I entered three recent watercolor paintings into the East and West Art Exhibitions at Falls Church Arts. This show will run from August 19th through September 23rd 2017 at the Falls Church Arts Central Gallery at 700-B W Broad Street, Falls Church VA. This show was a curated show and based on the number and quality of the works they received they could only accept two entries per artist.
The show opening is on August 19th. Unfortunately I will not be able to attend.
July was the second annual World Watercolor Month. World Watercolor Month was started by Charlie O’Sheilds, creator of doodlewash® and a designer from Missouri. Charlie had become enamored with watercolor and started a Facebook page called World Watercolor Month in July 2016. He challenged artists to paint and post a watercolor painting each day of the month of July. It was a great success and had thousands of members before the month was out, so he renamed it World Watercolor Group and maintained it as a place for watercolorists of all levels to share their work.
In 2016, I was only an observer in World Watercolor Month, although I think I did post a few paintings. In 2017, I decided to do my best to participate. With a demanding day job, I knew this would be a challenge, but every evening after dinner I’d get out my sketchbook and try to paint at least a little something I could post. Some were better than others. By the end of the month I’d painted every day but two (and I still posted something on the days I missed). It was very gratifying and I think I did improve my skills. Next year I will paint something every day!
Below are a few of my favorites from the month. (#worldwatercolormonth)
I’ve been absent for a bit. I actually have several posts I need to write, including one on my trip to Paris that included a trip to Giverny, but for now a quick update.
This weekend was the judging of the 8th Annual Falls Church Arts Plein Air show. I was only in town to paint two weekends for the timeframe of the show (mid-April to mid-June). One of those was cold and rainy, the other I agreed to gallery sit at the new gallery. I got creative and sat out in front of the gallery and painted Kensington Corner. The finished product was only minimally realistic because I only painted what I liked. I painted the clock and the bus stop and the trees and flowers, but not the roads and only minimal detail in the buildings. I kind of liked the result, and so did someone else, because the painting sold at the showing on Saturday. It was bought by a lovely couple who very thoughtfully viewed the show and chose two paintings to buy, one being mine. I hope they get many years of enjoyment out of it.
I have been so busy that I framed the painting in haste, and did not scan or photograph it. I will need to remember it from the iPhone photo I took of it in its frame.
This show has several cash prizes. I did not win anything, but below are the well deserving and very talented winners.
So I’ve been doing a lot more watercolor painting these days. I find it a beautiful medium that is very difficult but I really want to master it. With a few exceptions, I’m less than thrilled with the results I’m getting but I recognize that it really takes practice.
Watercolor is beholden to the laws of physics in how water behaves. You have to learn to manage it, but you can’t really expect to fully control it. It also requires a different technique because it is transparent, so you can’t paint lighter colors over dark and expect them to cover the dark up. If you want white, you have to leave the paper white. You can protect the areas you want to keep white with masking fluid, but that’s is a skill that requires practice, just like everything else.
A few weeks back I set out to paint from a photo of one of our mountain streams. It was a really pretty scene where the light was dancing through the leaves onto the forest floor and the rocks and water. I had also just watched a video on pouring watercolors by an artist named Leslie Redhead. While I recognized I am not ready to try pouring, I did learn a lot about mixing color on the paper and doing repeated washes to get deep rich colors. I used some masking fluid to mask out white areas where the sun was coming through the leaves and some of the light on the tree trunks. I ended up liking the deep washes, but not really the masked areas. They looked too contrived. I tried to fix this by adding some light colors (yellow and blue) but this didn’t really fix the problem. I also ended up embellishing some of the light on the water with white ink. The result was a good practice painting but nothing to write home about.
