Experimenting with Soft Press - Going Wild!

Yesterday was my birhday...one of those big numbers. Consequently, today I decided to show that I was still young enough and go wild...at least with my Fabriano SP paper and my paints :-)

The following sketch represents a lot of "first time" for me:

• for the first time, I used a ink sketch as starting point (micron pen)
• for the first time, I used Inktense pencils ...well, just one, for the door
• for the first time, I used metallic acrylic : Golden fluid, fine gold and fine copper
• for the first time, I used white acrylic for a lot of my whites.
• for the first time...but this was by mistake...I used iridescent acrylic in the spatter: I grabbed the wrong container and in the evening light, did not notice immediately that I was not spattering white acrylic:-(
• for the first time, I used neutral tint to darken a color: I used it to darken the ultramarine blue used behind the metallic grid over the door.

So....here is this strange concoction, which I entitled " Golden Door". As usual, it is from one of my Venice pictures.

Don't hesitate to say that this is my ugliest painting...it's probably true. Anyway,  I had a lot of fun painting this today and with one more birthday behind me, I should now be mature enough to take it :-)

Take care and have a nice weekend.

Experimenting with Soft Press Paper - Part II

I have played some more wiith the Fabriano's 140 lb SP paper.
In completing the  Gondola sketch  I observed the following:

• Removing masking over painted areas also removes the paint. This is the downside of the fact that this paper allows for such easy lifting techniques.
• In the same way, the smallest addition of water to a painted area will immediately disturb this first layer.
• I tried an automatic eraser on this paper and was pleased to see that it did lift out paint without any apparent impact on the paper: this is a good way to add highlights in small ares.
• The colors seem to remain more vivid than on the cold press paper. This picture was taken with a flash inside - so the colors are not true.

In conclusion, I will certainly use this paper again. I now know that if I use masking, it has to be to retain whites and not to protect already painted areas. My next experiment with this paper will probably be combined with my attempt to develop my floral painting skills.

As you can see, I am still procrastinating before starting a larger, more demanding painting:-)

Have a great week!

Experimenting with Fabriano's Soft Press watercolor paper

I am continuing my experiments with various watercolor papers. This time, I have tried Fabriano's Soft Press 140lb paper. I think this is going to be a winner!

Fabriano states that the soft press is somewhere between its hot press and its cold pressed paper. I wanted to try it out for myself with a quick sketch. I started the most typical Venetian scene possible: gondolas facing San Giorgio's. I may or may not complete this small  5"X 7" painting, but I am ready to share the following observations :

The soft press paper:

• has a texture similar to most CP papers: in other words, it is not as slick as most Hot Press. You don't have the impression of being on a skating rink.
• allows for extremely easy lifting of paints.  For example, on the main gondola cover, most of the highlights were achieved by lifting of paint, either while wet or once it had dried.  I loved that feature of this paper. This probably makes the paper closer to HP than CP. 
• should be ideal for florals
• is probably not the best for texture , although this is only an assumption on my part since I have not yet tried to achieve any special texture effects on this paper. Any comments about this?
• is a lot more economical in Ottawa, Canada than any of the Arches paper ( almost half the cost of the 140 lb CP Arches).

I really enjoyed working on this paper and this is definitely a paper that I will try again.

I would be very interested in reading comments from those of you who have painted on this Fabriano 140 lb Soft Press paper.

New experiment with watercolor paper:Fabriano 140 lb cp extra white

Some weeks ago, I tried out several brands, types and weights of watercolor paper. I have just bought some 140 lb Fabriano Artistico extra white in two types: CP and Soft Press, a paper between HP and CP.  Below is a waterlily that I have painted on the CP Fabriano to test out this paper.

-I used some masking in the center of the flower: the masking came off easily without any damage to the paper.
- I lifted off color on the petals with either a damp brush or a Q-tip: I was really pleased to see how easily the watercolor lifted.
- Using a wet-in-wet technique, the paint flowed very easily and blended very well on this paper. The picture does not show up very well any of the shading unfortunately,
- I used some acrylic over the water color in the center and then added some more watercolor
- In the background, I experimented on the right - hand side with granulating medium: tiny fishs cales appeared, but I did not really like the texture. I added more paint on top to cover up the texture.
- For most of the background, I simply flooded the paper and dropped in paints: I liked how the colors blended easily.

I found this paper very forgiving, very easy to use. For florals, I think it offers more soft blending possibilities than my favorite Arches CP.  I will certainly use it again...and it is much cheaper than Arches, at least in my area.

Next time, I will try the Soft Press.  I believe that Fabriano is the only company to produce this paper. I'm quite curious to see how it will handle. Have any of you used it? Any comments or advice?

Change of pace

After all that time on my last Venetian painting, I badly needed a change of pace. Like Ann Buckner I followed the super watercolor petal workshop by Ruth on Painting Friends. I used  Arches 140 CP and W&N paints. I think that this would have been a good time to use the bright white Fabriano in either the CP or HP.  I am fairly pleased with the petals, but the background ended up rather muddy.

Good feedback from Red Bubble

 

I uploaded my Venetian Shutters ( see previous post) to the Red Bubble site to see what kind of feedback it would receive. To my surprise, I almost immediately got a double feature!.

