prints available

by Jenny Armitage in Floral,for sale,prints available,still lifes,watercolors

Short Story II (11 x 11 watercolor) $225.00

Same song,

Second verse,

Should get better,

But it’s gonna get . . . .

Actually I like the second verse better. The dark background gives Short Story II a punch that Short Story I lacked. And I admit that painting the pine cone magnified by the paperweight was just plain fun.

The palette for Short Story II is the same as Short Story I. I used more transparent glazes in building up the forms. And I mixed the paint on the paper rather than the palette.

The deep background began as a burgundy mixture of burnt sienna and quinacridarone deep red rose, but the didn’t provide the depth I was aiming for. So I followed it with several dark washes of phthalo blue. Afterwords I had to correct the glass reflections to match the background.

Or purchase a print from Fine Art America.com.

tags: blown glass, daffodils, flowers, paperweight, pinecone, wooden box

February 1, 2010 12:03 pm

A Few of My Favorite Things

by Jenny Armitage in Floral,for sale,prints available,still lifes,Uncategorized,watercolors

Short Story (10 x 14 watercolor) $175.00

It’s Spring here and my first daffodils are blooming. I’ve painted them here together with some of my favorite glass from the sun room. The box is an old cigar box I bought on Ebay. I like the look and smell of cedar cigar boxes though I neither smoke nor like the smell of smoking.

This is the first traditional still life I’ve ever done. Placing and lighting the objects increased my respect for the art of still life. And I’m tempted to play with glass and flowers again soon.

I enjoyed painting the contrasts in texture between the wood, glass, and flowers. But if I try this again, I’d like to do something with a more dynamic composition.

The techniques I used were very straight forward. I reserved the highlights in the glass and then painted wet on dry, from light to dark. I used three blues, cobalt, phthalo, and cerulean. I used two reds burnt sienna and quinacridone deep red rose. I also used three yellows, hansa light which has a greenish cast, cadmium yellow, cadmium orange. I also used burnt umber to help darken the cigar box.

Or purchase a print from Fine Art America.com.

tags: blown glass, daffodils, flowers, paperweight, pinecone, wooden box

January 31, 2010 10:54 am

Storm Off Trail Ridge: Pastel

by Jenny Armitage in for sale,landscapes,pastels,prints available

Storm Off Trail Ridge (12 x 15 pastel) $150

Storm Off Trail Ridge (12 x 15 pastel) reserved for La Salles show

My husband and I took a drive over Trial Ridge Road above Rocky Mountain National. It’s a drive I remember fondly from my childhood. But that late June day a storm was brewing. I should have known. Foul weather is perfectly normal in June, at 10,000 feet and even lower. I have been snowed on backpacking in July at 7,000 feet.

But Stephen and I drove happily on. We enjoyed the brisk cool weather and admired the clouds, ignoring their warning. The later half of the drive was white knuckles all the way. The coming storm brought so much snow and wind that we couldn’t see enough to turn around. Road construction in progress but temporarily abandoned for the snow, added to the tension. We stopped with relief at would have been the half way point of the drive, the Visitor’s Center. The Center has a lovely wall of windows for panoramic views. But that day they showed white, white and white. So we drove back down the way we had come, slowly carefully, tensely. Twenty minutes later we were below the clouds and our experience was already becoming funny.

The I took photos for this painting at the last overlook before we should have turned back. Shortly after that, all was white.

I used the rough side Canson Mi-Teins gray paper for this painting. Mi-Tieins paper has a chicken wire looking texture on the rough side which I intended to use for texture in the foreground. Like detail and warm colors, texture advances.

I began by blocking in the mountains, big and small in hard pastels. I lowered back range a little to emphasize the looming foreground mountain. In retrospect I could have brought it down even further.

Then I worked down and from left to right. Once again I worked the sky in PanPastels: phthalo blue tint, white, ultramarine, and magenta. I added some blue and purple soft pastels as well. The back range of mountains came next beginning with dark blue shade and lightening it up until it look far enough back. The darker background hills came next.

Finally I added the mountain in dark blues and greens. I used burnt sienna tint to add the lighter areas, but color contrasted oddly with the sky, so I added light violets and greens as well. When I got the mountain modeled to my satisfaction I added the trees with a final layer of dark green soft pastels which I applied lightly to allow the texture of the paper to show through. Lower down some of the gray paper itself shows through.

Prints available at Fine Art America.com.

tags: Colorado, mountains, pastel, storm, trail ridge

January 30, 2010 11:06 am

One More Painting From the Mission Mill Museum

by Jenny Armitage in for sale,prints available,still lifes,Uncategorized,watercolors

Washroom Gears (8 x 10) $75.00

Yes, this is another painting of the machinery at the Mission Mill Museum. The barrel and gears are part of the fleece washing machine. It not only washed the fleeces but also pulled them apart and removed the debris. There was a lot of debris. Wool is a magnet for sticks, and bark, and other messy things.

The washroom is a dark place. Only the machinery is lit which casts dramatic shadows over the metal. In keeping with the dark room, I used a very limited palette: phthalo blue, burnt sienna, and quinacridone deep red rose. I mixed little or nothing on the palette. The color is mixed either with multiple washes or by dropping one color into another.

Or purchase a print from Fine Art America.com.

tags: gears, machinery, Mission Mill, woolen

January 25, 2010 11:15 am

Pumice Field at Dusk: Another Pastel

by Jenny Armitage in for sale,landscapes,pastels,prints available

Dusk Falls on the Pumice Field (11 x 18) $175

Dusk Falls on the Pumice Field (11 x 18) $200

This is my second pastel. The subject is the pumice field on the west side of Crater Lake National Park, Oregon. The light was beautiful and I loved the way it lit up the wildflowers in the foreground, which are visually insignificant at mid day.

The support is once again Canson Mi-Teiten paper. This time I used the rough side.

I began at the top with PanPastels’ ultramarine blue, ultramarine blue tint, burnt sienna tint and white. The rosy hills are mostly PanPastel too. I used magenta, violet tint, burnt sienna, burnt sienna pint, and finally a stick of purple pink soft pastel.

