Art History

I was looking through some of my old college stuff and found a few watercolors I did.  In about 1996 I took a class called Teaching Children Art, and we spent a week on watercolor.  Here are the first watercolors I ever really did.  All of them were done on regular printer paper with a children's watercolor paint set.

#1:  I knew I wanted to figure out how to get the reflection of the sun or the moon on water.  As soon as I finished it I knew I'd messed it up though, and I am always quite amused now when I see the pillar of moonlight on the water.  However, even then, some of my edges where the brown and green run together are actually kind of nice.

#2:  Moon on Water again - In this one I realized that bodies of water don't look like this, that the shape of my lake was physically impossible.  Love the tree too.  :)

 #3:  Got rid of the boundaries on my water, and tried some new colors.  One interesting thing that I tried a lot then was drawing on the paper first with yellow crayon and then painting over it.  The wax resists the water.  The teacher didn't ever mention anything about saving whites.  That would have been very helpful!

 #4:  What's impressive to me about this all of these paintings is that I wasn't using any kind of reference, I was just making them up entirely.  I almost never do that now, in fact, I can't think of the last time I did.  I also see that I did a bit of a graduated wash for the sky this time, and the texture of the water is rather nice too, minus the white crayoned waves.

 #6:  At this time, my grandma died, and I went to see my grandpa.  He lives next to a lake and has a bunch of windows that all frame a gorgeous water view.  When I got to his house (that my grandma had kept immaculate and beautiful her whole life) I saw that one of his deck chairs was in the living room.  This was very unusual, so I asked him about it.  He said that grandma always made him change his clothes when he came in from working with the cows (he's a rancher), but now that she was gone, he could just come in and sit down in his muddy clothes.  I had been studying Dali at the time, and decided to paint something for my grandpa in this style.  I titled it, "Making the Best of Things."

 #6:  At some point, I picked up a step-by-step watercolor book and some tube paints (cheap ones) and some paper (cheap) and 2 brushes (expensive for me in university but still cheap), and started doing the examples.  I did this next one twice.

 #7:  I actually still like this next one quite a bit.  You can see that the book was having a good influence on me, even though I didn't understand the "rules" I was following: things in the distance are more pale, I saved some whites, etc...  What amazes me now was how dark I was getting the trees in the front.  When I went back to watercolor 15 years later, getting dark, opaque colors would be one of my biggest challenges.

#8:  I'll add this one later when I can get a picture of it, but it was the final watercolor I did until I started taking classes again.  It was another step-by-step exercise, and I gave it to give my dad for Christmas. 

It was fun finding these old paintings and remembering my first exposure to watercolor. I could be sorry that I didn't pursue it more back then, but I know it wasn't the right time for it for me. Although I do love watercolor, I don't have that passion for it that so many artists have. I'm okay putting it aside for a while and coming back to it.

Tomorrow I'm hoping to start a new class and those are good motivation for me. As always, I'll keep updating this site with my progress.

The Bunny

My 8-year-old niece has had a special friend since she was born:  The Bunny.  I saw her with it last year and asked if I could take a couple of photos of her and her friend, knowing I wanted to paint them together.  Once I started, it came together really quickly, and although I feel I probably should have pushed for a broader range of values, I got the Bunny's face just right, especially around the eyes.  I gave it to her a couple of weeks ago for Christmas and watching her open it was priceless.

Week 7: Boats

I am so proud of my painting this week, it might be the best I've done.
  There is an artist I really admire named Joseph Zbukvic, and I used one of his pieces as my reference.  Everything on his website is amazing and inspiring:  Paintings by Zbukvic

To prepare, I did a small study during my lunch hour.  I tried to do a slanted horizon, but it didn't work at all.  I'm so glad I did the study first:

This is how far I got during class.  I liked it a lot, but I wasn't getting the misty mountain effect, and the sail needed more detail.  I was pretty nervous that I'd mess it up, but I'm glad I made the changes.

First I used a scrubber to fade out the rooftops and shadows, and then I darkened the mountain in a few places, making sure to soften all of my edges. I added more masts, and some more detail to the sail and water, and that was about it.  This was my last class for this session, and I'm not planning on taking any more classes until after the holidays, so I might not be posting much for a while.

Week 6: White Flowers

It's crazy how much color goes into a white flower.  I'm not a fan of the background or the stems/leaves, but it's the first time I did a detailed flower and I think I did a great job with the colors and blending.

I used an amazing watercolor painting I found on google images as my reference.

Week 5: Flowers

For this week we were supposed to employ a loose, relaxed style to paint a vase of flowers.  For my reference I kind of cheated and followed a tutorial in a book by Charles Reid.  I wish I could come up with something like this on my own!

The first painting went so quickly I had time to start something else.  This next one took about 15 minutes and was done from a photo reference my teacher provided.  It needs some darker greens in the leaves, but I love how loose and easy it was.

Week 4: Moving Water

I haven't been doing much practice between sessions this year, but I did do a practice this week.

After I completely muddied up the left side shrubbery I decided to try a new fern technique.  I think it's kind of interesting, but not the right style.

With this second one I did a much better job with the foliage on the left, but there are still a lot of other issues.  The first thing that jumps out at me is how the waterfall isn't perfect horizontal across the top and is defying gravity.  There are also some gravity-defying rocks floating near the middle.  Oh dear.

Just look at the flowers.

Week 3: Building and Foliage

You may remember this house from a previous post - I painted the neighbor house to this house during the summer.  I preferred the shape of this house and have wanted to come back to it, so this week's assignment was a great match.

Again, I only had an hour to complete the painting below.  The biggest problem to me is the dark foliage on the sides which kept me from seeing the lines of the house in a few places.  I thought I could fake it, but I've ended up with a house that has obvious structural issues.

I am considering giving this a second go.  I'd like to fix the lines and perspective, commit to more shadows, and play up the complementary colors.  I think this could be a really pretty cottage-y type piece if I can loosen up a little, and if I can figure out how to communicate the blue of the house without it becoming overwhelming.

Bottom line though:  I was actually quite pleased by how this came out.