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| It was all detail work ... painting the mast, darkening the shadows, indicating the ports and hatches ... I also darkened the hull, and gave it more of a working tug appearance with some dry brushwork. |
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| Here she is ... Now it's off to play with the paper mache menagerie, and think of what next to paint! Many thanks for dropping by! Your comments are always welcome! |
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| I entered "I'm Free" in the latest Federation of Canadian Artists show, called "Works on Paper". I was very surprised and pleased to find out that it won 2nd place, and also sold. |
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| I submitted "Steph's Hollyhocks" to the previous FCA show, and it sold as well. Maybe things are looking up!!! Many thanks for visiting! And your comments are always welcome. |
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| I start with a few sketches to get an idea of pose and proportion. |
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| Then I scrunch up some newspaper into balls, and tape with masking tape. Legs, fingers and toes, I usually use a wire armature of some sort - craft wire, coat hanger, twist-tie. Then I wrap the wire in paper, too, and tape it. |
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| My next step is taping all the body parts together, and making sure the figure stands solidly, and is in proportion. |
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| Meet Mr, Przewalski, ready for some paper and paste treatment. The Przewlaski horse is believed to be the progenitor of all horse breeds. I think there are still some herds on the Asian steppes, and in sanctuaries world-wide. |
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| Sketches for the dog figure. |
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| It's supposed to be a Basset hound, but I'm not sure if it will be long enough. Now to get REALLY messy with some flour and water paste!!! Many thanks for visiting! And your comments are always welcome. |
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| I think when I last posted about this painting, the boats and gulls were still under masking fluid. At this stage, I think I have done a decent job of portraying the British Columbia coast. [Yay ... there is hope for my painting landscapes.] |
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| Masking gone, edges smoothed and cleaned up, and I have started the tugs. I am using my favorite black mixture - quin. burnt orange, quin. violet and indanthrone. For the reds, I am using mixes of alizarin crimson and quin. siena, adding phthalo green [blue shade] for the shadows of the reds. Just a lot of nit-picking work to do on the ships, then assess the overall image. Thank you so much for dropping by! Your comments are always welcome. |
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| Froggy - armature only |
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| Awesome Possum - some paper mache "muscle" on him, and a hole cut in the top |
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| Owl - with removable head |
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| The Gang - drying out by the bathroom heater. About two months ago, I re-connected with an old university friend. It was quite funny how she found me. Her daughter-in-law was on facebook, saw my froggy Christmas card, loved it, and showed it to Lynn. The artist's name was very familiar, so Lynn sent me a message ... Are you the Kathryn Ragan who ... I was! She [generously and kindly] wanted so support my artistic endeavors, so she asked if I could make some "awesome boxes". I had never heard of those; I thought she said "possum boxes", and thought it was a cute idea. Now I know what an awesome box is, and am creating some animal-shaped containers in paper mache. I am having a blast with the paper mache!!! It is gloriously messy, gooey fun! So far, I have constructed armatures [basic support structure] for an owl, a possum and a frog. I have built up their shapes with layers of paper mache [using newspaper, old telephone books and flour/water paste]. Once I have a reasonable shape, I will slather them with gesso to smooth and give detail. Then I will paint them, with acrylic I think, and finally varnish the critters. I may get together armatures for a horse and a dog today, as well as working on the tugboat painting. It has been snowing for three days here, and we have almost a foot of snow - very un-Vancouver-like weather! I am getting a little twitchy being inside, not being able to play with Bruno, so I have to keep busy ... Thank you all for dropping by! Your comments are always welcome. |
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| I masked the tugs, and then covered the light areas with old watercolor paper and masking tape. Then I spattered and spayed greens across the top to indicate trees. There was a light blue/grey wash over all except the tugs. |
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| This was the result. Spattering gave a much more natural look to the trees. |
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| I painted a w/w grey/blue wash over the top again. It softened some of the green of the trees, and I quite liked the effect. Then I used a darker grey/green to give the feel of fog below the trees. |
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| I did two separate w/w washes of green for the water. |
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| ... and then wet all the water and did it again. I think it may need a few washes. The colors I am using so far are indanthrone blue, aureolin, quin. rose and alizarin crimson. The last version of the tugboats was good, but didn't really say what I wanted. I was painting it for my saint of a landlady, and she agreed. Also, she preferred green, so off I went ... I changed the format to "portrait", to enhance the grandeur of the forest, re-sketched one of the tugs, and started. I must admit, I really like the green better than the blue, but that's just a personal preference. And I find the vertical format gives the painting more of an imposing presence. Thank you all so much for dropping by! Your comments are always welcome. |
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| I have added some veins to the flowers, the stem and a shadow. |
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| I have done the shadow beneath in two stages, to be able to enhance the gold. Well, it's done, and to its credit, I like it better than my earlier attempts at hydrangeas [below]. I like the idea of the starkness against a soft, almost-not-there background. I will have to play with this concept a bit more ... |
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| The above two paintings were done about a year ago. What I really want to paint are some thoughts and feelings about Rio de Janeiro. I have never been further south than Mexico, but I love the Brazilian culture - music especially. A few nights ago, I watched Black Orpheus - a great old movie. And I have been doing a lot of reading and researching on the recent turmoil concerning the "gentrification" of the favelas. I have google-mapped as far into the favelas as the map permits, and have scrounged for pictures all over the net. Now I must mull over images and ideas to come up with some work expressing how I feel about all of it. Thank you for dropping by - hope you enjoyed the visit. And your comments and critiques are always welcome. |