The tree lines are soft pastels in various combinations of an ultramarine shade, a phthalo blue, a iron oxide stick and a dark green. The grass and pumice fields are various combinations of burnt umber, red oxide, burnt sienna in PanPastel and soft pastel sticks. I added the gold light last soft pastel.

I added the shadowy path leading out the foreground with purples and blue soft pastel smudged over the pumice field.

I began the red flowers by using a soft purple pastel stick to make dark bases for them. I smudged the bases in and them added PanPastel red plus a little PanPastel yellow and smudged again. I accented them with hard yellow pastel.

For the blue flowers I made a darker purple base and drew thin marks over it in light turqouse blue which I half smudged. Then I added blue squiggles again and again half smudged.

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Prints available from Fine Art America.com.

tags: Crater Lake, dusk, pastel, pumice, sunset

January 24, 2010 12:32 pm

Fall Poplars or Playing with Pastels

by Jenny Armitage in for sale,landscapes,pastels,prints available,techniques

Fall Poplars (12 x 18) $125.00

I have admired pastels and mixed media with pastels for some time now. There is a sparkly quality about pastels that no other medium can match. Pastels over watercolors can create both spectacular and subtle effects.

My husband bought me pastels for Christmas, and I have been playing with them this last week. Pastels are if anything less forgiving than watercolor. All color mixing must be done on the paper either optically or by smearing. Pastel smears easily. The paper holds only so much pastel before it suddenly won’t take anymore. This last can be fixed somewhat, by using a workable fixative. Some lifting is possible with a kneadable eraser.

The method is very different from watercolor too. Working with them is a kind of cross between drawing and painting. Pastels are an opaque medium and therefore work best if the dark tones are blocked in first and the lights laid over them. Highlight go on last. Nothing runs. The chalk stays right where you put it until you smudge it.

I started this image on the rough side of a rose colored sheet of Canson Mi-Tietens paper. I laid in the sky with PanPastels. PanPastels come in pots rather than sticks and they are highly pigmented and almost dustless. Applying them is reminiscent of applying dry eyeshadow or rouge. The top of the sky is phthalo blue. Further down I switched to ultramarine blue. Then I worked back up the sky from the horizon, overlaying the deep blue with ultramarine and phthalo tints (both of which are almost white). I used white, and more of the blue tints to lay in the clouds. Then I got out a violet soft pastel stick and added the deeper shadows smudging them in as I went.

I roughed in the far tree line with a dark blue shade of soft pastel. I added a dark green shade lower down and smudged. I pushed the pastel up into the sky with a sponge applicator.

Returning to PanPastels, I added the hills with turquoise blue shade and bright yellow green shade. Burnt sienna came next. Then I went back over the hills with a variety of green and brown soft pastels to create texture. I smudged these in with my fingers.

Continuing with soft pastels, I drew in the poplar trunks first with a dark green gray and a red brown. I added a lighter gray and then an almost white gray. Then I added the leaves beginning with a dull orange, continuing with a brighter orange and finally a yellow orange. I smudged the leaves on the farther tree to suggest a little distance.

With soft pastels I put in blue and purple shadows under the foreground trees to indicate the rough grass line. I drew in the grass over the shadows with a variety of hard pastels starting with the darker colors and continuing with the lighter ones. I softened the lines with a finger.

After years of reserving or painting around the lighter colors, laying in the trees over the sky and grass felt like magic.

I enjoyed this. Watercolor will remain my primary medium, but pastel has a rough sparkly quality I’d like. Some images just seem to demand it. I may also do some mixed media, painting a watercolor first before accenting it with pastel.

I ship my watercolors rolled in a tube or, if they or very small flat. I provide free shipping for watercolors within the continental United States. Pastels cannot be safely rolled since they would smudge and they should be both matted and covered with a protective sheet. Therefore, the shipping cost of my pastels will vary depending upon size. All pastels will will include an acid free neutral colored mat and backing.

Or purchase a print from Fine Art America.com.

tags: PanPastels, pastels, poplars, trees

January 20, 2010 6:35 pm

Submerged I and II: Playing With New Methods

by Jenny Armitage in for sale,landscapes,mistakes,prints available,sold,techniques,watercolors

Submerged I (9 x 12) SOLD

I’ve been experimenting with a couple of new methods. These two paintings are the result. Both are based on some photos of trees half drowned by the swollen Willamette River I took this weekend. I wanted to catch the cold grayness of of the scene and the mystery of the half hidden trees.

Blowing:

I blew the trees. I placed puddles of paint on the paper and blew them into trees with a straw. The line of paint running out from the puddle looks surprisingly like a tree limb. And the direction the paint goes in is quite controllable. But once the paint has started in one direction it’s hard to make it turn. The paint follows the wet path as if it were a stream bed. The solution is to drag a little paint in the direction you want to take it and thus start a new path. Where the trees over-lap it’s important to let the first tree dry completely before starting the next, otherwise the paint form the new tree will run up the first tree.

There are several ways to vary the color in the tree. Leaving the supply puddle partially unmixed is one. New colors can be blown into the wet tree from the base. Accents and be directly painted onto the dry trees. I used all three methods on these paintings.

Layered Masking:

The second method is painting grass and bracken with multiple layers of mask. Thin lines of mask establish the highlights. Then color is applied. Then more lines are applied. Then more mask for multiple layers. When the mask is removed a complex texture is revealed. I was less successful with this method. It’s hard to see what you are doing or to guess the result. More practice is needed.

I used layered mask in Submerged I. But I didn’t like the results immediately. The foreground was too busy and detracted from my trees, which then looked much like the trees in Submerged II. After some thought, I painted over the trees in dark tones to match the foreground. The result is an evening picture.

Submerged II (9 x 12) $75.00

For the second painting I added the foreground wet into wet. The result is simpler and gives the feeling of the gray afternoon on the river.

The palette for both paintings is: burnt sienna, phtholo blue and dioxion purple, plus a dab of hansa yellow.

