this morning before I go to the studio, I thought I would share my discovery notes here.

1. Simply, simplicity rules.  Did a demo in Paynes' gray and burnt sienna of a ghostly moonlit lake. Graded wash on either side.  Later, I expanded it to a larger piece of just Payne's gray and the biggest (2 inch) flat brush I possess.  Wow, does that brush do good foliage!  Loaded with the gray, dark on the edges getting lighter in the center, and felt good about that.

2. A primary wash of yellow cad dried by blow dryer (I always was impatient!) really did a nice job of adding interest to the sky and brightening the piece.  Though I didn' t completely like the  picture (read Fail!) I liked the effect.

3. A mountain lake scene with wind and aspens turning. The original demo was in oil and the waves didn' t look quite right.  I consulted memory (I have been studying water for about five months now) and other pictures and made the shadow of the wave and enlongated triangle instead of the little u-shaped dip.  That was much better.  Also, my mountains and lake were too flat so used an exacto knife to create highlights and aspen tree trunks on the dry paper. That worked well.

4.Final demo an autumn scene with backlighting  from the sun.  Sky was yellow except where the sun peered through the trees where I left it white.  Not enough contrast in the pic as a whole, but the backlit effect worked well.

So, off to the studio.  I just hope I can remember all this.