mollie jones

"The Last Six'

2012-02-11T10:22:00.000-08:00

Finally decided on a title, and I'm thinking that I'm done here. As usual, I'll live with the painting for a day or two as I see a few tweaks I could make...maybe yes, maybe no...but I always see stuff when I post that I didn't see earlier. The lids were lots of fun to paint...even more than smushing the reds around...can't believe I even said that. They do look pretty shiney so I may bring that shine down a bit...I'll just have to sleep on it. My friend who canned these beauties tells me that this batch is almost gone...sure wish I lived close enough to have furnished the chips...good salsa to a Texan is like sunshine...thanks, Judy.

Tomato Jars WIP

2012-02-10T16:08:00.000-08:00

The background went in today so I could make some value judgments...that 6th jar was a question as to the shadow line so I decided to go ahead with a background. Now I'll have trouble with a title as this reminds me of the storm cellar that my grandmother used for all her canning veggies and pickles...the shelves were old and rather beaten up looking...guess I'll have to think about this some more. Hopefully, I'll get back to the shadows and making my tweaks on the reds tomorrow...it's evening in Texas now and I don't enjoy painting at night any more...my colors aren't true even with good painting lights.

Tomato Jars WIP

2012-02-09T14:17:00.000-08:00

Here's where I am today...thought I'd get finished, but life always gets in the way it seems. It's good to post WIP's in that once it comes up on the monitor, it seems that I can see things that were right in front of me that I need to adjust. There will definitely be some glazing done to round the jars better, and some value shifts here and there. Still don't have my background settled in my head...maybe I need to give it another day...

Tomato Salsa WIP

2012-02-09T07:41:00.001-08:00

Yesterday I started a new painting from a ref photo from one of my friends, Judy Buckingham, from PaintingFriends forum. Judy always cans in the summer and these jars of salsa were too pretty not to paint. Don't know what my background will be just yet, but it'll come. The jar lids are actually silver in the ref photo and I started to paint them that brassy color, but, Judy wouldn't use old looking lids so I'm sticking true to life. The reds are a combo of Poppy, Aliz orange, WN red, and AJ gamboge. When I've finished all six jars, I'll go back with deeper red here and there...hope to get this finished this afternoon. I'm thinking that this will work for my "red challenge" for Artcolony and I'm determined not to wait until the last day of the challenge like January.

"Got Milk?"

2012-01-31T18:03:00.001-08:00

This is my painting for our Artcolony "white challenge" that was due the first of January and I'm just now getting it done. Why do we artists put stuff off until the last minute? I seem to like to work under pressure...crazy, huh? While I was drinking my little glass of milk this morning I got the idea to paint milk...it's white...it'd work for the challenge. So, I got out a blue napkin, photo'ed the setup, painted it today at Greta's art retreat and made the deadline. It's only 5x7 but it was a fun paint. Next month our challenge will be something RED. I really thought about putting a Hershey's white wrapped Mr.Goodbar with little red hearts they have out for Valentines at the base of the glass, but the AC gals would accuse me of cheating...so I thought better of it. I did eat the chocolate instead.

"Cuppa with Suzy"

2012-01-22T20:49:00.000-08:00

This weekend we had a marvelous torn paper collage workshop with Suzy Powell from Plains, Texas. Since my favorite color is red, I'm certain nobody is surprised at this collage. This was my first attempt at the medium, and I must say that I'm very pleased with this one. Suzy is a wonderful teacher and the 14 who were in her class all finished at least one collage...and several did two. We held the workshop at fellow artist Greta Faulkinberry's art retreat in Bullard, Texas...which is right down the road from me here in Noonday. Suzy is also one of my artist friends our Artcolony blog. I'm also thrilled to say that Suzy posted a gorgeous collage recently of two sparkling wine glasses, "A Touch of Red", on Artcolony and it now lives at my house. For any of you who have admired collage, but just haven't tried it...jump in! It is soooo much fun, and you can use all the creativity you can muster. My next one is a piece lemon maringue pie...and it'll have photos of diamonds in it's makeup...doesn't that sound like fun.

Pears

2011-12-30T17:41:00.001-08:00

Just thought I'd post a better photo of the pear collage...I really enjoy how the colors mingle and blend...and I'll admit that I did eat the setup...we had received a box of gorgeous pears from friends for Christmas and I couldn't resist painting them.

"smushing" technique

2011-12-30T10:51:00.000-08:00

This is a demo of a technique we'll call "smushing" for lack of a better explanation. It's simply mopping colors around letting the water do the work for you and giving the mingling of colors time to work before going back in with your brush and making mud. I'm doing this for my PaintFriendsForum for a little monthly blurp I try to do. This is actually the first time I've also tried to put a collage together so this is somewhat of a learning experience for me...we'll see what happens when I click the post. I've also done a step by step of the background and that'll be posted next.

My New Treasure

2011-12-28T08:42:00.000-08:00

This is the drop dead gorgeous painting I received from my dear friend, Cindy Agan, from our Artcolony Christmas painting exchange. Each year, we draw names to see who we are sending an original painting to from our little group and this year I hit the jackpot again!! Cindy's painting is just gorgeous and she told me that she worked the red in just for me...I'm a bonafide RED nut and my friends know this to be a real "sickness"...usually, if it doesn't have red in it somewhere I don't like it. I might add that it was sent framed in a beautiful gold frame with a beautiful white embossed mat of tiny leaves...it's just gorgeous and I'm over the moon I love it so. Thanks, Cindy...I can't believe I own a Cindy Agan original!! While in Chicago last summer we all met and played for a week and it was such fun meeting Cindy IRL...