Or purchase prints from Fine Art America.com.

tags: blowing, flood, layered mask, river, trees, Willamette

January 16, 2010 2:35 pm

Spools and Spindles: Back the Mission Mill Museum

by Jenny Armitage in for sale,prints available,still lifes,watercolors

Spindles and Spools (11 x 14) $150

I love the Mission Mill Museum and we often take visitors there. We took my parents over the Christmas holiday and I snapped some more photos inside the mill. Neither flash nor tripods are permitted inside, so photography is a challenge. But the dark photos have a genuine feel since there was very little electric light in the mill when it was operational. Bulbs were few and far between and they were all under thirty watts. Without it’s numerous windows, the mill would have been dark indeed.

The machinery in the woolen mill fascinates me. It was made before modern safety rules and much more of the moving parts are exposed than in modern factories and many of the moving parts are wooden. Worn wood has a special appeal and contrasted with meta, it’s warmth increases.

When the mill ran, it ran continuously, and it was important that there be no more interruption in the looms than absolutely necessary. Therefore, the yarn awaiting the loom was arranged on separate racks awaiting attachment to a loom as soon as one became free. The foreground of the painting is such a rack. The rear shows the huge spools on which the yarn was stored.

I began by reserving the highlights and yard strings with removable mask. I washed the yarn on the white spindles first with raw sienna and then added the shadows with various combinations of raw sienna, dioxazine purple (yellow’s compliment and therefore a good gray for shadows when mixed with raw sienna) and cobalt blue. For the blue yarn I used cobalt blue dulled with its compliment burnt sienna.

For the green metal rack I used various combinations of phthalo blue, raw sienna and burnt sienna. I began by painting the grooves in light phthalo blue and then painted the background around them. Finally I accented the grooves with dark green made from phthalo blue and raw sienna.

I painted the spindles and spools in various washes of burnt sienna, burnt umber, raw sienna, cobalt blue and phthalo blue. The spindle tops and spool buttons are cobalt blue and raw sienna. For the rims and deeper shadows I added dioxazine purple.

Finally I removed the mask and greyed down the yarn strings.

Or purchase a print from Fine Art America.

tags: Mission Mill Museum, spindles, spools, woolen mill, yarn

January 13, 2010 5:27 pm

Reeds at Sunset

by Jenny Armitage in for sale,landscapes,prints available,techniques,watercolors

Reeds at Sunset (11 x 15) $75.00

This is the Willamette again, but it could really be anywhere. I was struck by the way the reeds look like they are growing out of a sunset.

Like the Broken Dock I painted a couple days ago, I began this painting by masking everything except the water. After the mask on the reeds dried, I painting the sky’s refection on the still water wet into wet beginning with an overall wash of very diluted burnt sienna. When the shine left the paper, I added various mixes of quinacridone deep red rose and new gamgee (yellow). I used cobalt blue and burnt sienna to ad the darker clouds and phthalo blue for the water.

Once the sky had dried, I removed the mask and painted the reeds in new gamgee, colalt blue, phthalo blue and burnt sienna.

Or purchase a print from Fine Art America.com.

tags: reeds, river, sunset, techniques, water, Willamette

January 11, 2010 5:24 pm

Derelict Dock at Sunset

by Jenny Armitage in for sale,landscapes,prints available,Uncategorized,watercolors

: Sundown on the Broken Dock (12 x 16) $150

Brown Minto Park is one of our local haunts. The park boarders the Willamette on one side and a truck farm on the other. Bicycle trials, bark dust trails, and a dog park lie within it’s boarders. The park has forest, field, and playground. A rather civilized asphalt trail runs along the Willamette. A shorter trail from the playground once led to this dock. The dock was falling down even when I first saw it. Now it has gone the way of all things. But I miss it.

My photo showed real sunset with only a silhouette of the trees and dock left. I turned back the clock about a quarter of an hour to show the island trees and more of the decrepit dock.

The palette is cobalt blue, phthalo blue, dioxazine purple, quinacridone deep red rose, burnt sienna, and new gamgee.

I masked the dock before painting. Then I began with the sky and water working wet into wet. When the sky and water dried I added the far bank and it’s reflection working wet on dry but, still doing much of the mixing on the paper rather than on the palette. To give the foreground bank it’s texture, I salted the paint while it was still damp. The effect was a little stronger than I wanted so I gave it a final wash of phthalo blue. Finally I removed the mask and painted in the dock and it’s reflection.

Or purchase a print from Fine Art America.

tags: Brown Minto, dock, Oregon, river, sunset, Willamette

January 8, 2010 4:57 pm

It’s About the Shadows

by Jenny Armitage in Floral,for sale,prints available,watercolors

Flower Doll Ball (7 x 11) $50.00

This summer by daughters made dolls out of toothpicks flowers and buds, a game handed down to them by my mother. Here is a selection of their dolls in dramatic sunlight.

It thought the contrast between the deep shadows and flowers would be striking. But I was unhappy with the painting when I thought I’d finished it. Despite the dark shadows and bright colors, it looked curiously flat. After pondering a day or so, I painted the background a cool light gray made from the left-overs on my palate. It worked– white highlights popped. And it’s done.

The palate is new gamgee, hansa yellow light, phthalo blue, cobalt blue, quinacridone deep red rose and opera (also a quinacridone). Most of the colors are mixed on the paper.

Or purchase a print from Fine Art America.com.

tags: dolls, flowers, still life

December 19, 2009 5:58 pm

Weatherford Hall

by Jenny Armitage in buildings and bridges,for sale,prints available,watercolors

Winter Morning on Campus (11 x 14) $150

This is another painting from my winter morning walk on Oregon State University. Weatherford Hall is probably the photographed building on campus and with reason. That morning the sun lit up just the top eastern half of the building.

I decided to focus on the the central archway and so I cropped out the wings before I began to paint.

The palette is ultramarine blue, cobalt blue, quinacridone deep red rose, and hansa yellow. I kept the use on hansa to a minimum. I used only for the trees, lawn and the very darkest darks.

