When you have an underpainting and are too anxious.

Having had to leave for an appointment I came in and was having so much fun with my cloud, I really felt the need to make that sky very flat. The nupastels I use were not hacking it. Because I used the Medium, I decided to try another experiment and took some sanitizing alcohol (the hotshots use denatured stuff, but I am not a hotshot and it makes it look all watercolory, which is EXACTLY what I want it to look like!



These are a real pain to photograph because the early light on the sketch was perfect. As the afternoon wore on, the skylight got darker so I turned on a lamp. LOTS of color wackiness. I will try to balance the pictures, even if they are not really true representations of the painting....

After tackling the sky, I decided the foreground plants were not right either. My limited palette was discouraging, so I just added some pure viridian watercolor to juice up the bushes.


Remember I am not a landscape painter, so this is going to go on instinct for a while and when I have what I call "covered" which is something I do in oil as well (I give myself permission to live with it a while and the rest will be tweaking. Sometimes it turns out to be done, but I reserve the signing for a while.)I will hit it with some workable fixative and let it darken a bit. I am having most fun playing with the multiple colors and their value properties. The simplest combinations can make radical changes... and the photography is really going to be hard to show it... ah well, back into the dust!
dj*

The Lucy Series

I have been covered in furry friends for a year now. I paint in the shade on the bench at the Scottsdale Off-Leash Dog Park when the weather is more favorable, and have worked on my blog documenting that since Thanksgiving.

Recently a few friends have helped me refresh some creative juices by volunteering to charge up my portrait (human) portfolio. The first group I want to post start with my friend Lucy and her marvelous kids, Kate and Milo.

I have observed that most portrait painters have a few glowing white-clad babes in their book. I love kids, but they are much like dogs. You do them a disservice by having them stiff and posed. They need energy and personality. Milo is a perpetual motion machine and Kate is a movie star.

I have plans to do a large oil of Kate, but the photo shoot and enthusiasm kept bringing me back to their images.

My first demo is not the first picture, but I want to show the short version of my watercolor paper technique.

The frugal part is the use of NuPastel. I am somewhat admired by people for my ability to squeeze out a monster range of color from these easy to buy, easy to use, relatively inexpensive hard pastel sticks. I like to blend color over color and use a lot of gray sticks to expand the range of the 48 or 92(?) colors in the box.

The second frugal part is the box of paints. I have a bucket of old acryics and watercolors that are drying up, taking up space, ready for the dumpster... but NOOO! I use them to make an underpainting for the pastel to follow to stretch the impact of the pastels.

The unfrugal part is my addiction to 300# watercolor paper. MOSTLY donated or scraps or the back of bad pictures, but I just love the stuff....

Above is a finish of Milo and Kate that was done in the technique. I THOUGHT I had my progress shots, but apparently not... so this is only what it ends up looking like.  Demos to follow!

dj*