Christmas Kisses

2011-12-14T10:56:00.000-08:00

This morning I was looking at my friend Christiane Kingsley's blog and happened to notice that from looking at her blog roll that I hadn't posted anything here in the last 5 weeks. Goodness...Santa isn't going to stop by our house this year if I don't shape my act up. I have been painting, but just small things and the large things I'm working on aren't even in the WIP stage just yet. I guess my life is getting in the way around here.

This was a painting I did a while back for one of our Artcolony challenges that asked for something "green and red"...what else could I come up with other than foil wrapped green and red kisses that would have been any better for Christmas cheer? And, you can bet I ate the setup after clicking that picture...I have absolutely no willpower when it comes to chocolate.

If I don't get anything else posted here (and there is one more painting floating around out there that's a Christmas theme that I can't post yet because it's gone to one of my friends on Painting Friends Forum...and it hasn't arrived yet!) I'll wish everybody a very Merry Christmas and Happy New Year. Here's hoping that you all have wonderful times with family and friends.

Tea for Three

2011-11-02T17:13:00.000-07:00

This is a little silver painting demo I have posted on "paintingfriends.com" which came about from a little "blurp" I'd written about silver on that neat forum. Next to painting crystal,glass, and red stuff, I think painting silver and reflective objects would probably be next on my list. It may be my love for detail...who knows? Anyway, jump over to the site and take a peek if you have time. I have this wonderful black teapot and it throws really dramatic colors on anything silver. This is another of those paintings where I must work from a reference photo and really pay attention to saving whites...much like painting crystal.

Red

2011-10-24T16:31:00.000-07:00

Here is a really fun painting I've finished as a challenge to a wonderful forum (which I love)...painting friends...where we have one of our artists post a photo every first of the month...we paint it just however we want...and we post on the 20th of the month. It is just the most fun to paint with red...(have I ever mentioned that it's my fav color in watercolor?). Our son's first truck (and boys in Texas have trucks) was a 1951 CandyApple red Ford pickup...this reminded me of him. Couldn't decide what I wanted to do with the background, so I just left it for now.

RainierCherries

2011-10-13T14:28:00.000-07:00

This one is going into my "stack of stuff" finished pile this afternoon. There was a bit more to do with the reflections here and there and also finishing the base of the glass since my last post. My "Painting Friends" buddy, Judy Buckingham, from Oregon is a rainiers cherry expert and she tells me that the cherries are not quite this red, but she'll forgive me...after all...they started out as Bings... I love how we artists can change our minds in mid stream. I'm pleased with the clean crystal facets on the glass...it's always fun when you like something you paint.

RaniersWIP

2011-10-07T15:38:00.000-07:00

Almost done with this one...but just not quite. Today at art retreat, I worked on the cherries in the bottom, cloth, adjusted values in the glass itself...and still need to put in the stems...then I'll make the final adjustments. This is been a "doosey" painting different colors than what I'm actually looking at. I'm posting the reference photo here so you can see my challenge...it's been fun...but it's been a brain teaser for me.

RaniersWIP

2011-10-05T08:05:00.000-07:00

Here is where I am on the cherry painting right now.l I worked a bit at art retreat yesterday, but one of our girls had just come in from her European trip...workshop with KarlynHolman and then meet-up with her church in Israel...we had a good "show and tell" time. Then, we're making our yearly trip to Ruidoso, NM for a week next Wednesday and we had to plan a bit for that. So, my painting time wasn't too long. I'm still having to take lots of "artist's liberties" on this one as my reference photo is not what I drew (bummer) so I've changed lots of colors and shapes. When I get it finished, I'll see if I can post the ref and painting side by side so you can see my challenge.

I always lay a glaze of AJ Gamboge down under anything red to get a glow...when I was shifting colors in the facets I couldn't make up my mind on some colors and values so I decided to go to the bottom and work on the cherries. This is what I seem to do when I want to "put off" making major decisions...ha. Hope to finish this by the weekend.

RainierCherriesWIP

2011-09-25T11:24:00.000-07:00

For more than a month now, I've had this cherry and glass painting drawn off and was in the mood to start it. As I started painting the gamboge into the glass there on the right, I realized that I was painting off the wrong reference photograph! And to make things worse, when I left that area, and decided to paint the cherries to get some color in, I forgot to lay a wash of gamboge down on my cherries. Red glows when you put yellow under it...so...I've changed the cherries from Bing's(the really dark reds/burgundy) to Rainiers...and since I don't have the right ref in drawing or color...this one may be a flop. But...somebody told me "it's only paper" so we'll see. Since we're out of cherry season here in Texas at the grocery store, looks like Google will be my new friend as fellow artist Rose Gesford took pity on me and found a site with wonderful colorful photos of the rainiers.

Snowstorm

2011-09-23T16:26:00.000-07:00

On a wonderful forum I share with some great artists, PaintingFriends, we have a challenge monthly where we all paint the same reference photo and post it on the 20th of each month. This month's challenge was of a cardinal in snow. My cardinal wasn't exactly "in" snow...I make the mask "snow" on her and obviously all around the painting...went a bit overboard with the masking, but the paint was lots of fun...and isn't what this artist world is all about?

