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| I thought, at the time, a botanical would be nice to do ... |
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| ... so I started working on a hydrangea. |
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| Little did I appreciate what a stinker it would be to draw and paint! Mostly done wet-in-wet with some wet-on-dry with softening. Petals are quin. pink, cobalt blue, leaf green and phthalo. green. Leaves are leaf green, phthalo. green, quin. gold, quin. burnt orange and indanthrone. |
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| Had fun doing the leaves though. |
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| The blossoms just seem to be overwhelmed by the foliage. I thought of putting a loose greenish wash around the flowers, but I reached the point where I just wanted it done. No more nit-picking! |
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| DONE 8.5 x 10.5 in. |
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| Hmmm ... didn't realize this was sideways till it was on the page here, and I can't change it. However, it is just some fooling around, trying out techniques to create some credible-looking fog for a future painting. |
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| From a recent class - we were painting birds, and I demonstrated some techniques to create different impressions of texture. |
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| More playing with texture. I wanted a faster, easier way to give the look of feathers. These above look much too contrived. |
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| Pardon the vignette appearance - I was playing around with modes in the photo-edit. It turned out that the wet-in-wet technique gave me the best results. It gave me a realistic impression of feathers without looking like I'd had my nose on the board painting each and every feather. This is not finished yet. So I've been doing a bit of painting. But mostly I have been loving being able to MOVE again! It's been just over 11 weeks since my hip replacement, and I feel good. I can walk with the dogs for about an hour [hiking will come soon]. I am taking care of Bruno again - feeding, mucking out, grooming, and started lungeing him over the past week. I try to pace myself, as my endurance is still not fully recovered, but it's hard when I see all those weeds in the field needing to be removed, the electric fence needing re-wiring, eaves troughs ... neverending. But I love it - I feel alive again!!! I appreciate your visit! |
Your hydrangea is lovely! The leaves are astounding and the flower head so delicate--it's a very hard flower to paint!
ReplyDeleteAnd I love your duck (?); the feathers look so soft!
Very glad to hear you are up and about and feeling good. Yay!
Love the hydrangea! The leaves are so gorgeous and so is the flower, but I can see your problem with it. And the goose is great! Good idea, the wet in wet look.
ReplyDeleteSo glad you are moving again!!!!
Love the hydrangea! They are one of my favorite flowers!
ReplyDeleteLOVE the softness of this piece, Kathryn. The Hydrangea is a favorite and I'm glad you didn't add more color to the flower. Perfect as is... I'm glad you're feeling good...I'm sure Bruno feels the same!!!! Of course...LOVE the duck....Realistic!!!!
ReplyDeleteSo nice to hear you are doing well with your new hip. Sounds like you have a lot you are looking to do but don't rush it. Self-care always comes first.
ReplyDeleteBravo Kathryn! I have yet to rise to the hydrangea challenge! You’ve done beautifully....”perseverance furthers” sayeth the iChing. So glad you ‘re becoming mobile again. (The first day here in Vence I didn’t think I could manage the very steep walk up from the hotel to the old village...sat down and felt sorry for myself a lot...each day got better and now I actually look forward to it...plus ca change!) love your ducks too xxxGail Shaw
ReplyDeleteWonderful news of you getting your energy and movement back. I think Bruno and the dogs probably appreciate your recovery as much as you do! And its really, really great that you feel like making art once again. Yipee!
ReplyDeleteglad your hip is doing so much better :)
ReplyDeleteand hydrangeas can be such a pain to paint but you did a wonderful job here :)