This painting is available on-line through my Etsy shop. Prints available from Fine Art America.com.

tags: buildings, campus, OSU, Weatherford Hall

December 14, 2009 7:16 pm

Cousins at the Brook

by Jenny Armitage in figures,prints available,watercolors

Cousins at the Brook (10 x 14) private collection

This painting is a Christmas present for my father. He took the photo a couple of years ago while I was visiting him in New Mexico. He, my daughters, and my niece all went to Bandieler National Monument. It was just as hot and dry as you might expect summer in New Mexico to be. When we had finished touring the ruins, Dad snapped this photo of the girls cooling off by the brook. I liked the dappled light, and I know he will like the subject, all three granddaughters at once.

The palatte is cobalt blue, phthlo blue, French ultramarine blue, burnt sienna, raw sienna, cadimun yellow, and quinacrione deep red rose.

Prints available through Fine Art America.com. To see more figurative paintings by other painters see: figures paintings

tags: brooks, children, girls, streams

December 10, 2009 10:45 am

The Craftsmen Lantern

by Jenny Armitage in buildings and bridges,prints available,watercolors

Craftsmen Lantern (11 x 14) reserved for La Salles show

Last week’s art show was on OSU campus in Corvallis. Early Friday morning it was dry and clear and the morning light was stunning, but I had no time to do anything but rush inside the Memorial Building to finish setting up. Sunday was dry, clear and cold too, so I went early and wandered the campus taking photos on the sunlit buildings. Not only was the light dramatic, but since all the leaves have fallen much more of the buildings were visible than last time I was on campus.

The reflected trees in the arch above the main entrance to the Womens Building caught my eye. Closer up I noticed the sun on the craftsmen lantern.

The palate is mostly cobalt blue, dioxin purple and burnt sienna. The extreme highlights are raw sienna and the deepest shadows contain phthalo blue.

I began by painting in the windows in cobalt. I added the reflected trees with a mixture on cobalt and burnt sienna. The metal mullions are layers of cobalt, violet, and burnt sienna built up one over another. I painted the lantern and its reflection next to establish the darkest values. I saved the raw sienna for the sunlit portion of the lamp and echoed it it the sunlit side of the arch.

I showed to my painting friend when I had finished. She introduced me to a new word, “tenebrism.” It means the use of extreme contrasts of light and dark with small amounts of light shining out of vast darkness. I love extreme contrast, and I’m happy to have a word to describe it. I’m not sure that this painting as a whole is an tenebristic, but the lantern and its shadow certainly are, and they make the painting.

Prints available at Fine Art America.com.

tags: craftsmen, lamp, lantern, OSU, reflections, trees, window

November 29, 2009 2:33 pm

Shadows, Glass, and Leaves

by Jenny Armitage in buildings and bridges,for sale,prints available,watercolors

Shadows Glass and Leaves (12 x 14) $100.00

Driving down Commercial last summer, I was struck by the shadows of leaves on a stucco building. I reached for my camera and discovered I’d left it at home. I drove home hurriedly to get it. My daughters in the back seat were remarkable patient with me as I drove round the block twice looking for a parking space. Only eight or nine pictures later did it dawn on me what I was photographing. It’s a local mortuary. Never mind, the shadows and the glass bricks were beautiful.

The shapes were so simple that I drew them freehand onto the watercolor paper.

Most of the painting was done in what I think of as controlled wet-into-wet painting. First I moistened the the small area I wanted to paint and then I dropped the wet color in. I created each glass brick this way. After the paint dried I went back with a wet brush and added the darker shadows to each brick. I used phthallo blue, cobalt blue, cadmium yellow, and yellow ocher.

The shadows on the wall are two separate layers of controlled wet into wet. The first layer was phthallo blue, deep red rose quinacridone, dull a hair with cadmium yellow. The second layer was cobalt blue and deep red rose.

Or purchase a print from Fine Art America.com.

tags: glass brick, mortuary, Salem, shadows, stucco

November 28, 2009 5:50 pm

The Sweet Shoppe

by Jenny Armitage in buildings and bridges,for sale,prints available,watercolors

Sweet Shoppe (10 x 13) $100.00

This is another Central City Painting. I started it this summer at the Artisan Village at the Oregon State Fair. But I felt it lacked something and set it aside. Yesterday when looking for something to paint at the gallery I picked it up again.

What got me started on the painting in the first place is the Victorian decoration. I brightened the colors to go with the sweet shoppe theme. The result was interesting, but lacked something.

Yesterday I decided what it needed was more omph, or in other words more contrast. So I darkened up both the sky and the shadows and here it is.

The palate is cobalt and phthalo blue, quinacridone deep red rose, and cadmium yellow.

Or purchase a print at Fine Art America.com.

tags: building, builing, Central City, Colorado, ghost town, Victorian

November 23, 2009 10:10 am

After the Slumber Party

by Jenny Armitage in portraits,prints available,sold,watercolors

After the Slumber Party (8 x 10) sold

This Friday, my daughters went to a slumber party. Predictably they stayed up until one. They got up at eight. When I picked my girls and a friend of theirs up at noon, they had just finished breakfast and were wide awake and chattering. We stopped to drop our guest’s things at her house and then took all three girls to library. Chatter, chatter, chatter. A very late lunch at the Road House followed. Chatter, chatter, chatter.

It was it was 2:30 by then. The chatter continued through lunch. But Road House lunches are heavy and plentiful. Stomachs full, the girls were suddenly overwhelmingly tired. My youngest leaned against her friend and both girls would have fallen asleep right there had we let them. I snapped a picture.

Reference Photo

Today I painted it. I did my best to correct the ugly green blue light of the restaurant. I made red-purple shadows of blue green ones, and removed the excess pink from their faces.

The palette is cadmium red, cadmium yellow and cobalt blue. Which the exception of some yellow ochre along the jaw lines, those were the pigments I used on the faces. I defined the eyes, nostrils and shadows in cobalt first. Then I painted the faces working mostly wet into wet.

The girls’ hair is various combinations of burnt sienna, cobalt blue, and yellow ochre. I used these three for the brows and lashes too. I added a little phthalo blue to the jacket and the wall.

purchase a print at Fine Art America.com.

tags: girl, girls, portrait

November 20, 2009 2:20 pm

Summer Shoppers

by Jenny Armitage in figures,for sale,prints available,techniques,watercolors

Summer Shoppers (11 x 12) $150.00

This could be anywhere. What I liked about my photo was the sunshine and the interaction between the young women.

