ChristmasPaintingExchange

Look what I got from my dear Artcolony friend Ellie Sethman from California. Each year we have a painting exchange and we draw names and keep it a secret until we all open them on Christmas Day (Well, we're supposed to wait...Kay Smith sorta jumped the gun this year!). I LOVE IT! Ellie is known for her kalidescope paintings and her miniature paintings...I love both her techniques and could never to either...especially the miniatures. This little gem is 2 1/2 x 3 1/2 inches in size...and she sent it matted and framed. I'm such a lucky gal! There is no way I could ever accomplish the detail (and you all know I love detail) on this size of a painting. My photography skills aren't that great as this is crooked, but just wanted you to see this wonderful Christmas gift.

Christmas Cardinals

Thought I'd post my "probably finished" Christmas Cardinals. As usual, there will be some tweaks here and there to deal with after looking at this for a day or two. Just wanted to break some kind of record and post a WIP to the finished stage...I seem to be bad about not reposting when I'm finished. I have a new painting in the works that I'm anxious to get back to and it seems that I do better when I finish what's "on deck".

Christmas Cardinals

Yesterday at our art retreat, a friend brought in a little card with holly, snow and cardinals so I thought I'd put my twist on a little painting of the birds. Funny thing...when I paint small (as in 5x7) I revert back to my old wildlife pen and ink line drawing days and get really tight. Isn't it about par to fall back on old habits!! I'll draw some more holly and berries in here and there and decide on a background (probably some vague washes) and finish up the cardinals when the little painting tells me what to do. I've also painted some poinsettias for the season...just can't stay away from red!

Snow Village

Since I don't put my Christmas tree up until about mid-December, I thought I'd start thinking Christmas and do an ornament painting. When I was a child...and really until I left home...we always went out and cut down our Christmas tree. Mother was insistant that it go up around the 14th of December and no earlier because of the fire hazard and pine trees....so...that's a hangover habit of mine for Christmas. Too bad that the fake trees are so nice now as that's what we have, but I still don't put it up and decorate until the second week of December. But, ornaments are bright and happy and say "Christmas" so at least I'm starting to think about it. This is 5x7 and I might even use it for our family Christmas card...I just love reds.

Henry

This week at our art retreat, I worked on Henry's portrait. He will be 8 around Christmas, but I have made him look a bit older I fear. He has tossled hair, a huge smile, and hazel eyes so this is a pretty good likeness I think at this point. Just like the other portraits though, when I live with him a few days...I may have to adjust some things. One thing I know right now, I fiddled too much and lost some of the freshness that I had originally captured. But, all this experience is such fun and it's really challenging.

Mountain Man

Here is the third portrait we did in the workshop last week. The "Mountain Man" is probably as loose as I've ever painted...certainly as loose as I've ever thought about when ever starting a painting. This goes against my usual technique in that this is painted light to dark with different glazes going on rather than charging in with dark to light. I must say that I like the skin tones and freshness of this one. The trick with me seems to be NOT to go back in and "fiddle". Oh, the hangover from my pen/ink years is sure hard to overcome. This also a quarter sheet on Arches #140. This is also painted on about a 5" vertical slant which is a bit higher than my usual 2" block.

Addison

This is the portrait of my precious little granddaughter, Addison, that I painted in my workshop this past week with a wonderful artist, Bonnie Broitzman, from Minnesota. Not only is she a marvelous painter of light...she's a wonderful teacher. I'm not a portrait painter by any stretch of the imagination, but I was very pleased with this one. I'll live with it a few days before fiddling any more as I do want to keep the clean skin tones...just a few adjustments here and there before I show it to my son (who's coming home next weekend...).

I've gone back in and made major adjustments to Addison's left cheek as it was not right and I had to live with it a little while before figuring out what to do. I asked my friend Janie Freeman to take a look and we agreed that the cheek was what was bothering me. Wanted to leave both photos up so you could see the difference. Addy has really chubby cheeks, but just not that chubby.

Lilly

As you can see, I decided to leave my kitty white, and since she looks just like one of my daughter's cats that we kept for her a while, this is "Lilly". I'll live with all that fur for a day or two as there may be some fiddling called for here and there, but basically I think this one is done. I did want to paint my calico, Neiman, next and it will be a larger size. This one will frame up 12x12 as it definitely calls for a square foremat. This is also pretty loose for my hand, but it was fun to paint...just had to back off my penchant for detail.