YouTube Crystal Video from Florida

2011-09-14T10:29:00.000-07:00

While painting with friends in Florida last month, a video was made of me painting crystal and is now on YouTube...just go there...go to paintingfriends channel...type in "mollie jones crystal" and search and there I am. There is also one of me doing my cactus demo. There are lots of the painting done in progression in short 2 to 8 minute segments. It was really lots of fun doing and was my first adventure with somebody videoing...hope some of you will take a look. Please...no comments about my deep East Texas accent...

Deb's Delight

2011-09-13T16:35:00.000-07:00

This wonderful "applitini" (aka martini) is from a final evening dinner we shared while in Florida on my recent visit/painting/bonding adventure with my friends from "paintingfriends" forum. (http://www.paintingfriends.com/). Great bunch of artists and great painters to boot...hope you'll drop in if you have a spare minute.

One of my friends, Deb Townsend from NY, ordered this one and the colors were so marvelous in the restaurant light that we just had to photo it...knowing that somebody would paint it. Well, guess who loves to paint glass and reds? Anyway, I've just posted a WIP paint along on the forum site for anybody who might want to visit the site. Just as soon as I get around to resizing some of my Florida adventure photos, I'm hoping to do a little recap of our wonderful week...just got to find the time.

Bob Hague Demo

2011-08-31T06:15:00.000-07:00

You won't hear "loose" too many times when associated with my painting style, but this portrait was really lots of fun...although a bit scarey in execution. Bob Hague is a marvelous portrait artist from the Orlando, Fla. area and did this demo for us during our little Florida adventure. He starts out with strong color and uses a bead of paint/water and just marches right down the elevated page. Wish I could find the photo showing the "mask of Zorro" when he laid the paint on the eye area...nearly had a stroke...but it turned out very luminious in his demo. My painting got a bit muddy in places, but I'm going to try the "bead" technique on some other subjects and see what happens. If you don't go back into the paint after a certain time, it stays really clean. All in all, this was a really fun paint, and all the others turned out good paintings with him at the helm. I was painting two at a time so I would not get into my usual tight mode and this is the one I thought was better...it's rather scarey to use this much strong color on a portrait for me, but after I started to breathe again after laying in the color I got into the swing of things.

Crystal w/Strawberry Demo in Florida

2011-08-29T17:31:00.000-07:00

Have been having trouble with Blogger all day, but thought I'd try to post again. Isn't it crazy when you can't even post to your own blog? This is the "class" photo of the artist friends who met in Florida for a fabulous week of painting and friendship. Sure was hard to come back to the real world of 100+ temps here in Texas. Irene even gave us some strong back winds to whip up the surf and the waves were tremendous. We had one with us from SC and she was really watching the Weather Channel closely.

Only one of the artists finished the painting in this post, but wanted to get the whole bunch together for a photo for me. Just loved the teaching part, and every one of them produced marvelous paintings...I'm so proud. Their colors are wonderful...especially painting reds...and, there was no mud (hum...dirty word) at all... Bob Hague, a wonderful portrait artist from the Orlando area did a portrait demo and it was fabulous. His technique scared me to death, but I'm game to try it again for sure...he is a marvelous teacher. I'll post that tomorrow or so when I resize my pics...took so many good ones that it's hard to look through them all and not want to post our adventures. These friends were from a forum that I love...PaintingFriends...check it out when you have spare time... We had demos the first 3 1/2 days so we really pushed to get it all in...and there were so many things we left for our next "paint/vacation" adventure. One of the artists is showing her cactus demo...I didn't get them all together for a group shot of that painting, but hers will show you the first demo.

Florida Trip Demo

2011-08-17T16:25:00.000-07:00

Sorry to have been AWOL for this past month. Truth be told, I've completely redone my ancient kitchen...new paint, beadboard siding in the utility room and kitchen, tile blacksplash, replaced electricial plates...the whole enchilata as far as a kitchen "redo". This Texas heat has also thrown me (and some of my local artist friends) into the grand "funk" of the world as this 47 straight days of 100 to 106 degree weather (with no rain in sight) has played with my head.

So, to escape this I'm leaving this Saturday to join a wonderful group of artists I've met on the internet (Painting Friends) for a week of painting, bonding and fun near Clearwater, Florida. Most of the artists have not fooled around with crystal, so I'm going to have them endure a crystal/strawberry demo on one of the days...it's my real passion so we'll see how it goes. There will be around 15 of us I think, and we'll be strolling the sugar sand beaches morning and evening and painting during the day. Doesn't that sound like a wonderful carefree week for artists? We have artists on the forum for Europe and we'll be skyping during the day and wishing they could have joined us. We do have one gal coming from Madrid, Spain...the rest are from all over the US. I'll try to get some photos of the fun posted...I think there will be several laptops there...not from yours truly though...so...will be back in a week if I don't get anything posted.

Suzy Powell's Kohl's Debut

2011-07-12T19:14:00.001-07:00

One of my Artcolony artist friends, Suzy Powell, has several of her fabulous torn paper collages offered for sale at Kohl'sDepartmentStores. I dropped by our Kohl's in Tyler and got the manager to snap this photo to send to Suzy. These collages are just one of her many talents as she is also a fabulous watercolorist. She is from a little bitty town waaaaaaay out in West Texas (Plains) which is about 9 miles from the NM border so no telling how the store buyer found her, but we're all very excited for her in this new venture. If you're in a Kohl's...look at their art and home decor section. They also have a TexasBoot that is wonderful, but don't have it out on the floor yet. I just love knowing famous people!!