Poured Version

I intended to pour a very atmospheric painting, and I did pour one reserving only the womens skin for direct painting. But I was unhappy with the reflections in the windows and the draping of the sundress. I really liked the bright pinks, oranges and yellows I got through pouring though. So at the gallery yesterday, I repainted the image using not only my photo, but also the poured painting as a guide.

For most of the painting I used hansa yellow light, new gamboge, quinacridone deep red rose, and phthalo blue. Using two yellow helped keep things bright. I added burnt sienna to the hair and the leather bag.

I tried to keep most of the poured feeling by mixing the paints freely on the paper. I added the windows and other darks in many layers of transparent color.

I’m happy with the results, but were I to do this over, I would pour the windows, sidewalk, and shadows and perhaps the dark bag and pants. Then I would paint the women directly.

Or purchase a print at Fine Art America.com. See more of my people paintings here: people art

tags: girls, shopping, summer dress, women

November 18, 2009 1:28 pm

Cass Up Close

by Jenny Armitage in for sale,portraits,prints available,watercolors

Cass Up Close (8 x 7) $75.00

This pretty young lady is a friend of my daughters. I took the photo almost to years ago for drawing practice. Browsing through my photo files yesterday, I decided to crop it close and paint it. After painting landscapes and not much else at shows, I really wanted to do a portrait again.

The palate was simple, cadmium red, and cadmium yellow, burnt sienna, and cobalt blue. I added some burnt umber for her hair and lashes.

tags: closeup, girl, woman

November 16, 2009 6:37 pm

Garlic on Blue

by Jenny Armitage in Floral,for sale,prints available,Uncategorized,watercolors

Garlic on Blue (7 x 10) $35.00

I’ve been doing framing and back to back art shows rather than painting lately. And lucky for me the shows have been too busy for much painting, but here is a little still life I snuck in.

tags: dolls, flowers, hollyhocks

November 1, 2009 12:09 pm

Clouds over Boot Hill

by Jenny Armitage in for sale,landscapes,prints available,watercolors

Clouds Over Boot Hill (9 x 12) $75.00

This is one more painting of the storm clouds gathering above Boot Hill in Central City. In this view the graves are not visible. Like the Dynamite Dome, I painted this one at Art in the Burbs in Tigard, Oregon. The palette and the method are the same.

Or purchase a print from Fine Art America.com.

tags: Central City, clouds, Colorado, mountains, storm

October 31, 2009 2:21 pm

Grass in the Window

by Jenny Armitage in buildings and bridges,for sale,prints available,watercolors

Grass in the Window (10 x 14) $225.00

Most of Central City is so well maintained that period-town would be a better description than ghost-town. But some of the buildings have been left to nature for some time. Grass grows out of a low window in one such wall were two building used to abut each other.

If the wall ever had any mortar, it’s not visible now. The quality of the dry wall construction obviously varied greatly between the two buildings is backed. On the right hand side the wall is neatly constructed and looks purposeful and solid. On the left hand side the stones are hardly squared at all are stacked more and more erratically the higher the wall gets. Some stones near the window have fallen away, revealing the depth of the wall.

I began the stones by making an under-painting of phthalo blue. The under-painting showed the shadows between the stones and some of the stronger shadows in the stones. Phthalo blue is a great choice for under-painting because it is strongly staining and won’t wash up with successive layers of paint. After the under-painting dried, I washed the stones wetly with burnt sienna and burnt sienna mixed with rose madder quinacridone. Washes of cerulean blue and phthalo blue mixed with burnt sienna followed. I built up the shadows slowly using the under-painting as a guide. Finally I splattered the rocks with various combination of cerulean blue, burnt sienna and burnt umber using a toothbrush. I smudged the splatters with a paper towel.

The window casing is burnt sienna, cerulean blue, new gamgee, and burnt umber. I applied the paint wet first and then in dry brushed layers.

The grass I masked before beginning the painting. I finished it with greens mixed from new gamgee and phthalo blue. I added the shadows over the window sill last.

I’ve always shied away from building detailed rock and wood like this because I was afraid I couldn’t get the textures right. But I”m pleased with this and may do some more like it.

Or purchase a print at Fine Art America.com.

tags: Central City, Colorado, ghost town, grass, stone, wall, window

October 30, 2009 3:02 pm

The Dynamite Dome

3 comments

by Jenny Armitage in for sale,landscapes,prints available,watercolors

The Dynamite Dome (9 x 12) $75.00

This is another view of Central City’s Boot Hill. According to a gift shop owner in town, the odd brick dome was used to store dynamite. The storage dome was built in the graveyard because of the dangerS of storing explosives in town. Nothing about the dome proclaims it’s purpose, and it would be an odd mausoleum so I’m glad the gift shop owner was chatty. Otherwise, we would have gone away wondering.

She went on to tell us that the dome is on the Catholic side of the graveyard because the powers that be in the city were Protestant. The may be, but the Catholic side of the grave yard is both better tended and more populous than the Protestant side. Judging from the names on the stones, the Catholics in the 1800s were primarily Irish with a sprinkling of Slavs and Spanish miners. The other Boot Hill views I have have posted here have also been from the Catholic side. The monument I painted in Victorian Deadwood is from the Protestant side, but there are many more like it on the Catholic side.

I did this painting at a craft fair in Tigard last weekend along with a few more landscapes which I’ll post over the next few days.

The palette is cerulean blue, Prussian blue, cobalt blue, phthalo blue, new gamgee (yellow) and burnt sienna. I used cerulean for the sky and Prussian blue grayed with burnt sienna to define the clouds. I mixed all of the blues with new gamgee to create the greens for cemetery and hills. The dome itself is burnt sienna.

Or purchase a print from Fine Art America.com.

tags: cemetary, Central City, Colorado, dynamite, graveyard

3 comments!

