Spring Cherry Blossoms 11"x14" wc

And once again, time has slipped away and my posting has been ignored throughout the summer. It's now close to fall so I'd better get back into posting!

It's been a complex year thus far with plenty of ups and downs occurring to shift our schedules about and shake up our emotions a bit. One rarely gets to our ages without the contrasting joy and sorrow, as well as a lot of other things, coloring our lives.

However, I have been painting as often as I have time to spend in the studio. I'll show you the most recent and then go back and recap some of the earlier pieces that are now completed. Watercolor is a fascinating medium and one I have grown to love. I'm attracted to colored pencils, stick and pan pastels, and lots more, but I always go back to my favorite, watercolor. This is my latest:

Hollyhocks  11"x14" wc

And the process is shown here:

My parents and grandparents both grew Hollyhock flowers in their gardens. They are so charming so I thought I'd try my hand at painting them. I had looked at how some artists paint very thin layers of different shades of watercolor to their paintings to provide a depth to the item. They often alternate the colors with an opposite color from the color wheel - very very thin watery layers. This is the first time I really worked with that in mind and I think that these flowers definitely are improved by this technique. Pink, blue, yellow, orange, purple - all layered in these flower petals very carefully.

Here are some of the other watercolors done since last March. Hope some of them inspire you to paint in watercolor!

  

  

That's it for now. Busy Busy Busy - a few more are drawn up and ready to go. I've started one already. Now just need more studio time and some artistic drive to get me going once again!

Happy Painting!

Updating the Progress Since the Last Post!

 The painting process varies from painting to painting - much depends upon the type of watercolor paper being used - and I used 3 different types of paper in the 15 drawings that I'd prepared.

The beginnings: the backgrounds for proposed paintings

It also depends upon the way I want the completed painting to be - super realistic, impressionistic, somewhat realistic, and more. And the techniques required for those choices vary in approach from very wet to very dry, depending upon the level of realism desired. 

As you can guess from the above photo, I usually prefer the wildlife to be quite realistic, perhaps with a bit of a flare on occasion. But I want the background to be just that - background! A vague background that compliments the bird or animal in color either with similar or opposing colors.

Here are a few images of works still in process - #2. Lynx and 5. Bobcat above. 

And here are a few completed: #1. Great Blue Heron

#3. Kingfisher and #4. Fox

And finally, the two loons #8. & 9: 

#8. Loon among the Rocks and #9. Loon in Grassy Water

And lastly, the finished smaller pieces on my studio wall prior to framing.

Hope you enjoyed seeing the process!