Before I Go out and Play with the Lad ...

W/w wash of aureolin, brown madder and ultramarine. Then I lifted, while still wet, some of the highlights of the face.

RATS! I did not make up enough of my soft black mixture. 

Second black wash, and then some lifting while still wet. I must sat I am really thrilled with the effect. I am not as thrilled with what I see in the paper, and which becomes more apparent as each wash is applied. I am usually very careful about clean hands and surfaces while handling paper, so I'm not sure if it's me or something in the paper. I will say that I am very keen to try some Fabriano.

As always, your comments are most welcome! 

I've Always Wanted to Try This ...

Julian, as Romeo

Paulina, as the Mona Lisa
 

My sketch of Majesty, the rescue horse

Some color swatches, to see how they mix on the paper, and how well they lift

More swatches, and my basic animal color mixture - quin. burnt orange, quin. violet and indanthrone blue.


I've always admired and been tantalized by the lifting technique used so beautifully by Roland Roycroft and Cheng Khee Chee. It involves saturating the paper, applying your pure colors and letting them blend on the paper, and then lifting as it dries and after the paint has dried. This method gives such a gorgeous glow and cohesion to  the painting. I've never really felt I could handle it, but I think the time is now, and the painting of Majesty demands its use. I'd like to have his head and neck finding its way out of the dark, just as he himself was found and rescued. Wish me luck!
I also have the sketches of my niece and nephew ready on watercolor paper. These are more "fun" paintings [I say that now ...]
As always, I love to get your comments!

  

Trying to Be a Bit More Creative ...

This is a LONG way from any sort of finish, but it gives you an idea of the direction I'd like to take it. I'll probably do a few of these in the smaller format [ 11 x 8 in. ] to get a feel for the work. I am trying to express my feeling about Vancouver - the mountains, the ocean, a warm summer evening, screaming over the Burrard Street Bridge in my TR6. Ah, the joys of youth. I liked, no loved, Vancouver twenty years ago, before the huge influx of overseas money. It still felt like you could almost know the entire city and everybody in it [or a friend of theirs]. It's become too big, too wealthy, too ostentatious, too self-absorbed ...  I could go on, but suffice to say that it has become the 2nd most expensive city in which to live, right after Hong Kong. So I am trying to re-capture the old, beautiful Vancouver.

I am using an old 1930's photo as reference.

More inspiration for a later painting - my niece, Paulina. I'm thinking of doing a  Mona Lisa take-off.

My nephew, Julian, definitely an Elizabethan Romeo.


As always I love to hear from you!

A Painting Finished and a Mystery Solved, Too!

I'm calling this done. I am not 100% thrilled, but then, when am I???

His Imperial Nooginess, at dinner. Note the tummy bulging beyond the extent of his rump - definitely not good.

A better view of his too well-fed tummy.

Electric rope pulled down all along the back fence line.

Bruno was a very busy lad.

You can see where he chomped the richer grass right down to the ground.

He even pulled the plastic guides for the electric wire out of the fence posts.

EEK!


The mystery was Bruno's increasing girth.  For the past week, he had been fed the same amount, and yet was gaining weight.  It had reached the point where I was worried, and cutting back his hay to bring his tummy down.
 A few years ago, I had a beautiful Hanoverian mare who also loved her food.  I did not realize the seriousness of the weight problem, and as a result, she developed laminitis, foundered and I had to have her euthanized.  I didn't think I would ever get over it.  We had been together for almost twenty years.  So now, I am very alert to weight gain in a horse.
Back to Bruno.  He was still too big in the girth, so I thought to go out in the field this afternoon to see if I could find his secret stash.  I  did, and now the fence is re-done, re-wired, and the lad's weight should come back to normal in the next few days.

As ever, I love to read your comments.

YES! I Started Again!

I just wasn't quite liking the way this looked ...

So I started again, with a smaller format [ 7 x 7.5 in. ] and much more yellow in the flower.

Then some orange siena

Lots of playing back and forth with the alizarin and the orange.

I thought a leaf would be a good foil. There are two blacks - a harder black of alizarin and phthalo green, and a softer one of quin. burnt orang, quin. violet and indanthrone blue. It's not quite finished yet ...


As ever, please feel welcome to leave comments. 

The Survival Garden, Etc. ...

I like having a vegetable garden, as well as a flower garden. This year, I didn't have the time or energy to rototill, so I am trying container gardening. This spot gets sun all day long so it should be good. I planted lots of snow peas, lettuce, spinach, cucumber, broccoli, red peppers, and of course carrots. 

Hopefully, a small stash for Bruno.

The lupine is doing very well, too. I became fascinated with them after watching a Monty Python skit eons ago, about an 18th c. highwayman by the name of Dennis Moore, who stole from the rich and gave to the poor, but he stole lupines. OK, you had to be there .. 

Day lilies coming along well, now that we have more sun and warmth.

I am here with the "practice" version of the Burrard Bridge. Already I can see the right hand blues are too dark, but it will look different when the buildings are done.

And the tulip needs help.

I've heard rumors to the effect that Joscelyn [ the dentist with the broken arm] is planning to come back to a full work schedule next week. She only had the pins pulled out [literally] two days ago, so we all, at the office, think she's pushing it, but then she is a very determined lady. So I may be back to footloose and fancy-free, but financially tight  very soon. To be continued ...

As always, please be most welcome to leave your comments - love 'em!

From Barn Grunt to Watercolor ... Today's Efforts

 I painted my first washes on the "practice" landscape - an overall warming wash of yellow ocher. I  let it dry, then masked the skyline and mountains. Then I painted a w/w wash with aureolin, quin. coral and phthalo blue.

Here I've done the shadows with a glaze of  quin. burnt orange and phthalo green [blue shade, I think].

These are the under-glazes - alizarin for the dark center, quin. siena for the warmer areas of the tulip, and quin. pink for the cooler spots.

Believe me, it IS redder than this. I've started applying carmine w/w, to get the varied depths of red in the flower. I've never used carmine before, and I quite like it. It is a bit warmer than alizarin, and it has more body, so when applied w/w it doesn't explode all over the wetted area.

This is it for the next few days - back to the office. As always, your comments are most welcome!