Henry WIP Continued...

2011-06-28T18:14:00.001-07:00

So...here's where I am today. The blue shirt is my preference to the pink one in the ref photo as he's definitely a "boy" boy...and he doesn't like that shirt anyway. This is with one pass on the blue...gotta decide how much darker for that shadow to go, but needed to at least get some basic blue in. I also did a light purple wash over his shadow side of the face and took the sun spot down a bit...it was just too bright. Added some scarlet lake to the jaw in deep shadow...right on the edge...but it doesn't show up in this photo. I do sorta like the way his left shoulder blends into the background and I was going to lighten the background...may just leave it now so I'll keep that lost edge there.

Henry WIP Continued...

2011-06-27T08:51:00.000-07:00

Here's where I am today with "Henry". I went into photoshop trying to play with adding more color and taking color out...and I'm leaning toward adding more warmth. Just can't make up my mind how far to take it. It did help a tad to add that background darkness, but I'm thinking I should put the shirt in before fooling with the skin tones any more. Do you think I'm just putting making those decisions off until "tomorrow" (as Scarlet would say)?

Henry WIP

2011-06-26T16:12:00.000-07:00

Here's another portrait of one of my darling grandkids...Henry. I thought this was an especially good photo with all the drama of the shadows. I'm having a bit of trouble in deciding what to do with the shadowed side of his face, but will hopefully work it out. I've used yellow ochre/perm rose on the sunlit side, and with a very pale purple glaze and an overlay of yellow ochre/perm rose/burnt sienna for the shadow side...I'm still working out the balance of dark and light. Since I'm really not a portrait painter, this is a real challenge...but...how do we learn if we aren't challenged? I'll try to finish this up tomorrow.

Koi In Color

2011-06-21T18:39:00.000-07:00

I've been AWOL for the past few weeks and am trying to get back into the swing of painting almost every day. Just told friends yesterday that I seem to have the "I'll paint tomorrow" syndrome (sorta got that from Scarlet...ha). Anyway, my artist friends on Painting Friends have all done a version of this same photo, or one similar, that one of our contributors (Ann Buckner) posted for us. We've got this little challenge going amongst ourselves to post a painting on the 20th of each month and we're trying to "think outside the box". I'm a dismal failure at that as I'm just so literal with my paintings that I just paint what I see and I usually work from a photograph rather than any plein aire or studio setup on site. Hard as I may try, the loosey goosey painterly technique usually escapes me. I did get rather loose with the water on this one, and it was fun.

Artcolony in Chicago

2011-06-09T16:45:00.000-07:00

What a fabulous group of friends I have miracleously wound up with through our Artcolony blog. A group of 10 of us met in Chicago last week for a "reunion" although most of us had never met face to face...only on our blog. It was probably one of the most wonderful weeks of my life (and I'm getting pretty old as of last month...ha). These gals are from Texas, California, Maryland, Minnesota, Indiana, Wisconsin and Indiana(Texas is always the biggest contributor to most stuff...heehee). We had such a wonderful week of laughing, giggling, sweating, walking, celebrating...the whole "enchilita" as we'd say here in Texas. It would take a book to relive all our "exploits" from learning to ride the mass transit train...the EL...to doing the "highbrow" stuff of enjoying the Art Institute and Cultural Arts Center to enjoying a stroll through the Oak Park, Illinois Farmer's Market. Never saw so many gorgeous peonies (we can't grow them here in Texas...too hot!). Talk about hot! Most of our photos show we ladies "dewing"...that's sweating...as it was probably a record breaking heat wave for the Chicago area. But, we managed. The gals are...starting top of the stairs...Debbie Cannatella, Jane Freeman, Cindy Agan, Kaaren Oreck, Vernita Hoyt Bridges, Janel Belich, Mary Jansen, Ellie Sethman, and me...what a "congo line".

Artcolony in Chicago

2011-06-01T19:31:00.000-07:00

This Friday a group of artist friends from Artcolony are going on the most wonderful adventure...10 of us are meeting in Chicago for a week of fun, bonding, and "just whatever comes up". Many have been friends for years through the Artcolony blog, but have never met...some have met a few...but now we will be meeting eachother face to face and we are so excited. I'll be posting some photos (have a new Android phone and it takes the best photos) if some of the gals will show me how...I'm still learning how to use this techie's dream of a phone. We have a full schedule of fun things to do and places to go, but we're mostly looking forward to meeting eachother and the special bonding that we know will take place. So...I'm packed and ready to go, so stay tuned for the adventure.

Blue Stripes

2011-05-21T09:35:00.000-07:00

Here is a little painting challenge that has been done for my PaintingFriends group. Each month one of our artists posts a painting that we are to all paint in our own interpretation and post on the 20th of each month on the PF site. It's always amazing and fun to see how we each have our own take on the reference photo. This particular ref photo had turquoise FiestaWare and a cloth with orangy/red stripes that I couldn't make work to save my life. So, I added apples to the bowl, changed the color to white with blue stripes, changed the green in the stripes from Kelly to Sap...and...it turned into a fun and colorful painting.