Cat - WIP

This is a new little painting I've started at our art retreat. I can't make up my mind whether to make this sweetiepie a white kitty or make her Neiman (my gorgeous Calico who is really a Miss Neiman Marcus...she's very prissey and just knows that she's a queen bee). The background is going to be turquoise/greeny/blue and when I started that I decided that I didn't want to work all that fur, so that's the reason I went to the masking. We'll see how it goes from here.

Lost Art???

Okay...it's not "real" art, but it's becoming a lost art. When my granddaughter was here over the weekend (she's 5) she was extolling the joys of the Food Network and Iron Chef and all that new fangled stuff. I told her that I had a cookbook that I wanted her to see that my mother gave to me and when we opened it, it fell to the pie section. So...we baked this apple pie. We peeled the apples (and yes, I can peel one without the peel breaking like in "When Sally Met Harry"), mixed the sugary stuff with spices, made the crust from scratch (rolled it out with an ancient rolling pin)...my husband and daughter couldn't believe it. Oh, what we do for our grandchildren. And, oh, what a mess we made on the kitchen counter! Anyway, just wanted you guys to know that the ole gal still has it when it comes to baking a yummy pie.

Kathleen Alexander Workshop

What a fabulous watercolor workshop we've just finished here in Noonday. Our wonderful teacher, Kathleen Alexander from California, was not only very generous with her painting techniques and color theories, but is so pretty and friendly and immediately put us at ease. This was Kathleen's first visit to Texas and she said that she was very surprised at how green and lush our Tyler, Texas locale was in comparison to what people usually think they'll find in Texas. Of course, we ordered perfect weather for our guest.

I've posted a photo of Kathleen and myself, and of my painting (not quite finished yet) from the workshop. We started a second painting of a waterlily, but didn't get far enough along for me to post quite yet. Both were so much fun to paint, and we all loved the techniques Kathleen taught.

My painting of the Hawaiian plumerias lacks cleaning up and softening some edges and lifting out a bit of the heavy color on the buds there on the left, but all in all, I'm very happy with the translucent qualities I have miraculously achieved. As most of you know who follow my blog. I do have a rather heavy hand when it comes to applying color. I also have a new appreciation for green-gold, shadow green, and winsor orange(red shade). Kathleen brought some of her work along for us to see and her use of color simply blew us all away. We definitely want her to come back next year if she can work us into her very busy schedule.

Colors of Fall

Have you ever wanted to paint something for the sheer joy of painting with colors that don't necessarily go where you put them and don't necessarily go with what you're painting? I wanted to do something "fallish", and didn't want to paint corn or flowers or pumpkins so I came up with this pomegranete and it was such fun. Windows aren't magenta and gamboge...but mine are. Dishes don't have magenta shadows for no reason...but mine does. The background is of just about everything on my pallete that was on the warm side. I'm getting ready to do a 3 day workshop with Kathleen Alexander this week, and the palette we'll be using is not the usual rather gaudy hues I enjoy (it's going to be very tame I think), so I thought I'd be good and use up my wild colors today. I'll be serious about colors tomorrow...maybe.

Big Red

Since I'm rather tired of looking at the abstract I painted for my son, and since I'm not finished with 3 paintings I am working on right now, I thought I'd post a favorite until I can get my act together and finish something.

My friend, Rose Gesford, (who is possibly my biggest "fan"), added this guy to her collection of roosters and it looks great on her wall. It's very gratifying when a friend wants to purchase one of your paintings...especially when they are watercolorists themselves.

Big Red is actually the "man" of my chicken ranch (the Texas girls from Artcolony have named my place so aptly). For those of you who know nothing about how really stupid chickens are in general...the hens don't even go into the chicken house at night unless he leads them. Such a funny sight to watch them around sundown as you might call it "single file, Indian style". I do have other little bantam roosters, but Big Red is King of the Roost for sure.