Then I set out to try it again. I changed the masking technique to do some spatter. In both cases I applied the larger areas with a sponge, which in hindsight was probably part of the problem. In this painting, I like the sunlight in the background more than the previous version. I left it white but painted in the light yellow leaves to make it look less contrived. I did not like the effect of the light on the water. The shape of the sponge was not correct for water flow. I also didn’t leave enough areas white on the water, and lifting did not work. I did not resort to white ink to add more as I did in the previous painting. Once again, I ended up with a good practice painting, but nothing more. I really like the foliage and the tree trunks. I hate the water because it is too flat and does not show movement.
Because I am impatient, I have a hard time leaving a watercolor painting alone while my layers are drying. I need to find other things to occupy my time so while I was painting my second study I started doodling a version of the same scene on a small piece of paper. I didn’t use masking fluid. I did some wet-in-wet, but didn’t so a lot of broad washes. In some ways I like this one the best of the three watercolors.
So what does this have to do with oil painting and the title of this post, you ask? Good question!
While I was doing these paintings I became very attached to the scene. I was also missing my oils. While they are a greater time commitment and more difficult to set up and clean up I still know my oil painting skills are better than my nascent watercolor skills. I decided to do a version of the painting in oils. I also committed to use two things I’d learned from my watercolor studies. First, I learned a lot about the scene and the way to capture the light. Second, I decided to try something a little different. I decided to approach the painting more like I do a watercolor painting. I primed the canvas in a light orange acrylic and then began by panting the white and yellow areas peeking through the trees. Normally I would paint the tree trunks before the foliage and would then paint leaves over the trunks. Of course you can’t do that in watercolor since the trunks are darker. You have to paint the trunks later, only in the areas where the foliage doesn’t cover them. I used this same approach in the oil painting. I painted the light leaves, followed by the darker leaves. I painted the rocks and the water and captured areas of the bare forest floor between the leaves. The last thing that I painted was the tree trunks.
The resulting painting was probably the most impressionistic thing I’ve done. I think it really captures the dancing light and the peaceful dark areas of the forest while not focusing on realism. I really like the result, especially if you step back from it a few feet, not something a photograph really allows for.
So yes, what I am learning from watercolor does have the potential to improve my oil painting. I’m going to keep at it, and maybe someday I’ll be a good watercolorist too.
We spent about a week and a half at our mountain home for the holidays, and I took several days off from my pesky day job to do some painting. As I’ve said, I’ve been trying to improve my watercolor skills. One of the ways I’ve been doing that is by watching YouTube videos. While I have learned a lot, and I’ve gotten some great ideas, the most important thing I’ve learned is that it takes a lot of practice! You’ve got to try it for yourself and figure out how it works, and what works for you and your style. So I decided to do as much painting as I could and I’m sharing the adventure. Sorry this is a long post. I could have broken it into several small posts, but I think there’s value in covering all of these together. (Note: clicking on any image to see a larger version.)
Snowy 7th Fairway Stream
In my most recent post, just after Christmas, I shared a painting I did of a snow scene of a pond on the golf course near our home. To do this I watched a few videos on painting snow in watercolor, including this one by Grant Fuller. I think the videos were all helpful. I like the foreground including the grasses peaking up through the snow. I used masking fluid to block some of the white branches in the foreground trees and one of the strongest ridges in the field. I augmented the whites with a white gel ink pen. I don’t really like the clouds. Skies look easy when I watch others do them, but I still struggle with them.
3 Ridges in Cloud (Watercolor version)
Next I decided to do a scene that I’ve done multiple times in oil, hoping that familiarity would help. I’m not sure it did. Sometimes I think that watercolor is better if you’re not too tied to the original scene. Photos should really just be an inspiration. Many of the videos I’ve watched, including several by Steven Cronin like this one are done entirely from the artist’s imagination. I’m definitely not there yet!
In this painting, I like the sky, but not the way the clouds are laying in the valley. I think the foreground trees turned out okay. I augmented them with my white gel ink pen. For what it’s worth, this painting looks better in the original form. The scan didn’t do it justice.
