A Different Perspective!

Cades Cove Church

A different perspective can make a good painting a great one.!

One of the most difficult parts of a painting can be the composition.  This is especially true when painting on location or setting up a still life.  My watercolor painting above titled  Cades Cove Church, was painted from a photograph I took when visiting Cades Cove in the Great Smoky Mountains.  I took several photos of the church from different perspectives to find the one that added the most interest.   See the examples below:

Cades Cove Church

Same church....different perspective

As you can see from the photos above, a different perspective can  make a more interesting painting.

Happy Painting!
Karen

Summer Hummer!



Summer Hummer
Watercolor Painting



The hummingbirds have returned!  These hungry little birds are a fun sight in my yard and we enjoy watching them eat at our feeders.  As shown in this painting, they love bright colored flowers, especially reds and yellows.

I will be taking a short "vacation" from my blog until July while we are relocating to another part of the state.  I thought the little fellow above would be a good example of how busy we'll be over the course of the next few weeks.  We'll be as busy and probably as hungry!

Keep painting - summer is a wonderful time to grab that sketch book and your paint brushes and enjoy the wonderful opportunities to paint outdoors.   Grab a camera too  - capture the summer to paint when fall and winter  weather arrives. 

See you soon - keep checking back.  I hope to have some wonderful paintings of our new location and watercolor tips to share.

Happy Painting!

Karen

Central Park!

Central Park
Watercolor painting
11" x 15 Mats to 16" x 20"

The watercolor above was done for my son for his birthday and was double matted with a cream white and a rusty brown in a medium brown frame. 

This painting contrasts the natural park settings of the old stone bridge, rugged rocks, trees and lake reflections with the manmade structures of the high rise buildings on the Upper West Side seen in the distance and invites the viewer into the scene to stroll along the foreground path.

As you look for subjects to paint, look for contrasts in your setting to add interest to your work.

Happy Painting!

Karen

Get Inspired!



Dixon Garden Dogwood



Get Inspired!  The BrushStrokes advanced watercolor class toured the Dixon Gallery and Gardens recently before continuing work on their spring palette painting!  The photo above is one of many beautiful plants in the garden area.  I have included a watercolor study of a dogwood I painted below.



Dogwood Study

The Dixon Gallery and Garden, one of the  art museum in the Memphis, TN area, specializies in Impressionist and  Post-Impressionist paintings.  The museum inspires the artist not only through viewing the numerous paintings, but through strolling the beautiful gardens, which display many seasonal plantings that are a riot of color from spring through fall. 

In addition to the permanent collection, the Dixon is host to numerous exhibitions through the year.  We were able to view many works of Joe Jones.  Mr. Jones was heralded in the 1930s as one of America's most powerful social realist painters. 

So, if you need inspiration of simply want to spend an enjoyable afternoon, tour an art gallery! 

Happy Painting!
Karen

Spring Flowers!

Golden Trumpets
11" x 15" Mats to 16" x 20"

The technique used in this watercolor gives the painted paper a batik-look achieved without the traditional batik use of wax. Below is a short definition of batik.



Batik (pronunciation: [ba.te], but often, in English, is [bæ.tɪk] or [bətiːk]) is a wax-resist dyeing technique used on textile. Batik is found in several countries of West Africa, such as Nigeria, Cameroon and Mali, and in Asia, such as India, Sri Lanka, Bangladesh, Iran, Malaysia and Thailand. However, it is in Indonesia that it is considered a national art form.


Painting instructions:


1) Do not tape down your paper before your sketch. Sketch in the flowers and leaves with little detail. Make the pencil lines dark enough on the flowers to be seen after the crumpling and wetting technique, but do not press hard enough to indent or scratch the paper.

2) Here’s the hard part………crumple the paper up in a ball as though you were going to throw it away. Concentrate on making wrinkles in all areas of the paper without tearing it….crumple easily.


3) Submerge the paper ball into water making certain it is evenly wet. Remove from the water and unfold carefully. Smooth onto your sketch board and tape along the edges. The tape will not stick well to the wet surface; however, it will hold enough to keep the paper in place.


4) While the paper is still very wet, float in the background of green and blue working around the petunias. I used sap green and Windsor blue; however, other shades of blue and green can be used with a pleasing effect. Use a large flat brush or mop to place in the background except for working around the flowers. Use a #6 round or similar size brush to work in the background around the flowers.


5) Let this dry COMPLETELY!