Untitled Abstract

Thought I'd show you an abstract that I painted for my son yesterday. Please keep in mind...I don't do abstracts!!! I'm a very realistic painter at heart, but when your son needs a painting and his mother happens to be an artist...he gets a painting. It is an acrylic, 30 x 40 in size which is large for me, and was done strictly for the colors that they use in their home. I'm so partial to reds and brighter colors that this was somewhat challenging in color selection, but they needed a really contemporary painting to go in their really contemporary home. We actually found a similar piece in a home decorating magazine and decided that this banded color technique would work really well...so...this will fit in perfectly in the hills of north Austin.

Ritzy Rose Finished

This probably has to be some sort of record for me...posting a finished piece so soon after putting the brush down. All this red really needs to settle a bit in my mind's eye, and then...we'll see. My rule is to live with a painting for a bit and if nothing "bothers" me, then I know I'm done. It's just those little things that we can fiddle with and fiddle with that make an artist crazy!

This is quarter sheet, Arches #140 paper, and mostly AJ paints (think I've shared this before).

Ritzy Rose WIP

I'm still struggling with these silly stripes on Ritzy Rose. I'm ignoring them for a while as I've really wanted to get to the little teapot. So, now I'm looking at the stripes again in the reflection of the bottom of the teapot. They start there at the cloth and fade upward into the reds...I'm guessing that this will take several glazes with the different reds even after I put the stripes in...stay tuned...

Ruidoso Daisies

When we were in Ruidoso, we were luckey enough to be there on the weekend when they were having an art tour. Seven fabulous homes were on display with local artists (3 or 4 in each home) displaying their art...was a real treat. These daisies and butterfly bush blossoms(budalleia..sp?) were in one of the gardens. Since it is in a mountainous area, they aren't bothered by the heat like we are in Texas so their gardens were in full blast. I used lots of masking...more than I've ever used before...so I could get a continuous flow with a really dark "drop in" background. This is quarter sheet Arches #140...as usual...and a rather limited palette.

Ruidiso Colors

This photo crop is a little bit off, but I think I'm finished with Ruidoso Colors. I started to go in with a really deep, dark background, but have sorta changed my mind...for right now. It's my custom to live with a painting for a few days before signing it...so there's always a window for change.

This is a quarter page, done with mostly AJ paints (cobalt, sap green, gamboge, perm red, DS perm rose, a touch here and there of thalo green and blue off of my Joyce Faulknor porcelain tray from her workshop that I just hate to wash away...so I haven't).

Bookmark Fun

I belong to a wonderful forum, Painting Friends, and we have this little bookmark exchange going to right now and this is my original bookmark all laminated and already in the mail. I can post it here on my blog and even if some of the PR'ers see it...they won't know where it is going. It's been great fun.

Had the lamination done at FedX (old Kinko's), made copies and had 4 others made for grandchildren (especially Henry...my 7 yr old GS who reads everything he can get his hands on) and the whole cost was only $6.45...what a deal. These exchanges are always so much fun and they give us wonderful little originals from friends afar.

Ruidoso Colors (WIP still)

This has to be some kind of record for me to post a WIP twice in the same day, but I'm really obsessed with getting this one done and my red teapot back on the table. I've changed the plate to an orangy/yellow (would have preferred a light yellow fading to almost white, but the pink was too strong in the underpainting). Now I'm thinking about the background and just where I want to crop it, but it's getting near the finish line. This is a really limited palette (which I enjoy) and the size is a "big" quarter sheet.

Ruidoso Colors

Seems as I'm always posting a work in progress and then not getting around to reposting the finished painting. One of these afternoons (if it'll ever rain in Texas again) I'll try to go back and post them all.

When in NM last week, our hostess had so many treasures we could use for setups and this little cream/sugar combo was too good and too colorful to pass up. Was going to paint the Bing cherries Rainiers, but decided on the dark ones after all. I'm at a stage now where most of you haven't seen just how much white I leave all over my paintings. You can always go back and kill whites...you just can't ever get that white back if you kill it prematurely...so...there will be decisions to make. I'm not sure that I like the color of the plate and have stopped to make my decision about going to another color all together. That pinkish color is the actual color of the pottery and I'm just not sold on it. Decisions...decisions.

I always love to paint cherries 'cause they feed my red cravings, and this little pottery set fit in just right. Will try to get this finished this afternoon.

