This is a painting from a couple of years ago. I'm posting it now in celebration of the completion of my last college exam! It's called "King of the Mountain" and that's how I feel today :)

"Firefly Meditation" ~ Original Watercolor ~ 9/21

There's always more than one way to do something...

The first attempt needed something...


So I added some abstracted blocking to the scenery, a format that allowed me to spread an accent blue color throughout the entire picture. You gotta play around a little in painting, right?

I've been thinking about color lately. It started with green. I kept looking at trees and noticing the surprising variations of color; some were true green, some a shocking lime green, some almost blue. Even the same type of tree could contain wild variations depending upon the lighting. Then I revisited a picture I'd started several months ago which featured my dad's vegetable garden and focused on the different shades of green present in the various plants. I really liked the idea of the picture, but since it was very small I decided to do a bigger one. I pulled out the reference photos I'd used months ago... and realized the colors looked nothing like what I was seeing when I stepped outside and looked at this year's crop of plants.

Let me interrupt the narrative to note the significance of that discovery. I've read and been told for years that colors in photos aren't as vivid as what you see in plein air. I didn't believe it when I was a teenager- just couldn't see the difference. I tried my best to match the colors of the photo and was convinced that was good enough. Later I noticed that when I looked at other artist's paintings, they used more pure colors than I did. So I compensated and started exaggerating the colors in the photos. Over the years I've moved further and further away from the colors in the photos.

Back to the garden. I decided to do something radical; I went outside and painted the colors of the garden in plein air. (I know, about half of the artists reading this are flipping out right about now.) Actually, I have painted outdoors before, but never with a sole focus on color. What I saw that day has changed the way I'm looking at color. The last several paintings I've done have been the first where I sketched the picture, did a value study, and then totally ignored the photo reference during the painting process. Even though I still paint in the studio, just getting outside once in a while to paint color is enought to remind me of the tones I want to work into my paintings. This sunflower picture is the latest example of my new method and I'm really excited about it. So deepens the painting addiction :)

Original Watercolor ~ "Sunflowers" ~ 20/28

A great excuse to paint some of my favorite things: gleams of light bouncing off polished wood and reflections of light scattered crazily on walls. Not to mention the newly discovered fun of drybrushing sea green and pastel blues and purples on frosted glass. For those classical music aficionados out there, I've thrown in an homage to one of my favorite composers.
Original Watercolor ~ "Baroque Lights" ~ 15/27

This is a picture with many lives. It started with me carefully masking out the tree branches (which takes a considerable amount of time, I might add) and putting a big wash over the top 2/3 of the picture to represent the foliage; which turned out muddy and too dark; which meant turning the paper over and starting again; which meant masking out the tree all over again (which took a little less time because I was getting very good at it). Then came a period of relative peace when I applied a successful background wash and painted the rest of the picture, including the akward figure in the red shirt walking into the scene from the right side. What, you don't see the figure? Oh, that's right; I had to scrub it out because it looked so awful. You know that line from the second Narnia film where someone says "who ever heard of a witch who really died... you can always get them back"? Well, that's my philosophy about white paper: you can always get it back; it just may not be pretty. But then the picture needed something red in that corner. So I added the poppies which helped covered up that not-pretty white spot. End of tale.
Original Watercolor ~ 16/22

There's something magical about the sheltered place beneath a canopy of low hanging branches. When I was a kid, my favorite play-spot was near the heart of a mulberry tree (or bush... not sure which is correct). It yielded many hours of imagination and innumerable purple stains on clothes and skin. This picture portrays the more picturesque shelter of an apple tree.
Original Watercolor ~ 16/16

I'm taking advantage of my last weekend of freedom before school starts again to post my latest work. Getting back into the paints for several weeks has reminded me of how much I need a creative outlet. Sometimes music does it... and sometimes it just has to be a wet brush on paper. This is a scene I encountered while on a long walk at our cabin this past summer.
"Out Back" ~ Original watercolor ~ 9/12

"Stream Moss" Original Watercolor ~ 12/8

I've had a picture of this girl for a long time but never could decide what to do with it. Her outfit is so outrageous that it reminds me of my childhood dress-up days. That, plus the fun pairing of hot orange and purple made her an irresistable subject to paint. When I came across another photo of a sheep looking over it's shoulder, I decided the two belonged together. I like to think she has "lost her sheep and doesn't know where to find it."
"Little Bo-Peep" ~ Original Watercolor ~ 9/15