The Thaw

I have become fascinated with the role that oriental papers can play in enhancing a watercolor.  Many of you who have followed me know I have been working with painting on masa paper as well as working with rice paper and watercolor.

I began by painting a cruciform design in watercolor, then by using acrylic matte medium with a little water (four parts medium to one part water), glue torn pieces of rice paper into that design.  I enjoy the abstract qualities this brings to a painting and the interesting things, shapes and colors, created by the textures of the paper. I NEVER know when to stop with these. After applying the papers, I paint, again and add more papers  until I have an image I like.

This one made me think of the world, at large, and what a thaw might look like. With that, it took me other places, thinking about what it might take to to mend or thaw some of our differences and connect us once again. I am glad the chakra colors come through loud and clear of orange, blue, green and violet.  I stopped, here, not wanting to disturb that thought.

October

9.5 inches x 13.5 inches

Those of you who follow this blog know that I am forever saying that it takes me forever to paint a watercolor. However, I have reached a period of time that does not allow for much painting time. Last week I was so “hungry” to paint, I gave it a go at completing a painting in an hour. It turned out to be one of the most fun hours of the week. I splattered a piece of Arches 140lb cold pressed paper with liquid frisket and set out my palette. I chose a photo reference from wet canvas that I had previously set aside and went to work painting with a large 12 round brush. I worked light to dark and wet in wet and let the paper tell me when it had become dry enough to render detail. This gave this little piece a bit of a glow. I practiced my “little people” skills on the guy sitting by the river and finished with a splattering of the dark colors I had used.

After finishing this piece, I had a feeling I had painted something similar before.  It was not the same but had many of the same colors and was an October piece with much the same composition.

Stephen Kellogg has honored the above painting with a poem here. Thank you Stephen!  🙂

New Student Art!

painting by Henn Laidroo

The above painting was a result of one of my student’s experiments on masa paper. He felt the toning of it was too dark to develop a landscape on. He saw faces in the shapes he found in the patterns. I think it looks like our class!  🙂

A heartfelt thank you to all my students who took the watercolor landscape class this fall. Thank you to Henn Laidroo for allowing me to share the above painting. It makes me smile. The new Student Art page can be viewed here.

Down by the River: August

What can I say?  Tonight will be the first night I teach how to prepare a sheet of masa paper for watercolor painting to my watercolor landscape students.  For any who would like to learn this technique, you can find how to prepare the surface here and here. Several followers of this blog have taken up the challenge and also paint on masa paper and they can be found here and here.

I used a photo from the wet canvas site’s library for the above piece. I concentrated, mostly, on value, shape and color to paint the scene. I was interested in how the values in the photograph worked well and brought the scene into view without a whole lot of detail or definition. I need practice in this area of getting away from detail.  To me, the scene looked straight from late august with flies and bees buzzing.

I am trying to keep up with everybody and thank you all for your patience as my time online continues to be at a minimum. I love you all and will be around soon.