Royal Tern
Heron
This week, in creative drawing, we masked off areas of our paper with torn and cut pieces of painters tape. We then drew into these with graphite. For an explanation of supplies and how we did this check week six on the creative drawing page.
The challenge with this painting was getting the cactus to read like cactus. I ended up scumbling the shadow areas with mixtures of the blues and neutrals I used in the rest of the painting and finishing with a liner brush to make the spiney prickles. The wrens were fun to shape in and they took several layers getting more detailed with each layer.
This week in Watercolor Plus class we started our paintings with tape resist. We taped a design or picture onto our watercolor paper using painter’s tape and washed some washes over it to begin our painting. I tore strips of painter’s tape to create the starburst pattern that you see in this abstract. I also splattered liquid frisket to act as a resist . After removing the tape I worked the trees at the bottom into the painting with shades of red, green, and sepia watercolor with texture medium. To enhance the effect of the starburst I worked iridescent medium into the yellows and golds. After everything dried, I splattered with green, sepia and red.
I created this drawing/painting from one- reference photo by re-scrambling its segments. What an exercise in value, line and composition! I listed my process under Week Five on the creative drawing page.
A few weeks ago I posted a rhino in this technique. I liked the technique so well, I decided to teach it with my Watercolor Plus class this fall. I like the block print look of them coupled with the more creamy look of the watercolor. After you wash the ink off , the paper still retains some gouache. I think it is this remaining gouache that mingles with your watercolors to make them respond different on the paper and look more creamy. We followed Sonia Leggett’s directions posted in Wet Canvas. I originally learned of this technique from Raji.
I used to think the “Pot of Gold” was found at journey’s end. As I age I learn it is everywhere. Today I went on a search for a pot of gold and this is what I found.
It is in a sunrise. It is in the leather of a pair of old boots. I found it in the light from a window and the toes of a tree frog. It was in a bush at the side of a church. I found it in durians in Malaysia and a dining room in the UK . It was in Spout Cave in Africa. It was in a “Swallows Wing” and “Between Scylla and Charybdis 4″. It was in a little yellow bird and a highlight on a tomato. I found it in “Core Values” and the coat of a beloved pet. It was in a sunflower and in a journey. It was in a Haiku and the robe of an old friend. It was in the paintings of Remedios Varo. I found gold in “Araku Valley” and “Las Penas de Haya” . I found it in bricks. It was in a lily and a Ganesh. It was in the eyes of wildlife and in the setting sun of Big Sur.
In creative drawing this week we created drawings of a dream or memory by creating a collage of pictures to use as a photo reference. You can follow how I created this under the Illustrating a Dream or Memory on my Creative Drawing page here.
The “good” witch after two hours of trick or treating last year. Happy Halloween everyone!
This week in watercolor plus class we all did a saran wrap print in watercolor. The above is my print plus my beginning stage of figuring out how I was going to use it. We turned our prints around looking at it from all 4 sides until we saw something we could work with to create a picture or an abstract to enhance. I always like to use the forms of the original print and try to build on them. I began by building on the moon, outbuildings and foreground flower shapes I found. The moon was filled in with gesso as white didn’t quite eliminate the color from underneath due to the transparent effect of watercolor. The shapes of the flowers and outbuildings were there, I just painted them in. I wanted this to appear as though I was peering through foliage, from a distance and began laying out different colored leaf forms I tore from rice papers. I used acrylic matte medium to adhere the leaf forms to the paper.
In the next step, I finished the leaf forms, detailed the foreground flowers and changed their color from orange to red as I thought the red brought them into the foreground better. I finished the outbuildings and had to use some gesso in them because they began to disappear. I began selecting tree shapes from the print and painting them in as well as the greenish hill forms that ran across the paper. Note that I painted the shapes that were in the print and did not add my own. This is what gives this a stenciled cut out appearance.
In the third step, I filled in the tree shapes, brightened the moon and furthur accentuated the foreground flowers and leaf shapes.
In the final stage, I balanced the white in the moon with adding white rice paper flowers to the bushes that looked like a dark blobs in the foreground. I also painted in all the little printed shapes in the open meadow area in front of the outbuildings. This exercise is fun but very time consuming and really tugs at your ability to be creative.
Joshua Sellers has posted this painting along with a Haiku by Issa. I am becoming more and more interested in Haiku by following this blog.
Self Portrait
This week in Creative Drawing we practiced drawing by using only cross contours. We drew our subject material by imagining that our pencil was travelling across the form from top to bottom and left to right. As the pencil moved across the form we tried to replicate that form. We lightened the pressure on our pencil where we saw more light or where the form moved towards us and applied more pressure where it was darker or moved back and away. We concluded that cross contours could add to the shape, heft and movement of a drawing. We decided to look for the evidence of cross contours in finished drawings and paintings that we observed in the future.
I decided to title this piece “Grandmummy” because my grand daughter recognized it right off as being me. I guess that’s a good thing?