Isabella

2011-05-09T17:51:00.000-07:00

Here is my latest portrait of my little granddaughter, Isabella. She has the longest eyelashes imaginable. Her hair is really a "bird nest" here, but when she piles it up on her head...that's what it looks like to her Grammy. I painted this Friday and matted and swapped out a frame to give to my daughter for Mother's Day...she loved it. (What else could she tell her artist mother?)

Judy's Lilies

2011-05-02T12:05:00.000-07:00

One of my PaintingFriends, Judy Buckingham, posted her reference photo on our forum with a question on the shadows and asked some advice about colors. Her lilies were a cool hue like WN yellow or lemon and she wasn't happy with the green/blue/grey shadows she had painted. My suggestion was to try to take the photo to the warm side as there were warm colors in the English daisies, so this was my take on it painted yesterday. I found that WN yellow and gamboge/quin burnt orange/perm red looked awful together...who knew? So, I had to throw the whole thing to the warm side and just go with a cool background. This changed the whole intent of Judy's keeping the cool yellows, so she's going back in with some purples and blues to see what she can do...So, doesn't look like I was of any help...Ha.

strawberry demo

2011-04-28T16:12:00.000-07:00

Here is the demo I just finished for my friends on the Painting Friends Forum. We are having a little get-together in August in Florida and we are all really looking forward to the adventure. I'm going to do a crystal demo while there, and this little demo was so some of the ladies could practice on strawberries. I haven't posted the demo we're doing in Florida yet...but just let them in on the secret that there would be strawberries involved.

Spring distractions

2011-04-20T15:14:00.000-07:00

Spring is here in East Texas, and what a major distraction from my painting. Thought I'd show you my first peony poppies and amarylsis. I have both red poppies and the regular single lavender poppies (that look like opium poppies..hummmm). Also blooming right now, perennial amarlysis (the old red ones that you have to find at somebody's house and talk them into giving you a start), purple/gold/pink/blue iris, purple verbena, larkspur, gorgeous roses...goodness...there no place much prettier than Texas in the spring if you're an avid gardener. Hopefully, I'll get back to painting next week.

GoldWIP

2011-04-08T12:55:00.000-07:00

Second installment of this study trying to get some golds I like. The reflections seem to be the trick with what is bothering me...possibly the contrasts with nothing explaining the reflections, so I laid in (or started on them) a few of the flowers and leaves. Still am not happy with what is going on, but will have to table painting until Monday. My daughter and granddaughter and a friend with her little girl are coming for the weekend...looks like Grammy will be playing with the little ones outside as our weather has been glorious. Both kids are city kids and they love to come to the country. Wish my mother hen who is setting on 8 brown eggs would hatch some peeps while they were here...that would bne too much fun!

GoldWIP

2011-04-05T15:00:00.000-07:00

Seems as though it's been forever since I've posted anything...that's because I can't seem to settle in on anything I've painted lately that I liked. Guess it happens to all of us. This is a WIP trying to work out a problem...how do I paint gold and have it look like a gold wine bottle...with bouganvilla flowers as a strong reflection? A friend knows I love to paint reflective objects, and brought this gorgeous bottle (it's the champagne size too)from a recent London trip. I have a basket of bouganvilla with hot pink, coral pink, and gold flowers in the same basket so I set the bottle among the petals and got these wonderful colors reflecting into the gold bottle.

The challenge comes next: When I started drawing off the painting I wanted to do today (this is not the one I'll paint as it'll be half sheet) I realized that I needed to know whether or not I could come up with a gold that worked before I put all the time and effort into a very detailed drawing. The secret for me to successfully paint glass or crystal or reflections is to have a really good drawing down...you can always erase stuff if it's too much detail. At this point, I'm going to have to redraw this posted bottle section and start over...this particular combo of paint doesn't work for me. So, stay tuned...nothing tried is a waste when it comes to watercolor...it's just a learning curve that we all must navigate. Sure wish I had a magic brush...

The Art Colony Blog now on Artist's Magazine Blog!

2011-03-25T06:40:00.000-07:00

For several years now I have been fortunate enough to be one of the artists on a wonderful blog...Artcolony. We've been featured on the Artist's Magazine Blog recently and I hope you'll take a look: http://artistsblog.artistsnetwork.com/2011/03/15/ComingTogetherJaneFreemanInHerOwnWords.aspx. There are many exceptional artists, authors, workshop teachers and just really good painters among our members and we are truly a group of great friends. I am very blessed to be counted among these artists.

Artichokes

2011-03-14T17:02:00.000-07:00

Finished the artichokes this afternoon so now I'm on to a crystal painting I want to try. This was fun though. Painting with all these pastels and darkening them in kind was rather challenging, but it's always a lesson no matter how many you paint. I have three other reference photos with difference chokes that Karlyn photographed at the market, so I may try another one when I'm at a loss as to something that I'm really wanting to paint. I think we all have these times when we just want to paint something fluff...and this if truly fluff. For Christiane...NO RED.....

Artichokes WIP

2011-03-11T14:40:00.000-08:00

This colorful painting of artichokes has been lots of fun. While taking a workshop with Karlyn Holman 3 years ago, she shared some of her photographs from her European teaching jaunts, and this reference was one of four of artichokes that I just loved. This particular one was at a street market in Paris. The pastel colors are actually there in the chokes...and...it's a feast for the eyes while painting. There are lots of edges that will be cleaned up, and several more darker combinations of colors going across the page. This one is quarter sheet, and I'm using so many different colors I won't name them all...just a whole bunch of greens, blues, magentas and pinky yellow hues. I just wonder if they taste like the plain ole green ones we get here in the states?