Ruidoso Painting Week

We're back from our fabulous 9 day painting excursion in New Mexico! Can't begin to tell you all how much fun we had...painting, casino "visitation...ouch", deer/elk watching, an art walk tour of 7 fab homes with wonderful area artists, shopping the quaint shops, sight-seeing the area, eating at great restaurants (try seating 8 at rush hour), and...did I mention painting every day. Our hostess, Greta Faulkinberry to my left, is a "Hostess with the Mostest" in every category for sure! But, you all have to know that what happens in Ruidoso, stays in Ruidoso.

I'm just posting two photos now as several others weren't on my camera and I have to remember who has the pics. This cowboy painting is from one I did in a Joe Fettingis workshop in 2007 and I think the gals all did a marvelous job! Funny how you can't paint the same thing twice though, and my demo piece is the second one from the right on top row. The original, of course, is the framed piece (which now graces a friend's Texas bar in his home...perfect for the theme). We also painted a "funky chicken" piece sorta stolen from a painting by Kay Smith. We had stopped by her studio in Big Spring, Tx. and one of the girls saw it and I remembered that I had seen it on our ArtColony blog so some also painted that. I added a few tail feathers to the piece and that made it more fun as the colors we added were just crazy! Apologies to Kay (ha!)

We also stopped in Plains, Tx and met Suzy Powell, a rather new artist friend. She was participating in an artshow in their community center and it was fun seeing her work and that of some of her students and other artist friends. I'm the short one with the book, and Suzy is the tall one next to me. Her painting won Best of Show for the event, and I have a photo of that somewhere on my camera.

Artists are such special people, and no matter where we live we all have our love of art in common...we're very lucky to have this passion to share.

Workshop WIP's

I've decided to go ahead and post my WIP's from the workshop. A bunch from our art retreat are going up to Greta Faulkinberry's home in Ruidoso, NM on Friday morning for a glorious week of painting and escaping our Texas heat. So, I know I won't get back to these until we get back...too busy wrapping up odds and ends here.

This workshop was crammed with laughter, knowledge, and actually good work from all of us...very unusual for a workshop. I'm not a "workshop" painter at all, but was pretty pleased with what we did. The crystal/glass painting is probably 3/4's finished, and the abstract floral in "probably" finished...gotta live with it a bit longer. When I get them finished, I'll go into the colors and a bit of the process with Guy's floral...

So...I'll be off line for probably a week from my blog. We do have internet at the house, and I'll be checking in here and there...you all know how adicting this computer stuff has become

Faulknor/Magallanes Workshop

Thought I'd post a photo we took during the workshop last week. Joyce and Guy are fabulous teachers and we all produced wonderful paintings...I'll post mine as soon as I have time to get them finished, photoed and resized. Joyce paints dark to light and her subject was a gorgeous crystal setup...Guy paints light to dark and his painting was of a very abstract floral with layers and layers of intense color in the wet-in-wet technique. Can't even begin to tell everything we learned from these two...now I've just got to remember all the info long enough to use it all!

Ritzy Rose WIP

Thought I'd show you what I'm working on now...you know how it has to be something with red or I'm not interested. This one has turned out to be rather challenging as the red on the cracker box and the red on the teapot need to be definitely different hues, and I'm not sure what I want to do with the reds on the teapot. We'll see. This will go on the back burner for a week as our workshop with Joyce Faulknor and Guy Magallanes starts Monday.

My painting buddy, Rose, brought this darling little teapot to our art retreat the other day...hence my title. I think my old standby stripped napkin really works in this setup.

Sunflower

Here is probably the loosest thing I've ever painted...and it was such fun. While at our art retreat, Pat Coburn showed us the neatest technique for this loose style using just a hit of basic color and then lots and lots of clean water mopping. The painting basically paints itself when you just drop in water and let it do it's thing. Such fun, and so spontaneous...sure does make for clean, fresh color with no mud...and that's saying a lot for watercolor.

This is small...9x11...and paints were AJ cobalt, sap green, perm red, quin burnt orange, gamboge, and lots of good clean water. I drew the center for a starting place and then just brushed the petals in loosey-goosey...such fun painting that loose as I am a tight painter. I'll definitely use this technique for certain subjects...don't think it will work on glass or crystal, but it's lovely for florals. If I painted portraits, I think this would be fabulous for softness...but...I don't paint portraits just yet.

