A Green Streak

This painting idea has been brewing for about a year(!) since doing  a plein air study at the Pappajohn Sculpture Garden in Des Moines. The day was a gorgeous Iowa summer day, the panoramic skyline was fun from this spot. What bugged me was all of that green grass in the foreground! Artists who paint Iowa summer landscapes can relate to how hard mixing a believable, interesting green is. My greens tend to look like they came right out of the tube - as sometimes that color DOES appear as a Sap Green mixed with a bit of Hookers Green.

My solution above was to imagine a sunset hitting all of that perfectly mowed, Hookers Green grass. (BTW, that is really a paint name)

Below are 2 artists that have helped me with my Green struggles:
Jeanne Dobie - Viridian + Aureolin + a touch of Indian Red (various grayed or warm reds work here)
Janet Rogers- adds a bit of Cobalt Violet Light to her greens

"The Beach is That-a-way"

For some of my followers - My title here is a play on the joke where someone flexes their arm to point to the beach....I did feel this pair (get it?!) is communicating so I thought I would have this fellow show off a bit.

Lesson here (again from Carol Marine) was to mix a color and put it down with 1 or 2 strokes, then mix another fresh color and repeat. I cheated a bit, but not too much. I liked the fresh approach and results with this technique.

Uh, Carol if you are reading this, you may not recognize this painting as I stayed after class with a couple of art buddies and a bottle of wine. This painting was our evening entertainment. :-)

Seeing Red

These small paintings found their way home safely from a workshop in Texas a couple of weeks ago. It was a great week of painting small, still life paintings with Carol Marine. I am a bit worried that our group put Carol over the top as she took a sabbatical immediately after our group dismissed.....I KNEW I shouldn't have asked that last question!

 My goal here was to define form with the use of color. I think I did just that, but perhaps should drink less coffee.

Daily Painting

This was a colorful bunch found by my driveway yesterday morning. I love Parrot Tulips: their attitudes, colors and wavy lines of the leaves and flowers. I am proud that I finished this study today in one sitting (OK, I actually finished it in one DAY as I cannot sit for long and usually don't sit while painting)! 

Warm Reflections

Almost done with this painting. I am finishing details this week, then putting this painting aside for entry into a juried show. I am entering two paintings into the IWS show this year, hoping to get at least one of them accepted. This is the 2nd of my entries.

I am happy with the warm color scheme here and the feeling of warm reflections from the African cloth that were displayed on the wood tabletop under the flowers. I was trying to emphasize the reflections (and mood of the cloth) and not the obvious subjects. However, I did fall in love with the oranges quite early in this game. What I need to do now is lightly wrap this one up as I am on the verge of overworking this watercolor. 

While it's drying....

"Only when he no longer knows what he is doing does the painter do good things."
   Edgar Degas

This is the 2nd in a series on African textiles. Don't worry if you don't 'get it', this painting is not at all finished.  I have decided to write about this while it is drying as I have a new problem here - my focal point may be changing! I was painting a very wet-into-wet background and stopped this long enough to paint the three oranges. Well, the oranges were to be 'back-up' singers, but I love them! Now, that changes everything as I fear I have made these too important for the lead singer to shine. "Well, where is the lead singer?" you might be asking....that may be part of the problem here. I hadn't decided. I loved the white parrot tulips (not yet painted) AND the African textile that is going to be entering the background.

Lesson learned - decide exactly what your focal point will be before beginning the painting. I am hearing so many teachers in my head right now "Karen, do your homework!"

Dahlia's Part II

Well, I couldn't leave this alone. I posted this painting in a previous blog (see below). I couldn't decide whether to finish the background or not, so this painting has been leaning in my studio waiting,,,,and waiting. Today I was waiting for another painting to dry and grabbed this 'leaner'. Why not?! I wasn't satisfied with that first attempt as the entire reason I painted these dahlias was the backlighting - and that first painting did not show off the backlight effect I was after. So, I stopped breathing about an hour ago, grabbed a large brush, lots of water and pigment. Here is what I have so far. What do you think? Better before? It's just paper, right???

I read this past week that FEAR is what stops most artists from progressing. Fear of ruining a perfectly good painting, fear of other's opinions, fear of so many things. Well, I DO know that without stepping out of my comfort zone in art I just keep staying at the same level. Since my goal is to keep going to another level, I am choosing to keep pushing that 'fear' button and staring it in the face.