My painting of Neiman is finished I think, but I'm going to live with it a bit longer before signing...might need just another tweak or two.

More Neiman

2011-02-25T14:03:00.001-08:00

So, here's where I am this afternoon. I had hoped to finish her today at art retreat, but we fooled around with a birthday party and other fun stuff so I'll definitely finish tomorrow. I can already see that I will need to do a glaze of quin gold to tone down the bedspread...either all over, or at least beside and behind her. Still having fun painting shapes and not particular designs.

Neiman WIP

2011-02-23T15:57:00.000-08:00

Here is Neiman, one of my kitties...undoubtedly the prettiest calico I've ever seen. She is bright orange, bright black, and bright white...if you can call black and white "bright". And she has orange eyes. I'm into this at about the 2 hour stage so there is lots to do and you may have trouble reading the background...it's my RalphLauren black floral bedspread and it repeats Neimans colors beautifully...but it's a really fun paint so far. I'm trying to be looser with this one (not like my crystal) and I think I've used almost everything on my messy palette except green and lemon yellow. Will get back to it tomorrow and hopefully I'll post another progression photo.

Cityscape

2011-02-21T15:25:00.000-08:00

Finally finished my cityscape, and finally got a photo straight enough to post. I really enjoyed fooling with all the greys in this. Purposefully I tried not to go into too much detail with the buildings and trim (as is my usual way)and it was really a fun painting. If I do any cityscapes in the future, however...they'll be half sheet as painting building any smaller is somewhat challenging.

Cityscape WIP

2011-02-09T10:23:00.000-08:00

The weather is terrible here today so I'm planning to spend the whole day painting. I started this cityscape (my first) yesterday at art retreat and it's from a friend's collection of photographs taken somewhere in Europe. The drawing is rather messy and once posted looks a bit crooked, but I though I'd show you where I am with it now. Lots of glazing yet to do and just the basic work there on the left side. I started at the bottom (which I've never done) as I needed to establish my darks before painting the buildings. The reference actually had lots of people in the street scene, but I didn't want to paint people so I used my artistic license (that Paul Jackson gave me during a workshop) and took them out. Hopefully I'll get this finished this afternoon...it's quarter sheet size and not really that easy to paint the detail when it's small like this. Next time I'll paint any cityscape in the half sheet size...good lesson learned.

The Sunshine Plate

2011-02-03T14:44:00.000-08:00

My artist friend from the UK, Pat Elliott, gave me this very appropriate name for my painting. Many thanks to her as my mind is frozen from all this cold weather and I couldn't come up with anything I liked. As you can see, I completely eliminated the banana nub and thanks to the miracle of aliz crimson and permenant red the whole orb was lifted out and painted over and it just looks like a dark area of the apple now. Just love transparent paints. All this red and yellow make me happy...and I do hope it carries over as we're supposed to get snow tonight and all day tomorrow. Ah, Texas weather!!!

Unnamed WIP

2011-02-02T13:10:00.000-08:00

Since Texas is shivering under this cold artist blast, I decided to paint something red to try to warm up...doesn't work! I'm so aware of my artist friends in Minnesota and Chicago right now as they fight this stuff all the time. It was 15 here this morning and Texas's electricity company is doing rolling blackouts every hour or so in hopes that the whole system won't crash. Thank goodness for our fireplace and WalMart sweat suits! Sure is good soup weather though.

My idea for this little setup was to use my new square red floral plates, but they don't show all that much...I finally showed my husband the whole set (they've been in the old studio for the last 6 months and I was waiting for spring to change out...hope we can get used to square plates). Anyway, I drew this off yesterday and have painted this far today in between warming my hands at the fireplace. There is still much to do...shadows, finishing the apples (as one is still in the yellow stage), adjusting values...you know the drill. This is quarter sheet in size. Hope everybody is staying warm....

Sunshine Girl

2011-01-26T08:09:00.000-08:00

This is another portrait of my granddaughter Isabella and my object with this one was to see how far I could push reds. My refererence photo is of her sitting in one of my yellow rocking chairs on the back patio...and she is literally "sitting in the sun". If I'm honest, I must admit that I used too much aliz crimson on her right cheek and couldn't scrub it out so I had to go deeper and deeper with the reds. But, she was in bright direct light...that's my excuse. This will probably be my last attempt at portraits for a while though as I seem to be getting a heavier and heavier hand...so...back to crystal and glass for a while. Although I am not happy with this one, I do believe that everything we paint is a learning lesson and when we start something...we should finish it.

DonkeyWIP

2011-01-05T08:40:00.001-08:00

Why in the world I chose to paint a donkey as my first painting of the new year is really beyond me! Yesterday when we met for art retreat, I didn't have anything at all in mind and found a black/white photo of this little guy in our "stack of stuff". The only area I think I'm finished with is the eye and fur in that general area...need to knock down that masked fur to the left of his eye. I started with the blue on the right ear and intended to paint a rather funky portrait using blues, reds, golds, purples (ala Kay Smith color selections), but my realism got in the way. When my leaf raking chores are finished this afternoon (we have glorious sunshine here again in Texas), I'll try to get back here and finish. This was a 2 hour challenge thingie (where you stop and evaluate after 2 hours of straight painting...photograph it...post it...then get back to it and finish, promising to take another finished photo and posting that). This is one of the fun things we do our our PaintersFriendsForum and it's always a fun challenge. This is a half sheet in size...hence my being able to paint it so quickly (when I paint on the large size, I don't get so bogged down with details...unless, of course...it's crystal.

