Celebrating a New Beginning! WIP - Hydrangea _Part I

 

Today is a most special day for me: it is the first day, officially, of my retirement and it is, officially, the first day of my new beginning as a full-time watercolor painter! To celebrate, I worked on a new painting, branches of hydrangea ( instead of working on my Venetian Pool Party started over a week ago). Here is part I of this WIP - hopefully the firstWIP of many for the month of December.

So far, I have only put in the dark background, the leaves, the stems and I have started on the darkest background petals. Overall, the flower clusters will be mostly light pink with a touch of mauve. The challenge will probably be to keep a unified look to the painting. It has been raining here all day and I took the picture indoors with a flash; consequently, the colors are probably a bit off.

As always, I love to hear from all of you!

Pink Peony WIP

I have been having a lot of fun looking through all my recent photographs of peonies. It's now time to get down to work and use at least one of these photos as inspiration for a new watercolor.

 I intend to use many glazes to achieve a rich dark background as in the previous two peony paintings below.However, this time, instead of painting a white peony, I have chosen a soft pink one. The bloom was past its prime, but at least there was a bit of sunshine and shadows on this one.

Below you can see the work in progress on Arches bright white 140 lb CP. The size is approximately 11" X 14".

The first photo shows the work as I am leaving it tonight: the background is almost finished. It's black and dark green...The green may not show very much on certain monitors. The flower and leaves are covered with either liquid or film miskit.

 The second photo shows the drawing with the miskit. I spent more time than usual on this drawing: I worked on it during a two-hour train ride yesterday:-) I removed many leaves that were on the photograph..I will see if this was a wise decision of not...

I hope that I will find the time after work this week to complete this painting. I need a small painting for a show starting Sunday.. I will keep my fingers crossed that this one will be good enough. Otherwise, do you think the previous peony would do?

Have 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. 

Another experiment with 300lb Hot Pressed Watercolor Paper

Two posts ago, I communicated the results of my first experiment with 300lb Hot Pressed Fabriano watercolor paper. I was not pleased at all with my experience - I felt that I had no control over the paint. However, many artists love this paper - I was obviously doing something wrong. Yesterday, I gave this paper another try. The results may not be too great, but this time I actually had fun painting on this paper. I used less water, I lifted paint with a tissue, I created texture with  paper towels, with salt. and with a sponge.
As inspiration, I used another of my photos from last year's trip to Venice.  Here is the photo:

I cropped the picture and painted only a part of it on a 11"X14" Fabriano HP. The paving stones did not come out the way I intended, but I am fairly happy with the two silhouettes.

I think I need a break from my experimenting and will go back to my old faithful, Arches 140 lb CP watercolor paper before I forget how to paint on it.

Have a great day.

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 :-)

And what if I became "the Door Lady"?

As I have probably mentioned before, about 18 months ago I fell in love with Venice...and its thousands of canal doorways with their flaking paint and plaster, their centuries-old brickwork, but also with such elegant lines and intricate ironwork. I have enough pictures of these doors for two life-times of paintings. So far, I have painted only 3 Venetian canal doorways and 1 Venetian attic door, but I have at least a dozen in my head. I have a lot of painting joy ahead!

"You don't want to be known as the Door Lady", warns my son, my most regular art critic."Paint something else!" But, Monet did not tire of his waterlilies, Van Gogh painted his bedroom in Arles several times. Do I not learn more about light and texture with each new door? Is versatility a necessity? Isn't the joy I feel when I paint these doors what really counts?

"People commission tasteful nudes of themselves to put in their bathrooms. That's what you should paint!" This suggestion is from my daughter, another of my art critics. Should one strive to be trendy just to sell more? Well, I don't feel like painting for someone's bathroom. I would probably sell more, but my art would not really be "me".

Perhaps everyone will sigh with boredom at the sight of another of my watercolor Venetian doors, but as long as painting them brings me so much joy, I will risk being called "that Door Lady".

Here is the third of my Venice doorways: "Only in Venice".

Arches watercolor paper
140lb cold pressed
professional grade W&N and Da Vinci watercolor paints.
15” X 19” approx. Can be matted to fit a 20" X 24” frame.
Click here to purchase online: 
Original still available from artist.
Note cards printed by artist also available