October 22, 2009 5:36 pm

Victorian Deadwood

by Jenny Armitage in for sale,landscapes,prints available,watercolors

Victorian Deadwood (8 x 10) $75.00

This is another painting from the cemetery above Central City, Colorado. Most of the graves there date from the Victorian era. This is typical of the monuments. They were cast concrete rather than stone and carved to look like wood and stone. The “wood” portions sometimes look like rustic logs and sometimes more like vines creeping on the stone. Could they have had rose or grape covered bowers in mind?

But whatever the intent, to my mind the monuments are so ugly as to be strangely compelling. The are overly complex and intricate yet striving for rusticness. The more I look at them, the more I wonder what they were thinking and what if anything the fake wood roofs and beams meant to them.

The palatte here is cerlulean blue and burnt sienna for the sky. The monunent is raw sienna and cerulean blue on the lighted portions and burnt sienna and Prussian blue on the shadowed sides. The foliage is cerulean, cobalt and Prussian blues mixed in various combinations with raw sienna, new gamgee, and burt sienna.

Prints may be purchased from my BubbleSite.

tags: cemetery, Central City, ghost towns, graves, Victorian

October 20, 2009 9:58 am

The Fossil Shell

by Jenny Armitage in for sale,prints available,techniques,watercolors

The Fossil Shell (6 x 9) $75.00

My girls like to hunt for fossil shells on the beach. Once a middle aged fossil hunter with a German Sheppard stopped to to talk with them. It was a brief conference between enthusiasts. He was looking for fossilized fish and other rarer things. The four shared the boulder strewn beach under the cliffs while I watched the waves. Then the girls and I headed back up the beach for the warm hotel room. He caught up quickly and thrust a stone into my youngest’s hand and was gone before she could say thank you or even see what it was. It was the find of the day, a fossilized shell perfectly preserved on one side and rough rock on the other.

Joy! I popped it right down on the sand and photographed it. It lives on our mantle piece now.

After the Mask Came Off

I began the painting by masking the shell. Then I washed the background lightly first with yellow ochre, then with burnt sienna. I painted in the shadow of the shell with phthalo blue. After that I used an old toothbrush to splatter it with layer upon layer of burnt sienna, yellow ochre, cerulean blue, and Prussian blue.

Next I removed the mask and painted the shell in burnt sienna, and cerulean blue. I added a few gouache white touches.

When I stepped back to look at it, I decided that the sand was too busy and had taken away from the picture. So I took the painting to the sink and scrubbed paint off it with a stiff brush under the tap. Washing a painting is a scary process, but sometimes it’s the only good fix. The result is softer, but still shows the effects of the splattering.

Or purchase a print from Fine Art America.com.

tags: fossil, shell, splattering, washing

October 18, 2009 4:46 pm

Before the Afternoon Rain

by Jenny Armitage in for sale,landscapes,prints available

Before the Afternoon Rain (9 x 12) $100.00

This is the Catholic side of Boot Hill above Central City, Colorado. The grave yard is in a park, a geological park that is, i.e. a high mountain flat open meadow. Most of the graves are old and overgrown and the plots appear to be spotted haphazardly across the field. Here and there are tended plots and even occasionally a new grave. But most of the graves date from the 1800s. Wild roses, daffodils, and onions mingle (the mountain ghost-town survivors) mingle with wildflowers and grasses.

I liked the way the coming afternoon storm lit up some parts of the graveyard but left others in shadow. I also loved the sky itself.

I planned the painting to be three quarters sky. I painted the sky first wet on wet mostly in Prussian blue grayed down with burn sienna. Prussian blue is perfect for storm clouds the color is almost perfect and it spreads out nicely into water. After I finished the sky, I began the hills and the mountain ridge in yellow ochre mixed with phthalo blue, cobalt blue and Prussian blue. But I got carried away with trees and painted them higher up into the sky than I’d intended. I thought briefly about cutting off the bottom part of the grass but decided against because the gravestones so clearly belong in the mid and background. I like it, but I’m tempted to do it over again and really emphasize the sky this time.

Or purchase a print at Fine Art America.com.

tags: boot hill, Central City, clouds, Colorado, ghost towns

October 7, 2009 8:39 pm

Playing With the Newport Bridge

by Jenny Armitage in buildings and bridges,for sale,landscapes,Limited Edition,prints available

The Newport Bay Bridge I (13 x 19) $250

The Yaquina Bay Bridge, better and more informally known as the Newport Bridge, is one of the most photographed and painted objects on the Oregon coast. It’s a little daunting to add yet another painting to the stack. But it’s such a beautiful bridge that I just couldn’t resist.

This is the view of the bridge from the south side of bay standing on the ground looking up. Anyone who knows the area well will see immediately that I took major liberties with the landscape. I’ve placed tree covered hills in the foreground, where there is really a grassy flat area often used as an impromptu parking lot. My reference photo throws the parking lot and the bridge into silhouette against the late afternoon sky. Trees broke up the flat horizon. I expanded the treeline into undulating hills.

What I did not remove from the photo was the scaffolding. Somehow whenever I visit the bridge there is scaffolding somewhere in the picture. And with the light behind it, I found the scaffolding as beautiful as the bridge.

After transferring my sketch of the bridge to the paper, I began by painting the sky. I worked wet into wet beginning at the top with a combination of cobalt blue and cerulean Blue. Moving down the paper I added burnt sienna to the two blues to create the grays of the upper cloud masses. Then I dropped in dioxzine purple on the undersides and the dark areas of the clouds. I grayed the violet a hair and added some cobalt to it and washed in the lower cloud bank. Grayed cobalt brought the clouds to the horizon. The bay itself is grayed down cerulean.

The bridge is various dark combinations of burnt sienna, cobalt blue, french ultramarine, and dioxazine purple. The hills are are wet into wet layers of various mixes of the bridge colors plus cerulean blue and raw sienna.

When I finished the painting I was puzzeled about where to sign it. In the end, I signed the painting in removable liquid mask. The mask has a tendency to lift paint thus leaving a quiet signature behind when I removed it.