ChristmasPaintingExchange

2010-12-29T13:46:00.000-08:00

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

2010-12-07T17:53:00.000-08:00

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

2010-12-04T06:42:00.000-08:00

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

2010-11-29T16:46:00.001-08:00

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

2010-11-17T10:07:00.000-08:00

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

2010-11-11T10:43:00.000-08:00

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

2010-11-07T09:43:00.000-08:00

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

2010-10-22T13:32:00.000-07:00

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

2010-10-21T08:48:00.000-07:00

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???

2010-10-18T13:26:00.000-07:00

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

2010-10-08T11:17:00.000-07:00

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

2010-10-03T15:21:00.000-07:00

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

2010-09-26T12:07:00.000-07:00

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

2010-09-05T14:38:00.001-07:00

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

2010-08-27T14:19:00.000-07:00

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

2010-08-27T10:49:00.001-07:00

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

2010-08-24T17:02:00.000-07:00

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

2010-08-23T15:26:00.000-07:00

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

2010-08-19T13:18:00.000-07:00

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)

2010-08-18T14:18:00.000-07:00

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

2010-08-18T12:11:00.000-07:00

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

2010-08-15T18:46:00.000-07:00

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

2010-08-04T10:26:00.000-07:00

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

2010-08-02T12:02:00.000-07:00

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

2010-07-23T05:38:00.001-07:00

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

2010-07-15T19:15:00.000-07:00

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

2010-07-10T08:09:00.000-07:00

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

2010-07-06T15:25:00.000-07:00

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

2010-06-24T18:46:00.000-07:00

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

2010-06-15T19:44:00.000-07:00

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

2010-06-09T08:14:00.000-07:00

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

2010-06-01T20:07:00.000-07:00

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

2010-05-31T08:24:00.000-07:00

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

2010-05-29T19:40:00.000-07:00

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

2010-05-18T17:57:00.000-07:00

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

2010-05-12T12:46:00.000-07:00

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

2010-05-09T09:42:00.000-07:00

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

2010-05-07T19:16:00.001-07:00

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

2010-05-01T20:07:00.000-07:00

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

2010-04-28T20:16:00.000-07:00

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

2010-04-22T12:26:00.000-07:00

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

2010-04-21T14:15:00.000-07:00

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

2010-04-16T14:55:00.000-07:00

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

2010-04-09T19:43:00.000-07:00

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.

Glads

2010-03-30T17:07:00.000-07:00

After living with the negative painting of the gladiolas for just a little while, several glaring problems slapped me in the face. The flowers looked "cookie cutter", there were no soft or lost edges, and the basic composition on the right flower stalk was incorrect. You can't really have a large flower on the bottom, 3 baby flowers in the middle and then another larger one at the top...Mother Nature just doesn't work like that. I tried to keep in mind that there was no pencil drawing done to start with...just blops of color dropped around on a very wet paper. So, one of my artist friends gave me a little sponge she got at Michaels and I went to work scrubbing colors out and bleeding colors into the background with the damp sponge...and...wonders of wonders, it worked!

I was able to scrub out 2 of the baby flowers on the right stalk and make one larger flower out of the shapes. I rather liked the blues and greens that became the back of the flower when I came in with the purplish/red background wash. I also lost the edges on the lower left flower and between the two top flowers at the top of the left stalk. I had intended to make 3 small flowers up there, but wound up with the two and that hit of the top of the green stalk. The background is just a jumble of different colors and shapes.

I like the look now...although I'll live with it a few more days before calling it finished. At least the colors are clean and fresh on most of the flowers. I think I'll be ahead of the game if I just wait on Kay Smith to come and show us her technique for this look as I do love the wet-in-wet looseness of florals. So..for once..I'm putting the brush down...right now!

WIP...Negative Painting

2010-03-28T15:09:00.000-07:00

Each Tuesday, a group of us get together and paint. We decided to have a "slumber party"/retreat/fun weekend of painting so we pulled this off Friday and Saturday. We are having Kay Smith (a fabulous artist from Big Spring here in May for a workshop and she is the master at wet-in-wet and negative painting) so we thought we might try to do a little homework before she comes so she won't think we're all dismal painters. So, this painting is my first attempt at a half sheet of flowers painted negatively (with no drawing) and this could be the main reason for taking a workshop from a wonderful teacher. The upper left corner is still all about shapes and I now must go in and "find" 2 or 3 more gladiola flowers. This will be done with laying in the darker background and "finding" those flowers...somehow. I didn't want much detail in the painting, as this is more about color and shapes. The background will also get several more passes to darken areas and drop in color. Since none of us have really painted wet-in-wet, we had a pretty good mess going for a while, but it is all such a wonderful learning process. And, after all...it's only paper.

Lavender PaperWhites...

2010-03-25T14:31:00.000-07:00

When my mother's paperwhites bloomed earlier this winter, I took lots of pictures and couldn't wait to paint them. Well, as usual, I went in too heavily with some of my shadows too early, and had to throw both paintings to lavender. (Won't paint two at the same sitting again!) Good lesson learned. It was still fun, and I made a game out of trying to merge colors for softness. There is never an unsuccessful painting when you are learning what not to do next time. Although I thought I'd go ahead and post this, I do intend to go back in and establish a really dark dramatic light flow so all the flowers won't be the same as they are now. But, I'm very bad at not going back with posting my fixes...will try to show you the difference with this as I can see successful paintings out of questionable ones with a few tweaks.