6) Flowers: Once the background is dry the daffidols are painted in using a wet-in-wet technique. Wet the center first and apply a wash of yellow/gold. A wash of clean water is painted on the areas to be paintedyellow. Then a wash of yellow is laid in starting near the center and letting the water pull the color to the edge of the petals. A darker yelow is worked at the edge and allow to run back into the first wash of color creating a deep center and deep edges with a slightly lighter center. Some of the blue and green from the background will be found in the wrinkles and creases of the paper and will look like veins in the petals. Also, the wrinkles and creases will allow the yelow color to bleed into the white areas of the petals. Don’t despair, that is what you want to happen and is part of the beauty of this technique. Continue painting all flowers, alternating petals that are touching.  After the flowers are completely dry, the centers are detailed slightly.



7) Leaves: The leaves are painted in only after the flowers are dry. If your leaves have become hidden under the washes, lightly sketch in some leaves. Using a mix of colors: gold, green, blue, add leaves using deeper colors to indicate shadows. Some of the leaves are simply painted with a wash of water to give the appearance of flowers fading into the background.


8) This painting can be matted on top of mat board with a torn edge in keeping with the batik look. Place a ruler along the edge of the painting and tear the paper lifting slowly and creating a jagged edge with layers of the white paper showing. Or, if you prefer, you may mat your painting in the traditional method.

Happy Painting!
Karen

Spring Watercolor Palette

Paris in Spring
11" x 15" Mats to 16" x 20"

Spring - The Seasonal Palette
The green shades of spring are exceptionally fresh and vibrant. To capture the colors of spring in your paintings, color mixing should be kept to a minimum. Remember the more colors you mix together, the duller and more subdued the resulting color will be. For the spring palette, it is a good idea to limit your color mixing to only 3 colors. For example, most spring greens can be mixed from a simple 2 color mix of one blue and one yellow. Also, consider using a “purchased” green for some of the greens in a spring landscape.

 The majority of greens found in a spring landscape consist of a lot of yellow. Early spring flowers are predominately yellow. For the first fresh leaves of spring, grass and flower, yellow is the most significant color on the spring palette.



Spring Palette Colors:


• Sap Green


• Ultramarine


• Viridian


• Cerulean blue


• Phthalo Blue


• Cadmium Yellow Pale (cool yellow)


• Cadmium Yellow Deep (golden yellow)


• Lemon Yellow (cool yellow)


• Indian Yellow (golden yellow)


• Yellow Ochre (golden yellow)

 Color Mixes:


• Cadmium lemon + Ultramarine = Cool, fresh green…..good for flowerbeds


• Diluted viridian can be used to add bluish- green texture (good for shadows and shaded areas in foliage)


• Cadmium yellow + cerulean blue = Bright, sharp green for foreground foliage


• Yellow ochre + Phthalo blue = dull green for dark-leaved trees


Important Yellows


Cool, acid yellows are particularly useful for springtime because when mixed with blue, they create sharp greens characteristic of fresh leaves. The coolest yellows are those with a blue bias: lemon yellow, cadmium yellow pale, cadmium lemon. Depending on the blues theses yellow are mixed with, these yellows will produce a range of cool, vivid greens found in a spring landscape.

 Golden yellow (those with a red bias) produce warm or subtle greens, depending on the choice of blue. These golden yellows include cadmium yellow deep, Indian yellow, and yellow ochre.


Spring Blues


The blues used are primarily ultramarine, cerulean blue and Phthalo blue. These blues are used for sky as well as mixing with yellows to create spring shades of green.



Purchased or Premixed Greens


Self-mixed greens are usually easier to integrate into a landscape than a single color of a premixed green. However, spring foliage is often so bright that it is important to have that color stand out, rather than simply blend in. In this case, purchased greens are great in a spring landscape. However, purchased greens can be mixed with blues and yellows to blend foliage.


The following are examples of purchased greens that work well in the spring landscape:

• Sap green


• Viridian (use in limited quantities as this color can dominate a scene)



Spring sunlight is usual low which make the colors appear particularly bright and luminous. With watercolor, you can capture this translucent effect perfectly by applying paint in a thin layer so that the white paper shows through the wash of color. Avoid using white paint in a spring landscape. The chalky effect of white paint is particularly unwelcome when you want to capture the fresh, sunny colors of spring. To create white flowers and highlights, leave patches of unpainted white paper.


Happy Painting!


Karen

Daylight Savings Time - What It Means to an Artist!

Spring Smile
Watercolor 9" x 12" Mats to 14" x 16"


Daylight savings time starts tomorrow!  Although I don't enjoy "losing" that hour's sleep when our clock's spring forward, I do enjoy the end result - later sunsets!  Even though the number of daylight hours don't change with daylight savings time,  the daylight hours are found on the clock at a time when I can better use them. 

What does that mean to an artist?   Well, to me, it means that I have more daylight hours when I am awake to paint.  (It also gives me more time for yard work which will soon be needed with the coming of Spring.....but that is another story!)  There is just "something" about natural light when painting. 

