Bright and Beautiful ... a Floral Process ...

Drawing I made for class. I decided to leave out the leaves in the painting.

I used four colors throughout - aureolin, quin. pink, brilliant orange and indanthrone blue.
I started a few of the petals to see how the colors would flow together, and then painted the cast shadows with a mix of pink and indanthrone.

The petals were all done with the wet-in-wet technique. 

Then I started working on the form shadows, again doing them w/w.

The centers were done with a dark violet.

I decided the pink in the upper right flower needed  more intensity to make it stand out a bit more. And now it's done :)
I REALLY needed something BRIGHT to paint. I may end up playing with screamingly bright colors all winter!

Thank you so much for dropping by!

Mystery Solved ... and the Koi Are Coming along Swimmingly

This was His Imperial Highness yesterday, with some hives still there on neck and saddle area.I spent about an hour , giving him a good grooming, and trimming his mane [took off at least six inches].

Here's the area on one side of the barn. Usually there are dried weeds, up to almost 3 1/2 feet high. You can see that he has mowed them right down to the ground. I believe the culprit is that weed on the lower left - called curled dock. I looked it up in noxious weeds of B.C., and though not toxic, it may cause an allergic reaction. So that's my theory, and I'm sticking to it. :) I have now fenced the area off, and will be getting a new charger for the electric fence, as the one in the barn seems dead.

With the koi, I masked here and there, and darkened all the background. Then I painted some calligraphic-type shadows in the water. 

The background is more of a violet color, like this. For the fish, I am wetting areas I want color, and then dropping in a thinner mixture, followed by a thicker one of slightly different color. Above, I am using gamboge yellow with quin. sienna. The fins and tails are thin phthalo blue, with indanthrone. I think I'll just play with the fish today, as I'd like to leave Bruno till all the hives have disappeared.


Thank you for dropping by, and I welcome your comments!

Just a quick addition on the detail work done this morning ...

You KNOW I Couldn't Leave It at one Go ... Round #2 for the Old Shoes

I had to start again. The last version had too dark a background, and was the wrong color. I tried to give it a shower, but too much brown remained, so ...

My colors are phthalo blue [green shade] for the bright blues,  and a variety of grays - aureolin and permanent rose, with either cobalt blue or indanthrone. The mesh was not that hard. I wet the area, and dropped in some of the lighter gray. It formed lovely spots suggestive of mesh.

I am happily fussing with details, but wondering what to do with the background. Any suggestions?

Thank you for dropping by, and your comments are most welcome!

The Geese Are Gaggling Along ...

I left our happy honkers here ...

In this photo, I have started on the shadows of the geese, and  have done an initial glaze of all the feet.

Here, I have added some detail to the feet. I have also gone over the goslings with another wash of aureolin and the dark brown mixture. And I have done a w/w application of a grey mixture on the goose bums.

I'll be working mostly on the adults, darkening and integrating the shadows, and adding some detail to the heads of the two on the right. So far ... so good! The background looks very nebulous, and I am not sure yet what I want to do with it.  I am thinking of just putting in their cast shadows, or that plus a dark diagonal suggestive of grass. Don't know.

As always, your comments are most welcome!

Are We THERE Yet???

Here we go ... from the top ...

This was a bit of a scary stage. But then I thought  it's only paper!
I wet the entire background, and very carefully stroked in two different mixtures - a dark blue/gray and a dark blue/green. I don't usually do this sort of w/w application, and was worried the colors would explode all over the page. I think it has given a good impression of the out-of-focus branches.

This is where I am now. I thought about darkening some of the background branches, but I believe it would ruin the overall delicacy of the painting. So I have darkened the main branch and some of the petal centers in the focal area, and  it is done!

As always, your comments are most welcome!

Another One I HAD to Get Out of My System

I started with the warm reflected light around the base of the window ...

I very lightly painted the shadows w/w ...

Worked on the wings and legs ...

Some yellow {aureolin + quin. gold} on the body ...

Started some of the detail - mind you, with something this small {about 5.5 x 7.5 inches}, it's almost all detail.

This is as far as I got today. It may need a bit more oomph!

This was the reference photo. The soft contrast of the cool and warm shadows, and the reflected light and images are what attracted me.

As always, your comments are ever welcome.