Stormy 17 Mile Drive
Then I decided to do a seascape, which was an ambitious undertaking. I have done very few of these, even in oil. When I was showing my work at the Farmers’ Market in December, one of the other artists, Rajendra KC was quite taken with the oil version of this scene (in my gallery if you are interested). Given that he is a very talented local artist, I was quite flattered by this. I decided to try to do a watercolor version.
I have to say, I surprised myself with this one. I had very low expectations but it came out very nice. This is perhaps my best sky so far. I did not mask the white caps. I used discipline (a challenge for me) to leave them white. (I did watch part of a video that showed this, but I didn’t capture the link.) I augmented the white caps with white gouache in places, which is how I got the look of spray. I also really enjoyed doing the rocks. I took my time, starting with washes for the lighter ones on the left and then slowly layering on shadows.
Clump of Trees (Study)
Then I discovered Steve Mitchell’s YouTube channel. I was quite taken with his landscapes and found his approach to be more valuable, from an instruction perspective, than many of the others. I watched several of his videos, but I thought this one on “accidental painting” would be fun to try. My version did not turn out nearly as nice as his, but it was a good learning experience. It also forced me to paint from my head, although I will confess that I allowed myself to be pulled in the direction of Steve’s example. There are a lot of things I don’t like about this painting, but given that it was a quick study it’s also not bad.
Springtime Field
Inspired by my clump of trees study I decided to take on a painting from a photo I took of a field near Lovingston Virginia last spring. I had a lot of fun with this one, and most of it I like. There are some things I might do differently if I did it again. Rather than pointing those out I think I’ll leave it as an exercise for the reader.
7th Fairway Pond
Finally, on the morning of the day we were to leave to come back to Northern Virginia I decided to do one last painting. I had limited time so I did this fairly quickly, but I think it turned out okay. I like the sky and the shoreline of the pond – especially the rock! I’m not crazy about the mid-ground trees or the reflections of the trees in the water, which I did quickly because I was running out of time.
All in all, I think I made progress. I’ve continued to watch videos and I have several more techniques I’m excited to try as soon as I’ve completed this post. Practice makes perfect – of course there is no perfect in art, but practice is a way to aspire to perfection.
It’s been a while since I posted anything. I have been painting and doing other art related things, just not posting for various reasons.
One reason I haven’t been posting is that I’ve been challenging myself in watercolors. As I’ve always said, they are much harder than oils. I’ve been doing more wet in wet painting and they just never turn out. My clouds look to heavy to float and my trees and leaves all run together. I know I will get better if I keep practicing, but I have accepted that it will take a long time.
A couple of days ago I painted a scene from a photo I took a couple of years ago. I did not do a lot of wet in wet in this painting, outside of the sky. Maybe that’s why I’m happier with the way it came out. Snow is difficult because you need to leave the white white. There is no opportunity for error. I did mask some of the tree branches and one ridge on the ground that I wanted to really stand out. It was fun because it’s a nice winter scene.
I also sold a print to someone who found me on the Internet, which is a first. She bought a copy of the Rockbridge Vineyard Chairs that I did for my friend Kathy a few months back. She wanted to give it as a Christmas gift to her sister-in-law who lived in Rockbridge County. They had visited the winery together. She told me how she searched to find me, but I have been unable to repeat it such that this painting comes up. Still I’m very happy she found me.
The one other fun thing I did before the holidays. I showed my paintings with Falls Church Arts at the Falls Church Farmers’ Market. I didn’t sell anything, but several people took business cards. Maybe I’ll hear back from one of them. Regardless, it’s good exposure and I had fun.
Happy Holidays and Happy New Year! I’m taking the next few days off from my day job so maybe I’ll have something else to post soon.
I usually paint on location or from photos. I find that when I try to paint from my mind’s eye I lack clarity and detail. Yesterday I tried a little experiment. The last two times we’ve left our house in the mountains I’ve been taken back by a beautiful display of fall colors in the same place. Driving down the hill we come around a curve and find ourselves looking up at a very steep hillside. The time of day we do this is the afternoon and the sun is shining on the trees. The color is beautiful but the other thing that’s interesting is that the sunlight on the trunks and branches appear almost white, in stark contrast to the bright colors. This image has remained really vivid in my mind so I decided to try to recreate it. It actually came out pretty good. I actually think the real scene had more reds and oranges and fewer greens and yellows. I may actually try it again. I had a lot of fun with it.
