Red Bubble feature of my pears

One of my watercolor paintings from the Dazzling Pears series has just been featured in one of the groups at Red Bubble. It is so nice to see those bright colors in February!

It's a bit of a coincidence since just this weekend I made this painting available on my other blog ( see menu on the right)  in the form of note cards- I print  these note cards myself and they re much smaller than the art cards available on Red Bubble

Those little poured paintings were a lof of fun to paint.

Venetian Shutters: Second pour and direct painting

In spite of all my good intentions, I did very little painting this weekend. I did a second pour for my background, and in the last hour, leaving most of the masking on, started some direct painting ....bad decision. I painted in poor light, and I feel that I have made a mess ( window arch and metal strip on the right hand side, especially)! For some strange reason,  instead of working on my lights, I put in some of the darks in the windows here and there...everything is very disjointed and after working on 300# hot press and cold press, I seem to have forgotten how to apply paint on my dear 140lb cold press :-)
I hope that I will be able to fix the messy parts...but I will get better lighting for working at night.

I wish you all a great week.

Venetian Shutters - First pour

The only work I had time to do this week on my new painting is the initial pouring. The colors did not quite turn out the way I wanted to. You will notice that I will be painting a much sunnier version of this scene and that the colors will be more pastels.However, I don't want it to be too similar to my "Laundry Day in Venice" that started with the same colors.  I hope to put the focus on the reflected shadows of the shutters and the plants.

I hope to have the chance to spend a few hours working on this painting during the weekend. 

Humble Venetian Door -Update 3

The "Humble Venetian Door" is humbling me, I fear. :-)
I hope that some of you are still following my slow progress. This is Thanksgiving weekend in Canada: I really hope to finish this WIP by tomorrow.

I have greyed down some of the pinks and yellows on the facade, I have done some work on the water, the dark background beyond the ironwork. The cool pink on the left-hand side is still attracting too much attention and I also have to decide how I will tackle the ironwork.

Lessons learned so far: what really attracted me to the reference picture was the shadow of the laundry and the door - I don't think they stand out that much in this painting...perhaps I should have zoomed in a bit more on those two elements; I should have spent more time on the composition and placed the laundry shadow less on the edge of the paper.

This is art and not simple production; with every work, we should move forward in some way or at least express ourselves in a new creative way. Reproducing what we have already mastered is not art....Making mistakes, not achieving perfection, is part of the journey... My, I am good at justifying my errors :-)

Work in progress...no title yet

In my previous post, I showed the picture below that I am using for a new watercolor in the "Memories of Venice" ( or, if you prefer, " Yes, it's yet another Venetian door!" :-)) series.

This painting will undoubtedly be quite different from my previous ones: I will not focus on a close-up of the door, but will show most of the facade; the colors in the reference are rather drab and subdued ( but I probably won't resist the temptation of adding lots of color.); the humble facade does not speak of past Venetian splendor.  However, the shadows under the hanging laundry are so attractive.
..
I already feel that this will be a challenge for me...Especially for that reason, to push myself to go ahead with this, I will post my progress...It may be slow because of current pressures in my full-time job ( You see, I am already coming up with excuses :-) . The WIP may bore most of you, but believe me, it's going to take a lot of courage on my part to publicize  my artistic struggle...What if the result is only good for the bin???( nail biting, heart pounding, finger on the delete button etc....!)

Without further ado..and with a deep breath..., here are the first stage of Memories of Venice VI.

Stage1:   The sketch is done on Arches 140lb CP, approximately 16" X 20". I have masked the sections to remain white ( around the door, the laundry) and the ironwork on the windows. I may have made the sketch too dark ...I wanted it to show in the picture.
As usual, I am starting with a pouring technique for the background, using three primary colors. Oops...where has the gray facade gone???? Ah well...

I hope that you will stay tuned for an update later on this week.
Take care.