Susan's Teapot

Thought I'd post the edited (and now finished) painting of Susan's Teapot. The red check cloth and darkening of the leaves make a huge difference in the composition feel. This is one of those paintings where something bothered me and I had to live with it a little longer before calling in finished. I do like the red checked cloth...me and my love for reds!

Susan's Teapot

Here is the latest painting I've finished while painting with my artist friends at the ArtRetreat. Susan Chesley came with some 8x10 colored photos of this darling little teapot (the silly girls actually sang the little song today!) and apples that she'd started. Of course, then several of us wanted to paint it also. This is quarter sheet, mostly AJ paints, no masking on the teapot and several darker leaves in the right corner that I've added after making this photo. It's funny how I can always see something else that's needed after I think it's finished. This was a joy to paint as I love, love, love teapots.

Orchid

This little painting was done as an exercise with some of my friends on Painting Friends to work with lost and found edges. This was my first attempt, and after posting I can see many places where edges could have been soften or lost. In my second attempt, things went much better. I usually paint tighter than this so this loosenss was a lot of fun.

My new computer won't let me resize in Photoshop (that means I don't know how to do it and won't be able to achieve this little task until my son comes to town in a few weeks and sets it up for me). So, when I can upload my second painting, you'll see a vast difference. Lost and found edges make paintings so much more interesting and I'm going to try to incorporate more in future work...just depends on the subject I'm working with because I don't see it working with glass or crystal. Just one more little project for me to add to my "to do" list.

Peppers

This study of peppers is a quickie painting with the drawing borrowed from one of my artist friends from our art retreat...I think it probably came from the library from WC. It's quarter sheet, basically wet on dry, and done so I could post something to see how my tech knowledge has failed me or what???
When storms came through Texas last Thursday night, they fried my computer...so, this is a trial run of a new computer...let's see what I've uploaded and see if I need to start over.

Tangerine Rose

Here is a quarter sheet close up on a rose I painted at our art retreat. Oranges are not my favorite colors to work with, so I "made myself" paint this one. I was trying to work some "lost and soft" edges and found that I probably need to paint a bit looser to achieve that look. I may glaze the blue leaf back some more as it is pretty bright. Was fun painting though. Now I need to get back to the tomato painting...still haven't decided on the background.

Pass the Salt WIP

Looks like I'm back to painting reds again. Today at the ArtRetreat, I finished up my Country Cups (had to make some adjustments) and didn't have anything planned to paint. So, I quickly drew off a cluster of tomatoes and painted them. As usual, I laid down a wash of gamboge over the entire tomatoes before going to the reds. After I got home, I decided to try to make a painting out of the cluster without doing a reference photo (not an easy task for me). I made up the pottery pieces and found an old salt shaker in the cabinet and drew it in. It's sorta off kelter a bit as I did it freehand, but that's okay...I'm an artist (ha!). Since I'm not crazy about painting at night, I'll take it back up in the good daylight. Gotta decide what else to put in...a wooden tabletop, some sort of napkin, a tablecloth, a windowsill arrangement??? I'll think about it and decide tomorrow (just call me Scarlet).

Country Cups

Here is the finished painting of the cute veggie mugs...I think. Although I do like the blue tomato cup, there seems to be something about the painting that is not setting exactly right with me. I'm thinking it is the composition itself so I'll have to figure out what (if anything other than just putting it aside..ha) I can do. My feel is that it is too heavy on the left corner and maybe to light on the right side. I did ask some of my artist friends on Painting Friends for their takes, and I think they were just being kind with their critiques... One suggested that the red semi-circle on the left possibly didn't read quite right (that's a red pepper handle from another cup laying on it's side) and the other suggested that I might need a cast shadow from the carrot cup, but I'm thinking that it may be more systemic...so...I'll just live with it a few more days. I do enjoy the blue cup though and, as usual, just had to paint that dark handle reflection first...just love to fool with the darks.

