Pthalo, Phthalo, Thalo and Prussian

About this painting- and all of that gorgeous green grass! I learned a lesson about how SCARY pthalo green can be to a watercolor painting. Pthalo green and pthalo or prussian blue are staining, aggressive and 'yes' scary colors! I have those on  my palette as other artists have mentioned they make great darks. However, they have ruined 2 of my paintings this week as NOTHING I did to neutralize these colors worked. Yesterday I spent an hour or so emptying/discarding all of the colors on my palette (including those obnoxious colors) and squeezing out only colors I love and find workable. Time well spent!

Of course, this is NOT the painting - but the photo. The painting will be redrawn and started again (without staining colors!). Perhaps shown in a later blog.

Is this Des Moines?

This week I spent the a couple of afternoons sketching and painting in the Pappajohn Sculpture Gardens downtown Des Moines. I gave plein air painting a good run! The sun and slight wind enjoyed blurring my eyesight and tossing my easel or watercolor board around at times. Totally worth is as I watched and listened to all sorts of people enjoying this public space. I saw everyone from new brides to people enjoying a lunch hour, to kids tossing footballs. Was this Des Moines?!? It sure was! I am thankful for the donation and tax dollars that went into finding/procuring and saving this beautiful area.

Backlit

Curious about this title? I came up with ~a dozen titles for this painting as I painted over the past few days. It could be due to the fact that this is my 3rd version of this composition. The other 2 were a tad less successful. It took some preplanning to decide on the colors, composition and design before I felt comfortable with this.

This beautiful woman was walking down a rural road in Bali last year. I stopped in my tracks when I saw her/this scene from afar, whipped out my camera and wished I could stop time. I only had time to smile at her, then hope she didn't mind as I snapped away. She was obviously working, had a huge load of tropical leaves on her head. The summer sun was behind her, making it appear that this vision was from another place or time. The look on her face as she realized what I was doing will always make me grateful. She beamed. I don't know if what I saw was kindness, compassion, warmth, a friendly smile or tolerance. It doesn't matter. It was a warm, beautiful smile in a bucolic scene. That gesture and her grace warmed my heart.

A Day of Portraits and Models

Day 4. Exhausting. Learned alot. Got frustrated, then poured those feelings out on my watercolor paper and life felt OK again. Drawing figures and portraits with any sense of accuracy is almost impossible unless done daily. Never mind. This act is probably frustrating period. It is also satisfying when an artist does capture a feeling or likeness of the model.

Attached is a portrait that I gave up on, started dropping in all sorts of mudd (professional term in my watercolor world.....), then started painting in vivid colors here and there. Mary (instructor) came by and took my sponge (!) and wiped out areas of highlights. Quite nice result, actually. A few more brush strokes here and there and this is the result.

The top photo is of Mary Whyte, her painting demo and the model that she was painting. An inspiring day.

"Does anybody really know what time it is?"

Spent the AM painting at the Marina. The weather here has been surreal. I have found that September is the perfect month to visit San Francisco. There were 3 boats harbored here that captured me from the start. This photo was taken about 1/2 way through my painting. My painting stopped abruptly as 3 men started lounging on the grass around my easel. They were friendly enough, actually quite chatty, but I became unnerved as one started speaking about stealing the watches from another painter and myself. Well, time to move on to our next venue.....the afternoon found us back in the classroom painting models. I left my watch in my room.

A Day to Remember

Well, today was emotional. I thought I would start with that to shut down any outside ears that could not take this 'kind of talk'.....this AM was another demo by Mary Whyte. Fantastic street scene that captured the side of a parking garage (!) and turned from dull grays, into lively grays and then a few strokes of vivid color as she was finishing a street car.

We then went off to paint our own masterpieces. I found myself at the end of a dock, amazed at the fog as it lifted and then reappeared. I sketched the side of the pier and a large boat anchored in the bay. It was mesmorizing. I kept putting down my sketchbook to grab my camera for yet another photo as the fog showed another side of it's personality. Finally, as I was painting I found myself crying a bit. Yep, pretty sappy, but this AM was surreal. The smells of ocean water, fish, bakeries; along with the fog horns and the cool breeze was something I will never forget. Alright, the painting that I started is going along well, but I want to finish that later this week and enter the photo at that time.

This afternoon we camped at the Palace of Fine Arts. I DID complete that painting (probably because I didn't spend my time weaping!) and am proud of a more than a few aspect of this one. I have posted an actual photo of the part of the Palace of Fine Arts and my1/2 sheet painting. I hope you enjoy this.

Art on the Coast....

Day #1 of a workshop in SF with Mary Whyte. I am using a new type of brush and Mary's suggested palette. Workshops are usually intimidating and I found today to be par along this line. Mary's demo looked SOOO easy. No problem. Well, the 1st brush strokes of a background layer proved that theory to be wrong. After a couple of hours and mumbling something with more color that my painting, the attached photo is what I have to show for the day. Mary is smiling in the background, posing for this shot. She really is a good sport, artist and teacher. Soooo, I have much hope for tomorrow!

I would write more, but happy hour is well under way and I need to go get mentally prepared for tomorrow.

"Cheers!"