Pages

Monday, August 9, 2010

Photos and A First Watercolor WIP

First of all, I want to shout to the rooftops that I am feeling fine; no physical weirdness - no pain, no swelling. Ah, life is great!

I have some photos to share. I was without internet access the entire week at Sugar Loaf, but after the initial irritation, it was probably a good respite. We had lots of family time. I made time to visit my sister-in-law (my brother (her husband), John, lost his battle with cancer two years ago) in her new digs and was surprised to find my niece, Jane, there as well. We had a very nice visit.

Almost my entire immediate family made it up for the week. My son was unable to come, but his daughter joined us, so there were six of us. Fun, fun, fun!

Don't you love that sky?



Also, I have actually gotten brave enough to try a watercolor. It is on 8.5" x 11" watercolor paper. All I have so far is the initial laying in of color. I have lots of fine tuning to do. I will try to get up the courage to add color and definition to the trees, grasses and texture to the area between the barn and the fence, and figure out where I want the shadows to be.


I'd really love your input and/or suggestions as I am truly a beginner. I have limited colors so I mixed some ultramarine and gamboge with just a touch of quin red for the trees; some quin red with a bit of gamboge for the barn and violet, quin red, pthalo blue with a touch of gamboge to get the brown for the windows, door and fence.

I am so happy to be home and am working hard on my Drawing Lab assignments that I am working on with the Yahoo Group Artists of the Round Table. What a great group that is!

I have plans today:

walk the treadmill
check out a studio where a woman gives watercolor lessons
take my daughter and her girls out to lunch
go to Sam's to get bottled water, coffee and softener salt
vacuum the sand out of the trunk and back seat of my new car
work on my watercolor

As I am only on my first cup of coffee, I'd better get this body in gear.

xoxo

10 comments:

  1. love the sky and those great sillowettes (sp?) in the first photo ! E J Mordasky

    ReplyDelete
  2. Beautiful photos, and the little girls little shapes are darling. You did a really nice job with the wash in the sky - not always easy. Also, your color mixing to get what you wanted was successful - nice job! Did you do a value sketch first? Remember that the parts of the building in shade will be darker than the others. See where you are with it in terms of values before you decide where to have the light source. You're doing great so far! hugs, nancy

    ReplyDelete
  3. I agree with what Nanke has said....except in a different order....determine first the light source, place your values, mix your colours and then fly. Great job so far.

    ReplyDelete
  4. The photos are beautiful! And nice watercolor painting so far... can't wait to see the finished product ^^

    ReplyDelete
  5. Yeah!! NO bodily weirdness!! I'm so happy for you. The photos are so neat, I love the skies and wish that I could paint the sky as I see it. Skis always turn out something different for me. The watercolor is coming along really well. I can't give too much help as I have only ever done WC with WC pencils and the names of the colors are so different. I can't wait to see how your's comes along. :)

    ReplyDelete
  6. what great photos! Love the silhouettes....
    and your watercolour is off to a great start!

    ReplyDelete
  7. Great skies!

    I can't offer much advice on the watercolor - it's the medium I am most clueless about. But it sounds like you have some good suggestions from the other commenters!

    ReplyDelete
  8. Beautiful photos and good on you to try out watercolor painting. You're doing very well. Just keep doing it and soon you'll be amazed by your own work.

    Thank you for sharing and looking forward to more of your paintings! ;)

    ReplyDelete
  9. First...I'm so glad that you're feeling healthy again!! The photos are spectacular. I especially like the composition of the third photo. And, I have to say, that is an excellent start on your watercolor! Mine never look this good in the beginning stages. I wouldn't be able to give you any advice on watercolor--I 'wing-it'--but the advice already given seems sound to me!

    ReplyDelete
  10. Glad to hear you're feeling better.
    The photos are beautiful, wonderful skies. I wish I could help with watercolour tips but I'm still trying to learn myself and I've been trying for years!

    ReplyDelete