WIP Country Cups

Thought I'd post a WIP that a friend from our art retreat, Susan Chesley, and I worked on at her house today. We had taken some setup pictures when we painted Friday, and I thought a whole handful of them were especially interesting...so...I printed several out and we both decided on this one. It's really fun to be painting the same thing 'cause with our different techniques, the same thing usually turns out to be quite different...sorta confusing??? Anyway, this is quarter sheet, painted dark to light to get my values down, and I do have another day's work to finish this. And, since this is a holiday weekend and I don't have company coming, I can declare tomorrow a painting day. Of course, there's the fooling with all the chickens, gathering eggs, feed and watering (I moved my dozen baby chicks down to the big pen Wednesday) so I now made twice the work on myself (ghezzz). This is in addition to watering all my flowers and plants and trying to get a truckload of bark mulch put out...oh, well...let's now say "I hope" to finish tomorrow.

Hydrangeas...First Bloom

After a really awful four days with no phone and, hence, no computer...I found myself really painting tight at our ArtRetreat today. Oh well, gotta take the frustration out somewhere and in painting, I'm in complete control. I found that I really wanted all this structure and not much in decision making with such a limited palette...just sorta fill in the blanks in the petals. Although I usually prefer a looser painting, this one fit the ticket and when I finished painting, my brain was completely over the "out in lala land" and "lost in the woods of East Texas with no human connections" feeling. It's really a shame that we are so dependent on our phones and computers, but that's the way it is.

My Nikko Blue hydrangeas are really putting on a show this year. Such shocking colors are showing up so that means I must have really hit the fertilizer earlier just right. These bushes are about 15 years old now and I keep thinking that they'll die back, but they come back for me every spring in all their glory...they're still my favorites of all the hydrangeas I've planted. This painting is 11x15 on Arches 140# and a very limited palette of AJ cobalt, sap, and aurolein yellow in various consistencys.

Windowseal Veggies from Kay Smith

Here is my painting started in our recent workshop with Kay Smith. It's half sheet (15x22), used just about every color I had on my palette, and was lots of fun to paint. I had a few "bumps in the road" with this one and had to draw it 3 different times...long story that I won't relate here. But, needless to say, I ran behind for the whole workshop and am just now getting this finished. I like this one very much with it's happy colors and subject, but I am going to deepen the cast shadows under the veggies to seat them better. It's funny how you see these little things once you post on a computer.

My next project will be to start the gorgeous floral Kay painted and I really do need to work on it before I forget what all I saw Kay do to achieve her success. She painted hers in less than 2 hours...no way that I'll be able to do that. But, I do need to at least start it! I'm telling myself that until I can give it at least 2 or 3 hours of painting time, I don't even want to start as that wet-in-wet technique is really trickey for me. Stay tuned!

Birthday Present from Kay

Here is the demo painting that Kay Smith gave me for my birthday last week. I just love it!! Kay is so good at collage and this one is done on the BACK of some acid free matboard, torn newspaper applied and also her favorite tissue...toilet seat cover papers (makes a wonderful texture in the background...heehee). She did a very simple basic drawing and then started to work her magic, and it all came together beautifully. It's going to frame up around 18x24 and going up in my soon to be cleaned out and remodeled painting room.

It's named "The Rat Pack" 'cause the middle kitty is a spitting image of my long gone cat "Frankie" (names for Mr.Sinatra, of course) and I have a black/white guy and my oldest cat, Baby, is an orange lady just like this one. Thanks so much, Kay....I just love it.

Famous Kay

Here is Kay Smith signing our wall of famous artists who visit our ArtRetreat. I've told everybody about painting with my artist friends on Tuesdays and Fridays at the ArtRetreat and when we have workshops, we always try to have our instructors come out to the retreat and see where we work and sign our wall. We had a little "meet and greet" before the workshop so those who didn't know Kay could meet her in a more casual atmosphere. She didn't fall off the ladder while signing the wall...and that was a good thing. And, a good time was had by all.

Kay Smith Workshop

Here are the 3 Texas chicks...minus Nita Bridges who couldn't make it due to a bad sinus infection. The workshop was wonderful and Kay worked her magic on two fabulous demos. Each only took her about 2 hours to paint and her technique is amazing...such clean colors make any watercolorist's mouth water. Needless to say, we'll have her back real soon (if we can talk her into another 7 hour drive from West Texas). Debbie Cannatella, our other artist friend had a long drive from Corpus, but she is also in town to teach a workshop this coming week.