This painting is currently available on-line through my Etsy shop. Prints available on inquiry.

tags: Newport, Oregon, Yaquina Bay Bridge

October 3, 2009 5:31 pm

Wall Flowers

by Jenny Armitage in Floral,for sale,prints available

Wall Flowers (6 x 9) $35.00

When my mother was a little girl, she and a little friend spent one summer making dancing ladies out of hollyhocks. An upside down open bloom formed the voluminous dancing skirt. A bud for the head attached to the skirt with a toothpick completed the dancing lady.

When we visited her house this summer, she taught my daughters to make the pretty dancing ladies. She had plenty of hollyhocks and other flowers for the girls to play with. At first their flower dolls were all like grandma’s. But soon they added bits of asters and daisies to the heads and bodies. Finally they made a little prince made out of pea pods and pea stems.

The girls spent several afternoons playing with the flower doll on the back porch. But alas there was only one prince. So most of the dancing flower ladies had to wait their turn at the ball. Here are two of them waiting now.

I have many photos of the girls playing with the hollyhock ladies, and one of these days soon, I’m going to paint the girls playing with the flower dolls. It the meantime, I thought I’d start small with a couple studies of the flower dolls.

Because I wanted very soft edges I did these two without mask, saving the whites with careful paint strokes. The flowers themselves are a mixture of opera pink (PR22) and deep red rose (PV 19), both quinacridone reds. I added hansa yellow to make the oranges and cobalt blue to make the greens.

The flag stone is many layered mixes of the same colors toned with burnt sienna. The mortar is burnt sienna and cobalt blue.

Or purchase a print from Fine Art America.com

tags: dolls, hollyhocks

October 1, 2009 10:08 am

Challenging Myself: One Subject, Three Moods

by Jenny Armitage in buildings and bridges,composition,for sale,prints available,techniques

Queen Anne Nods to Shirley Jackson (11 x 15) $150

I set a challenge for myself this week. The idea was to paint a single subject in a variety of moods. The subject I choose was Deepwoods Estate, here in Salem. I took all of the photos for the painting in the same light and although the various aspects of the building gave me different ideas, the photos don’t convey much feeling to me.

Its Greener on the Other Side

Porch reference photo

I began with the front porch. I aimed to emphasize the softness of the light and the romance of the building. I also wanted to draw the viewer into the painting.

As you can see from my reference photo, my depiction is a little fanciful. I limited my palate to yellows and blues to mimic the soft shadowy light under the porch and the golden sunlight beyond it.

I think the painting works. The most common comment about it is that the viewer would like to step through the porch into the garden on the other side.

Turret and Cupola

Turret Reference Photo

Next I painted a detail of the roof-line from in back. This time I tried to contrast the harsh glittering light with the shaded parts of the building.

Because I intended to include many hard lines and less subtle variation in tone I looked for a place where the contrast between light and shade was particularly striking. But I didn’t want it to look like graphic art, so I poured this painting to ensure that the solid expanses of color were lively rather than flat. Once again I exaggerated, the light in the reference photo is not nearly as stark as the light I painted.

I like this painting, but it turned out rather softer than I had intended. I may try it again with an orange and blue palate.

House Reference Photo

The latest painting in this series is of the whole house. I’ve always found Victorian and Queen Anne houses a little creepy. Like wrought iron, they can be both sinister and charming all at once. On a bright sunny day there is nothing really creepy about the Deepwood House, but it does have a swallowed by the woods feel to it. Despite a generous lawn, there are few places where you can see the whole house. Instead what you see is patches of house through the trees.

So in order to bring out the sinister feel of Queen Anne archetecture, I pulled the trees in closer to the house and darkened the edges where the trees and house meet visually. I also distorted the shape of the house stretching it upwards to about fifteen percent more than it’s real height. Finally I chose a very earthy palate for such a pristine white house: burnt sienna, raw sienna, yellow ocher, phthalo blue and cobalt blue.

I poured this painting too because I wanted a lot of variation in tone. But pouring produces hard lines at the edges of the mask. The result had too many hard lines for the shadowy woods. I did so much scrubbing of the edges, washing over, and detail work that painting doesn’t feel poured to me. But the more I painted the darker it got. I finally had to stop for fear the house would no longer read as white.

I showed the finished painting to my husband yesterday. He said he really liked it, but then added tentatively, “Isn’t it a little eerie?” Yes, yes it is. But I don’t think it’s so eerie that it’s a caricature of the house.

Or purchase a print from Fine Art America.com.

tags: Deepwoods, house, mood, Oregon, queen anne, Salem, Victorian

September 29, 2009 8:10 pm

Turret and Cupola

by Jenny Armitage in buildings and bridges,for sale,prints available,techniques

Turret and Copula (11 x 14) $150

Back to the Deepwood Estate but with a very different feel. This is the west or backside of the house looking up at the turret and the tallest roof peak. The afternoon sun brought the architectural details into graphic relief. I decided to play with the posterized nature of the light by pouring this painting.

Pouring watercolors is much like batik dyeing. First I mask all the white areas of the painting. Then I literally pour cups of paint across the paper. After the first pour dries, I mask all the pastels and pour darker paint. Then I mask the medium values and pour again with yet darker paint. Once the painting is dry, I lift the mask and add the darkest values and the details.

In this case I used phthalo blue, deep red rose, and new gamgee for the first pout. I tried to keep the yellow on the cupola. In later pours I used only the deep red rose and two blues Phthalo and French ultramarine. I saved the french ultramarine for the final pour.

I masked the sky after the first pour and overlaid it with cobalt blue when the mask was removed. The details are all heavy purple and magenta mixtures of phthalo blue and deep red rose.

Or purchase a print at Fine Art America.com.

tags: cupola, deepwood, historic, house, Oregon, pouring, queen anne, Salem, turret, Victorian

9:41 am

It’s Greener on the Other Side of the Porch

by Jenny Armitage in buildings and bridges,for sale,prints available,techniques

Its Greener on the Other Side (10 x 13) $125.00

Built in 1894, The Deepwood Estate is a lovely example of Queen Anne architecture. But to my mind, the gardens are even better. There are four acres of these and they get better every year. The indoor and outdoor Deepwood Estate meet on the front porch. Steps from the porch lead to both the front and back gardens as well as the house and separate glassed-in porch.