Mayan Flavor

2010-03-19T06:27:00.000-07:00

Just thought I'd show all that you don't have to be a "young chick" today to have fun in Mexico. After all, what happens in Cancun, stays in Cancun. These guys were our "dates" for a bonfire on the beach one evening. They were Mayan dancers and were performing their fire rituals. The beaches are sugar sand and the water is absolutely turquoise, cerlean, cobalt and ultramarine all swirled together, the food is fabulous, and the people are extremely friendly. Mayan culture abounds and the ruins we found at Coba and Tulum are worth the trip alone. Truly wonders of the world. I kept a journal on a sketch tablet and illustrated our little adventures to recapture our memories. Must confess that it was rather hard to come back to the real world of the Dallas airport at 50 degrees after being in the sun and surf for a week. Oh well, back to my happy little world of painting. By the way, I'm the barefoot tourist...

Hello Margaritaville!!!

2010-03-10T07:58:00.000-08:00

My blog will go "unattended" for the next week as I'm leaving early in the morning for Cancun, Mexico. I'm really excited about getting out of our cold weather for a little while. And, I'm excited about the prospect of painting plein aire as I've never taken the time or interest to paint outside. I'm taking a little travel pallete (am only loading cobalt, sap green, aliz crim, burnt sienna, new gamboge, perm rose as I can make everything I want from this limited pallete), one #8 round Black Velvet brush (as that's all I ever paint with anyway) and a good sketch book from Cheap Joe's. I'll take it in my carry-on as I'd be a really unhappy camper if my luggage wound up in Russia or somewhere! Ha! When I get home, I'll promise to post a few of the paintings...be they good or bad! Ghezzz...what am I promising?

Egg-stravaganza

2010-03-04T18:29:00.000-08:00

As I was washing my fresh hen eggs to put in the carton, the sun caught my eyes with the wonderful sunny colors the eggs were showing. It's funny where we artists get our inspiration for paintings, but this one was a "must paint". I only took about 6 pictures before the sun moved. The colors are somewhat pushed over the top for eggs, but since Paul Jackson painted a little plaque for me in his last workshop giving me permission to paint just any old way I wanted, this is the way I wanted. My hens really do lay only brown eggs, and some are golden brown and some are just tan and others are reddish and that makes for an interesting carton for my egg customers. If I forgot to mention it earlier, I actually sell my eggs and have all the customers I can handle. Everybody loves fresh eggs. This is 11x15 in size, 140#Arches CP, and my paints are burnt sienna, quin burnt orange, raw umber, new gamboge, windsor green(BS), neutral tint, cobalt and turquoise.

Pear Cactus Color Shift

2010-03-02T15:00:00.000-08:00

When we painted the original pear cactus last week, since I had already done mine for the demo, I decided to do another version using a little different pallete. Still wanted to use rather pastel colors as a contradiction to the usual sea of green we see with this subject, but I wanted to bring in a bit more purple and cut back on the orange tones. This is smaller in size, and took just a bit more than an hour or so to get it done. I did start off with a wet paper and just arbitrarily threw the background colors down. This one was done with no masking, but just trying to save some of the lighter hues. To be truthful, I just forgot to do the masking so it went a bit faster and I didn't do all the busy work of the needles inside the cactus leaves.

When we painted today, I had taken some shots of my mother's paperwhites I had moved to the farm when we closed their house in Lufkin. They are so lovely this time of year. I painted them today and will try to get them posted tomorrow. Sure is pretty outside and it sure makes me want to stay outside and play in the flowerbeds rather than be inside.

Pear Cactus

2010-02-25T13:50:00.000-08:00

My artist friends who paint together on Tuesdays and Fridays were a bit short on what to paint tomorrow, so I remembered some pretty good cactus photos I had taken on a trip to West Texas and volunteered a drawing. You probably can imagine what came next...after I had the drawing done, I decided to paint it. And, my thought in this little quarter sheet piece was to throw some paint on and paint fast and loose. I've posted the wet first step with just sloping new gamboge, quin gold, prem rose, and some turquoise that was on my pallete in a very loose swash. Of course, I had the drawing down and lots of masking for those prickley cactus needles. Next step was to find the ripe pears on the cactus and have fun with their colors. I tried to retain some of the colors (that you don't usually find on cactus) on the pears and the actual cactus before going in with the greens. If I ever play with this drawing again, I'll probably use some magentas and several blues in some places rather than leaving the whites. Who knows...just depends on how the day goes.

Home Sweet Home

2010-02-20T09:38:00.000-08:00

Nothing like getting home and sleeping in my own bed after spending the better part of the week in Dallas babysitting. My daughter was out of town on business and I kept our little 4 1/2yr old granddaughter. She is a little doll and is so very good, but it's still a handful for someone who's used to not having a little one around going and doing 24/7. We had a very inspiring thread going on Artcolony and I'm really up for getting back to my painting after a week. When we were painting with our ArtRetreat bunch last week, we did paint a "free form...whatever goes" tulip I drew off so maybe I'll post that on Tuesday when we paint again. Anyway, feels good to be back with my paint and brushes.