Kay painted the veggies the first day and we were so proud of the paintings we produced. Both the demos were half sheet paintings. The Saturday demo of the hollyhocks was sold to our artist friend Greta Faulkinberry and she only got it because she asked first..ha! The colors on both are amazing and so clean and all watercolorists strive for that quality that Kay presents in her paintings.

Kay Smith Workshop

Our Splash group of artists here in the Tyler area is having Kay Smith from Big Spring in for a 2 day workshop this Friday and Saturday. We have 18 or 20 ladies attending so we'll have a full house. We are all very excited as Kay's work is so colorful and fresh...and freshness is so illusive for so many of us who work in watercolor. Just don't know when to put that brush down as there is always another fiddle to do here and there and then it's overworked. I hope she won't slap my hand very hard as I'm going to try really hard to be good.

Kay, Debbie Cannatella (from Corpus), and Vernita Hoyt Bridges (from Houston) are all staying with me at my house and we are very excited to have a 3 day slumber party going on in addition to Kay's workshop. I'm thinking that we'll all be pretty tired when it's over. We are all on the Artcolony blog and don't get to see each other very much so this will be lots of fun. They are all coming in tomorrow afternoon and tomorrow evening we're going out to the ArtRetreat for a little "meet and greet" for Kay. I'm hoping to post our progress and adventures each day so stay tuned.

Baby Chickies

Artists do have other things going on in their lives, and since I live on a farm in the country, I reaaaalllllyy have "other things" going on. My hubby doesn't think I need any more chickens, but I fell underneath the wheels of temptation this morning when I went to the farm store for feed. Got 12 day-old chickies! This is my spring gift to myself (I don't have to have much of a reason to do these silly things!). Anyway, there are 6 Buff Orphingtons (pullets) and 6 bantams (don't know whether they're boys are girls yet). I house them in an empty horse watering tub for about 6 weeks before putting them into a larger enclosure and from there they go in with all the grown chickens. Of course, being day old, they've got their own heat lamp, water and chick starter food. Guess you know by now that they'll all get names and they'll all turn into pets...as usual. I know...I know...I'm bad, but just couldn't resist.

Old Roses

Here is the finished (I think) painting of Old Roses. I enjoy doing these rather vague backgrounds because I can always go back in and change them...drop in more colors from the subjects or darken the whole thing for a really dramatic look. This may be a milestone for me in posting a finished painting right after a WIP. Yea!

Old Roses WIP

Well, here's another WIP I started today with my wonderful art retreat friends in Bullard. One of our artist friends, Debbie Cannatella, (who has recently moved to Corpus) was in town for a workshop and decided to paint with us today before going on to Baton Rouge. She had produced some wonderful paintings in the Mr "Z" (can't spell his name...from Australia)workshop and we enjoyed seeing them up close and personal.

This painting still has lots of work to be done, but do feel pretty good about what I have done to this point. Especially so since I'm working off a black/white value photo. It's much lighter than my usual "in your face" stuff (at least the light pink one anyway), and there's more adding of the stems, leaves and background...and then going back in for needed "fixes", but so far..so good. It's is half sheet and I've only used 3 colors so far...DS perm rose, AJ aliz crimson, and AJ new gamboge. Debbie gave me a tiny blop of Perylene Red and I did use it on one petal, but it was really ugly so I've covered it up. It's more of a grape color than a rose color and I really knew better than to use it...but...it's only paper as I've said before. I'll be out of town for the weekend, but look forward to finishing it Monday and I'll post it then.

Cutie Oranges

Thought I'd post an almost finished little painting that we're doing on my Painting Friends Blog. One of the artists drew the oranges, painted them and posted a "how to" demo for 4 or 5 steps along with the colors she used. The oranges were predominately quin coral and it almost "ate my lunch". Really had trouble with the brightness and I guess I just used too much. The base wash was of new gamboge and that made the oranges even brighter I guess. Anyway, I had to resort to going back with quin burnt orange to tone it down...and it's still pretty bright. I still need to go back in and define the slices a bit more. The demo used masking for the slice veins and I was too lazy to use it so this could be a whole lot better with masking and more layering. May paint it again and reposition the oranges and peelings just for fun as it is small (8x10) and was a good quick exercise.