March 20th is the first day of Spring, but I am already working on spring paintings and preparing my lesson plans for teaching the "spring palette."    I'll discuss the spring palette in upcoming blogs.  But, as you are outside the next week, take a look around at what's blooming in your area...even if it is weeds.  What is the dominate color?

Until next blog....take a nap and rest up for "springing forward!"

Happy Painting!
Karen

Brenda's Barn

Brenda's Barn

Watercolor 9" x 12" Mats to 14" x 16"

My watercolor painting above was painted from a photograph taken by one of my friends.  Her photo was taken across the street from her home during our last snow...just a week ago.  She is an excellent photographer who has a knack for composition in her subjects.  Her photo caught my eye as an excellent subject for a painting.

My watercolor class is concluding a unit of study on the winter palette;  so this painting was an excellent way to end this unit using the colors of the winter palette.    As a recap, the follow are colors in the winter palette:

• Payne’s Gray

• Ultramarine

• Burnt Sienna

• Sap Green

• Burnt Umber

In my painting above, I used ultramarine and Payne's gray for my sky as well as the snow shadows.  Tree branches and trees were painted with a mix of burnt umber and Payne's gray. The barn was a mix of reds and burnt umber to give a weathered texture to the red barn.

This was a fun painting for me....I love painting old barns; and this was is even more special since it was painted from a photo taken by a friend.

If the groundhog was right, Spring is just around the corner.  We will start a new unit of study in our watercolor classes for March - the Spring palette.  So, good by winter....see you next year!

Happy Painting!
Karen

Snowy Trail



Snowy Trail
Watercolor 11" x 15" Mats to 16" x 20"

It keeps snowing, so I keep painting snowscapes.  If it keeps snowing where you are as well and want to keep capturing the cold weather to help cool you off in July, the following are some tips for painting snowscapes.

Advice on Painting Snow:
Snow transforms a landscape, softening edges and imposing tonal harmony. In bright sunshine, its reflective quality gives the landscape a dazzling brilliance, with trees and other features standing out in contrast to the prevailing whiteness.

When painting a snow scene in watercolor, you need to work logically from light to dark, conserving the white of the paper for the snow and applying washes carefully to the surrounding areas. Using masking fluid as needed to preserve the white of the water.

Warm and cool color contracts are very evident in snowy landscapes. Shadows are a characteristic blue-lilac color and were often depicted in winter scenes by Impressionist painters, who understood how these colors complemented the yellowish orange of the winter sunlight.


Advice on Painting Winter Trees:
When painting winter trees, especially leafless ones, consider their structure and growth pattern carefully.

Use the flat of the brush for the main branches and the tip of the brush for the small ones.

When you paint towards the end of a branch, the line will naturally become thinner as you complete the stroke, creating a realistic effect.

A liner brush, a rigger, or a small palette knife can be used to paint very fine, thin branches.


Three Things to Remember When Painting a Snowscape:
Snow white paper….the snow is represented by the white of the paper itself.

Cool shadows are painted using cool violet-blue paint to contrast with the white of the paper and the glint of sunlight.

A crisply painted tree, fence post, house, or other object will create a focal point to draw the eye into the painting.

Don't complain about the snow.....paint it!  You'll be dreaming of this cold weather in July and August!

Happy Painting!
Karen

Frosty Windows!

Frosty Morn
Watercolor 11" x 15" Mats to 16" x 20"

In my watercolor painting above, Frosty Morn, the windows were "frosted" using a fun technique.

The painting was lightly sketched in using a ruler to make straight lines for the window panes.  The wooden part of the panes was masked out using art masking tape.   The snow can be masked using masking fluid. 

NOTE:  Artist tape is much easier to use then masking fluid when straight lines are needed. 

Instructions for "frosting" a window:

• It is important that you pre-wet the area of the window pane, but not the snow at the lower section of each frame. 
• Pre-wet these sections using a flat brush. 
• You will want to apply pigment to these areas while the surface area is wet and shiny.  Apply variation of hues using several shades of blues and lavender.  Remember watercolors dry lighter. 
• Start with the top frames. 
• While the windows are wet, place a slightly wrinkled piece of plastic wrap over the top of the paint.  Repeat this process on all window frames.   
• The plastic wrap can be taped in place if needed.   
• It is important you leave the plastic on the surface to form the “frost” until the surface is DRY. 
•  If you life the plastic while the paper or the paint is wet,  the pigment will have a soft edge and will not “frost” the window panes. 
• If the color is not as dark as you would like you can re-wet the area with clean water, apply more pigment, and plastic and let dry. 
• When dry, remove the plastic wrap.
• It is very tempting to lift the plastic wrap to see what is happening under the plastic wrap, but be patient - the finished result will be forth the wait.

Happy Painting!

Karen