Beach Cottage...Indian Rocks Beach

It's been a few weeks since I've posted and it's not that I've been sitting on the couch eating bonbon's...that's for sure.  I'm getting ready to leave next Saturday for a wonderful week of friendship renewing and painting with my friends from PaintingFriends forum...and it can't come soon enough.  This little pink beach cottage is just one of a whole row that we found during our trip last summer.  We loved the area that we're going back to the same place. 

Florida is hot...but then...so in Texas.  At least we'll have the sugar sand of the Gulf of Mexico to walk on rather than the crunchy brown grass we have here right now...and you can always count on a breeze on the Gulf.  I'm actually working on a little blue cottage to paint while there and may even paint a little Key Lime Cottage (as yummy key lime pie that's my absolute favorite) in greens.  We'll definitely do another little sidebar and take some more photos...they're l940-50 vintage cottages and we need to get them down in paint before they're gone...maybe won't be any time soon hopefully.

Judy's Rose...a tweak

After living with Judy's Rose for just a little while, I decided it was too cool in the blues.  So, I did some glazing with yellows over the blue leaves and rewet the background to the upper left and mopped some yellows around.  Also tweaked the rose with a bit more dark gamboge/perm rose mix here and there and it made such a difference in brightening up the painting.  Funny how those little glazes make such a great difference.

Judy's Rose

This is a rose that is from one of my PaintingFriend's garden...Judy Buckingham of Portland, Oregon.  We were trying to come up with a rather simple flower or design to work out a weaving for our August trip and I decided I'd paint one of her roses.   I wanted a really limited palette to work with...AJ gamboge, perm rose, sap, sap deep, undersea green, UM and midnight blue... I find it hard to paint loosely and really enjoy mopping colors around for backgrounds...maybe it's because I couldn't decide whether to paint negative shapes or not...so...I took the easier way out.  With all my drawings done for my upcoming trip, I felt it was best to get back to painting before I got too rusty...ha.

Silver Reflections

Here is the painting that I'll demo for my PaintingFriends group in IndianRocksBeach, Florida in August.  I first painted the teapot and smaller silver dish with the limes and lemons...but...it felt too cool in color.  Seems I just can't love a painting without using red and so I decided to add some color.  I mentioned in an earlier post that I'd found a wonderfully colorful blouse in my closet to use for a new setup.  I really patted myself on the back for adjusting the setup with the cloth and re-shooting the ref photo to superimpose on the drawing almost perfectly in comparison with the first ref photo.  So, I drew in the new colorful addition and painted over the little dish.  I can see the original dish outline because I know where it was, but when I do the demo, that area will be cleaner as it looks like I used a stainer in the silver...probably midnight blue or the neutral tint colors.  Painting silver is almost as much fun as crystal...but not quite...ha.  Anything with reflections interests me it seems.

Blackberry Delight

This is the crystal demo I'll be doing with the PaintFriends group when we go to Florida in August.  They wanted crystal...so...they're getting crystal.  I loved the idea of blackberries and blueberries to give some darks in the composition.  The little crystal cream pitcher was a whopping $4.00 at a local antique store and it came with the sugarbowl to boot.  Got them when I found the silver tea service that I'm also using for the silver demo I'll do.  I love getting fun things for setups.  This crystal bowl was a Christmas present from my daughter this year...I loved the fan facets and the uneven top rim...sure made for an interesting setup when I was photograhing this one.  I think the artists will all come away with a wonderful painting.

Berry Bowl

Here's another painting I'm working on to decide on the colors I want to use in a larger and more diverse painting for our Splash August trip to Florida.  I'm trying out many combinations for the blackberries and haven't settled in  on a particular color yet.  Blackberries...in real life...are black.  But, black in watercolor is a dead color so I'm trying out other combinations...have decided that if I don't come up with something I really love, they'll probably make them raspberries...that'd work too.  But, I absoluely love blackberries and I'm determined to make them work.

Lemons and Limes

This week I'm working on trying to come up with some good paintings for my summer trip to Florida with some friends from our forum PaintingFriends.  We're going to be painting silver as well as crystal and I'm just playing around with some color.  Silver can be really cool unless you're bouncing some good reflections.  This "cloth" is actually one of my shirts that had wonderful color...really matched the hues in the limes beautifully.  I always forget to check my closets when I'm looking for good cloth for setup photos.  This is actually a really small portion of a larger painting with a silver teapot...was just trying out the colors before I went much further...I think this will work just fine.