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                                        

Changing Mediums

Day 10 of 30 in 30

"Big Flower Little Vase"  14 x 11 watercolor

                                                                                       Click to Bid

Relaxing and enjoying watercolors.

Day 11....

"Sunlit Stream"  11 x 14 watercolor

                                                                                   Click to Bid

After 2 days of working with my portable watercolor palette, I notice how similar the two paintings looked even thought they were different subjects.  So going back to a still-life decided to change palette and medium.  Wanted to address the sunflower but with acrylics.

Day 12.....

16 x 12 inches, "Hidden Poppy" Acrylic on watercolor paper

                                                                                  Click to Bid

I am always amazed by how much the medium we paint with influences the painting style.

Mary

Watercolor Canvas

"A Burst of Blooms"  12 x 12 inches,  Watercolor on canvas, Available at DPWs

Taking a small break from oils right now, and re-visiting watercolors.  Decided to work on some special canvas designed just for watercolor painting made Fredrix archival stretched watercolor canvas

Started this painting, beginning with the background.  I put down a wash of yellow leaving the center open, and covered the washed area with plastic wrap.  I then set the whole canvas aside for about a half an hour to dry.  When I removed the plastic there was a wonderful texture of yellows and white.

It is a little hard to see all the texture from the photo, but hope you get the idea.  From this point I just started painting my vase of flowers.  One note about working with watercolor on canvas, it is easy to put down paint, but even easier to lift paint.  So when painting be brave and put those colors down, because you can easily remove a mistake, but forget about layering your color, go for bold.

    When it is finished and dry, lightly spray the painting 2 or 3 times with an acrylic varnish, that is what seal the painting so it does not need to be framed under glass.

Be brave and give it a try.

Mary

SchirosArt