Back from vacation!

I have just returned from my vacation with exactly 1000 pictures for future inspiration :-) We went to Venice with a short side-trip to Florence, Sienna and San Gimignano ( see background in photo below.

The temperature was fine, but unfortunately, we did not have any sun for the first half of the trip. The only unfortunate incident was that my hotmail account was partially hacked in Venice and everyone in my contact list received a spam message... apparently from me!




I quickly worked on Venetian Shutters this afternoon...it has been dragging for too long and it's time to move on. I will put it aside temporarily before I sign it. I find this painting very "busy" and am craving for some simple, uncluttered scene.

 It's nice to be back and to catch up with your blogs and your work. Monday, it's back to work at the office for 9 hours a day :-)

Venetian Shutters: Latest update

I have made just a little progress on this painting: the posts in the water and some darks here and there. I will not be working on it for over a week because I am going on a short vacation...guess where? My favorite city in the world Venice, then Florence. I will have limited access to the internet, but will try to check a few blogs.

Here is the latest version of Venetian shutters. It was photographed inside, so the colors may not be quite accurate.

I am also including the photograph used for inspiration so that you can compare the two at this stage.

 Take care.

Anonymous in Spain: Featured in Art at its Best

 Red Bubble has just featured my  Anonymous in Spain watercolor in the Art at its Best group.
This is an riginal watercolour painting on Arches 140lb cold pressed watercolour paper that I painted probably over a year ago at least.I  used DaVinci and W&N professional grade paints and the finished painting is approximately 14 ” X 19”. I used a  photo reference from WetCanvas, an online artist community. Most of the painting was done with the pouring technique.

An old lady hides her identity and her thoughts under a dark umbrella while the Spanish sun is pouring into the stone arcade. Let your imagination provide a face, a soul and a purpose…

Venetian Shutters - Update 5

Hum...I went from I considered drab colors to a weird color explosion in the cast shadows:-) Ah, well! Nothing ventured, nothing gained, I suppose

. I still have lots of work to do on this painting. It won't make me famous, but I am having fun. Have a great Sunday.

Serenity Featured on Red Bubble

My watercolor "Serenity" has just been featured in a recently created group on Red Bubble, called "Waterlily Wonderland".

The majority of the entries are photographs, but there are some paintings. Some are so beautiful that they take your breath away. Do check them out.

My "Serenity" was painted over a year
 and a half ago and was my fist large painting ( just under a full sheet). The waterlilies are somewhat stylized; the nuancing occurs mostly in the background.  This is certainly a painting that I intend to paint again one of these days.

Venetian shutters-Update 4

 Here is another update showing very little change, but taken without a flash, although still inside.

I need those shadows soon!!!!At this point, I really don't like these colors...too much dull brick color and yellows. It's just does not feel like "me":-)

"Laundry Day in Venice": a Red Bubble top ten challenge winner

I am very pleased that my watercolor Laundry Day in Venice was one of the Top Ten winner ( the 10th, I think :-) in a recent challenge of the Around the World group on the Red Bubble site. Mine was the only "non-photography" entry. Look at the other entries ...there are some extremely beautiful pictures!

Venetian Shutters - Update 3

I was tempted to start this painting over instead of finishing it...However, I decided to continue to work on it this afternoon. At least, I like the way the door turned out - for once, that was the image I had in my mind:-)

The painting is starting to look quite busy, but I am looking forward to painting the shadows....nice work for a Sunday afternoon, I hope.

The colors are somewhat off because I took the pictures inside with a flash.

Thank you for looking.

A second Sunshine Award!!!

One of my favorite artist and fellow blogger, Rhonda Carpenter, has just awarded me the Sunshine Award that I had awarded her...It gets complicated:-) Thank you, Rhonda!
I am hereby using her example with a twist and am doubling the Sunshine Awards I gave in my previous post!
If you are not a frequent visitor on Rhonda's blog, you are missing great posts, beautiful art and stimulating creativity!

Sunshine Award

Nora Mackin of  A Low Country Artist added sunshine to my day by giving me a Sunshine Award! I am honored, Nora, and thank you for thinking of me as one of the recipients of this  award.

I now have to give this delightful award to other blogging artists.The following recipients are all individuals whose work I really love. Some are terribly busy individuals and I want to honor them, but not add to their busy schedule - I will understand if they can't pass on the award except in their thoughts:-)

Please visit their blogs and admire their art. 

Barbara Sailor

Deb Ward

Irina Rekhviashvili

Joan Sandford-Cook

Krista Hasson

Patricia Henderson

Mary Paquet

Rhonda Carpenter

Srishti Wilhelm 

Vicki Green

Venetian Shutters: Update 2

I have done a bit more work on my "Venetian Shutters". The painting is not as sunny as I saw it in my mind - the bricks kept getting darker and darker:-)

The shadows under the flowers and to the right of the lower shutter will be very important in this painting. In my mind, they are beautiful and very colorful..how they will really look? I am keeping my fingers crossed.
 I wish you all a very pleasant Sunday afternoon and a good week.

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.