What if?

Day 16 of 30 paintings in 30 days...

"The Group"  Watercolor and ink 14 x 11 inches

     Today instead of starting a new painting I decided to ask myself "what if" while going through some watercolors that were complete, but I was not really happy about.  I was curious what adding some ink lines to the paintings would do.  What did I have to loose...nothing.

    I got so involved with this I ended up reworking 3 paintings today.   The Tulips were first, next up a couple cat paintings...

the original watercolor

Added some line work with ink....

But didn't stop there, decided a cropped version looked much better....

"do Not Disturb"  6 x 8 inched matted to 11 x 14 inches

   One more to go..added some ink work...

Then again did some cropping, (one of the things I love about watercolors is the ability to crop them if needed)

"So"  8 x 6 inches matted to 14 x 11 inches

All in all a pretty productive day :)

Mary                                        

Capturing a Moment

Sometimes the perfect picture just suddenly appears.  Or in this case it was the "purrfect" picture.
It has been really cold here in Michigan, below zero last night.   So we had a nice fire going in our wood burning stove, the cats playing in the living room, just a nice evening.  Well my old cat, Hanna wore herself out and stretched out by the stove.  Lucky foe me, I had my Arches watercolor pad and pen handy.  And Hanna stayed still long enough for me to get an ink drawing done.....

This morning I finished the work with a watercolor wash and posted the original on Etsy for sale, and on Zazzle for prints.

Here is the finished work.........

9 x 12 ink and watercolor onArches hot press paper, Matted to 11 by 14 inches, "The Yarn Wins"

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Try it all

Media makes a difference

A simple subject, such as a dog profile can change significantly, depending on the art media used to express the subject.  For me the media often sets the tone of the feeling being created in the picture.  How you express with different tools is some thing to keep in mind when working on a subject.

With pen and ink detail and design sing out.  Ink and a summi brush will be loose and free spirited.  When using acrylic color and texture dominate.  But then if the paint is watercolor the mood and color will create a totally different style.  This is why I love to try new media, just to see what the media has to teach me.  There is something to learn from every tool we try.

Confessions of an art supply junkie

Pictures, Wolf; wax and silver point

Crow; wax and watercolor

Abstract; watercolor, ink and collage

Dragonfly; acrylic, litho pencil, and watercolor

There are two phases in the growth of art, learning and experimenting.

I am a firm believer that to make good art you need to know the basics.

A good painter needs to know how to draw. Value sketches, design plans are foundations to a good piece of art. Knowing color will develop richness and emotion to a painting.

Phase one you learn the rules, phase two you break the rules.

The art junkie habit grows with every new or different art supply I stumble across. The new material has properties that take some time to learn. That is simple enough but then I have to see what it does with other material I already have. Rules start getting broken experiments happen. Soon the conservative watercolorist is venturing into the scary new world of mixed media. I try to give the new addition a safe name, water-media, and that works for a while. Then the oils and waxes start sneaking in and I have to confess I am on my way to a life as a mixed media artist.

I hope my family and friends will forgive and that moments of pure watercolorist will still emerge. The adventurer in me is not going to stop, so here is to experimenting and breaking rules.

Some of my favorite places to learn and get supplies are on the net and locally.

Locally:

Boundless Arts, Grand Blanc, MI

FIA, Flint MI

On the net:

Wet Canvas

Robert Burridge