It’s watercolor with white and black ink in a 5 x 8 watercolor sketchbook.
I have two paintings that have been accepted into the juried 6×6 to 12×12 show at Falls Church Arts. The clever name means that all works need to be square and between the size of 6×6 inches to 12×12 inches. That makes it interesting because these are not sizes that I, nor most of the showing artists I learned at the opening, normally paint in. It means that we needed to paint specifically for this show. Up until now, I have not painted with a show in mind. When shows come up that I have an appropriate work for, I enter it. So, this was a completely different perspective.
I knew the show was coming up and happened to be in a local art store and thought to buy some watercolor paper that was 6×6 and wood panels that were 6×6 and 12×12. That was on a Saturday afternoon. I came home and looked up the entry date, only to find that it was midnight Sunday – the very next day! Realizing that doing oils on the wood panels in time was out of the question, Sunday I set out to paint watercolors. I originally planned to paint three, but I got two pretty good ones and was running out of time, so I stopped. I got the entry in on time and both paintings were accepted.
The first is a painting of the town of Spoleto from a photo I took on my recent trip to Italy.
The second is a view from the golf course in Wintergreen. This was actually from a photo that I took in the early morning hours. The trees were actually dark silhouettes. I decided to recolor for autumn and it came out quite nice.
Both paintings will be on display at Art Space (410 S. Maple Ave.
Falls Church, VA 22046) till December 3rd.
My friends Catherine and Mike, who bought my Lake Bled painting, recently bought a new house. It’s their first single-family home, a necessity now that their son Connor has joined the family. Catherine came to me and said Mike is excited and just loves the house. She wants to give him another special present and asked me if I could paint their house on an ornament.
My first suggestion was that I paint their house and we have it transferred to an ornament, but she really wanted a hand painted ornament. I told her I would give it a shot. Catherine provided me with several pictures of her house and I began to explore options.
I found out you can buy wooden ornaments in various different sizes and shapes on Etsy, so I ordered some round ones that are four inches in diameter. I decided that was as big as I dare go to have it be manageable as an ornament on a tree, but as small as I was willing to attempt to paint.
My original thought was to do the painting in acrylic. I traced the ornament onto a piece of paper and did my first study of the house. I really didn’t like it. The acrylic paints were pretty unforgiving on the small scale. The result was messy. I decided to try watercolor.
This presented me with a new set of challenges. With acrylic, which is opaque, I could just paint on the wood. If I was going to use watercolor I’d need to prime it with something. I got on line and found a product called Daniel Smith Watercolor Ground, which claimed to work on all surfaces, including wood. I bought some and primed the wood so it had a nice white surface.
I was going to try another study but I felt brave and decided to try the ornament (I bought four so I had backup). I did a good sketch of the house on the ornament and then realized it was crooked by about 45 degrees! I flipped it over and tried again and got a pretty good sketch. I proceeded to paint it with watercolor. The primer didn’t really absorb the cerulean blue sky quite as well as I would like, even after a couple of washes. That said, the visible texture of the wood grain actually adds to the charm. The rest of the house came out pretty good. I used a white gel pen to bring out the trim. I was worried that it would fade or run, so I seald it with a watercolor fixative. I also painted the back with blue acrylic paint, which covered up the crooked sketch on the backside 🙂
Here is the result (which looks better in person than in the photo). I hope it holds up and provides Catherine and Mike with a unique keepsake of their first real home together.
I’ve had a piece accepted into the Colored Waters – Watered Colors show at Falls Church Arts. The show opens September 15th. This piece might look familiar because I did an oil of the same scene that I sold last year. This painting was actually a study done prior to that painting.
