Sea Turtle

One-point Perspective

Here I am playing with a one-point perspective that leads way out onto the water. I do need to put some windows or something on the left side, it's pretty bland.

A Bunny for Kyra

Water Lily

Taking the lessons learned from the class I took, I started work on this painting of a water lily. Doing a quick search of 'flower' on google images, I found a good reference shot and printed it out. I transfered the drawing to my paper using tracing paper and got to work.

I used glazing techniques a lot in this work. For the water, there are about 8? 10? layers of ultramarine blue, pthalo blue, prussian blue and even one of burnt sienna. One thing I need to figure out is how to eliminate the hard edges all those layers create. Or perhaps learn to work with them as they do give a sharp contrast about the bottom of the flower.

Kyra came up to me and asked if I would paint something blue for her bedroom, so that'll be the next project. I also picked up a sheet of hot-pressed paper that I'd like to try. Hot-pressed paper is much smoother than the cold-pressed that I've been using so far.

My Watercolor Setup

Sorry for the mix up and the disappearing post. Hopefully I can re-write this.

I took a class a couple of weeks ago on watercolor painting from the excellent Steven Kozar who lives not that far away down in McFarland. I got quite a few good ideas and hints that I'm putting to use and here is a quick shot of my workspace.

Things I've learned:

• Stretching my paper on foamcore boards. I took a full sheet of foamcore and cut it into quarters, stacked them and then wrapped them in packing tape to keep them water resistant. I then soak my paper in water for twenty minutes and then staple the paper to the wrapped board for it to dry. It's much lighter and cheaper than using plywood which is another method I've heard of.
• Using a cheap kitchen sponge to wick off excess water and paint off of the brush. 
• Cut open a large plastic bottle to hold your brush cleaning water. This prevents your brush from getting too contaminated from the dirty water.
• Use thin layers of paint to get clean gradients of color.

It was a fun class and I'm thinking of taking one of his oil painting classes when it comes up in the fall.

View Steven Kozar's Art

Trying the Anders Zorn palette

It's been a while since I've posted my stuff on this blog. I had received two really nice Moleskine drawing and painting sketchbooks for my birthday and Christmas and have been busy sketching away. Unfortunately, it's hard to get those books through the scanner for the blog. If I draw something extra amazing, I'll see if I can get it posted.

Some of the other things I got as gifts were more oil paints, which made me quite happy. Here is a quick painting done using the "Zorn palette".

Anders Zorn was a Swedish painter from the late 1900's who did a lot of his work using only four colors - well, three colors and white. He used yellow ochre for his yellow, vermillion for his red and 'bone black' for his blues. Now paintings created with this set of colors are often said to be done using a "Zorn palette".

Now vermillion is not used anymore as a paint pigment because of the mercury involved. It's one of several old pigments that would (and did) kill you if you used it extensively. In this painting I used Italian Pompeii Red from Williamsburg paints, which is an iron oxide red (rust colored). Vermillion is a much brighter red, closer to a cadmium red light. It's an interesting way of painting and I will do a few more of these.

Working on the Lighthouse

My good friend Dottie asked me recently to paint a lighthouse for her. In the past I had done some work in her daugther's room and she wanted something to spice up her sea-themed bathroom. After doing a quick search on Google images on lighthouses (only 7.9 million of them), I mocked up a few quick drawings with my watercolor pencils to get a feel for what she's looking for.

She liked the layout of #1 but wanted more rocks. She also went with the lighthouse design of #2. Grabbing my craft acrylics and brushes, I set off to work.

The first night I got a good start on things. I liked how the lighthouse started to come together and the blue-green of the water complimented the red of the lighthouse.

The next night I dropped in a light grey sky and put in the sun and it's reflections on the waves. I think that I should have dropped in the sky background first instead of doing all the foreground work, but that's a lesson for the next time. The rocks also didn't have enough contrast to make them pop, so I put in more shadows and highlights.

The final night I put in more details and added the cloud cover. Dottie really enjoys it and want's me to do more in the coming year. Overall, it took me about 7-8 hours of work.