Looking up at the porch from the front, I was struck by how the trees on the other side glowed in sun.

After cropping my reference photo to emphasize the the view of the backyard, I spent sometime correcting the photo’s perspective. After transferring my sketch to the watercolor paper I built up from light to dark reserving the white paper where the sun hit the porch wall.

The palate was phthalo blue, a little cobalt blue, hansa yellow light, hansa yellow medium, and burnt sienna. I tried to keep the porch shadows as blue as possible to emphasize the green and yellow of the view on the other side of the porch. And I exaggerated the porch shadows to increase the sense of depth and to show off the green and gold trees. I used the sienna very sparingly and only to gray down the blues and greens.

Or purchase a print from Fine Art America.com

tags: deepwood, historic, house, porch, queen anne, Salem, Victorian

September 23, 2009 8:34 pm

The Mill Reflects Upon Itself

by Jenny Armitage in buildings and bridges,for sale,prints available,techniques

The Mill Reflects Upon Itself (13 x 16) $200

I love the way old glass distorts reflections. This is the second painting of reflections in old glass I’ve done at the Mission Mill Museum.

The old woolen mill is well worth the visit. Most of the original equipment remains inside the mill house and the mill wheel and machinery remains operable. One of these days I’ll have to paint the whole building. It’s bright red and looks like a stack of buildings piled up like crates rather than a single structure. The effect is charming and oddly reminiscent of a child’s toy.

In the meantime I remain fascinated by the glass. Here, a dye house window reflects the mill itself. I love the abstract designs created in the window panes.

I created the siding with multiple washes of paint. I began by painting the shadows in french ultramarine blue. Then I washed all of the siding with with a mixture of deep red rose grayed down a little with phthalo green. Next came Da Vinci’s burnt sienna, followed by HWC’s burnt sienna. The first is really very orange and the second verges on red. I didn’t wash the highlights with the redder sienna. Then I washed the shadowed siding in burnt umber followed by cobalt blue. I like the resulting glow from all of those translucent layers of paint.

I used much the same process for the reflected mill, except that I didn’t use any burnt umber and the final layer of deep red rose.

Or purchase a print from Fine Art America.com.

tags: factory, Mission Mill Museum, museum, Salem

September 21, 2009 7:27 pm

Breakers Below Yaquina Head I

by Jenny Armitage in for sale,prints available,seascapes

The Breakers Below Yaquina Head I (12 x 16) $175.00

When the tide comes in, the tide pools below Yaquina Head disappear under white foam and the fireworks begin. From the gravely beach you can see the breakers at eye level. Add sunshine through the clouds and the beautiful view becomes spectacular. I wish I could paint the sound because that’s pretty spectacular too.

My palate was cerulean blue, cobalt blue, raw sienna, burnt sienna, burnt umber and a hint of quinacridone deep red rose. I scrubbed and used some gouache chinese white where the spray hits the rocks. Otherwise the whites are reserved paper.

The rocks are multiple layers of raw sienna, burnt sienna, phthalo blue and cobalt blue.

Or purchase a print at Fine Art America.com. See more seascapes at Fine Art America: seascapes paintings

tags: breakers, waves, Yaquina Head

September 15, 2009 4:40 pm

The Fisherman’s Wharf

by Jenny Armitage in for sale,marine,prints available,seascapes

The Helen McColl at Rest (10 x 15) $175.00

One of our beach side pleasures is wondering the Newport’s history bay. Art galleries, fish packing plants, and novelty shops, private museums, restaurants and taverns mix indiscriminately along the bay front. But the best part of the bay is the fisherman’s wharf.

There is marina space for pleasure craft further down the road and across the bay. But I prefer the fishing boats. The yachts are are elegant under sail, but with their sails furled at port they look sad to me, like furniture under sheets. And few people tour the boats. The yachts are expensive and while not actually prohibited, visitors feel unwelcome.

The wharf remains full of life. Maintaining a fishing boat is an endless task and someone, usually several someones are always busy there. Tourists are smiled upon. Some these outfits sell fish and crab right off the boat. The sea lions chose the wharf piers for sunning too. They know where to fish scraps are.

The shape of the fishing boats may be elegant, but the boats themselves are not. Machinery, ropes, crates, boxes, tarps, crab pots, nets, buckets, barrels and other paraphernalia clutter the decks. Unlike the yachts the boats are often brightly colored. Fishing is a dangerous game and these men want to be visible.

We visit often enough that we remember many of the names. The Miss Law, The Sandra Fey, The Suki, The Destiny, The Golden Dolphin, The Orca, and many others. This is The Helen McColl. She was at the end of the pier guarded by sea lions. I took her picture because I liked her reflection and the rust on her side, an unusual sight on the wharf. She must have had a hard year.

I used primarily phthalo blue, cobalt blue, and burnt sienna. I used a hair of yellow ocher and made a couple high lights in white gouache. I painted the water and sky first, then alternated between the boat and her reflection making sure to use the same paint mix for each reflected part.

This painting is currently for sale on-line through my Etsy shop. Or purchase a print at Fine Art America.com.

tags: boat, dock, fishing, Helen McColl, Newport, wharf

September 14, 2009 5:16 pm

Twixt Wind and Water II

by Jenny Armitage in figures,for sale,prints available,seascapes,techniques

Twixt Wind and Water II (12 x 16) $225

Twixt Wind and Water

We spent last weekend on the beach. I took enough photographs to have seacape material for some time to come. While I was there I reworked Twixt Wind and Water. Here is the result. As you can see, I gave the painting considerably more sea-room to the left, so that she has something more to look into.

I began her hair with an under-painting of colbalt blue. Then I used layers of yellow ochre, burnt sienna, and cobalt blue to complete it. Quidacrone deep red rose provides the accent color in the hair band.

Her jacket is cobalt blue and prussian blue mixed on the palate.

The sea began as phthalo blue and burnt sienna with reserved whites. Then I changed my mind about much of the wave action and began experimenting with white gouache. To cover strong colors, gouache must be laid on fairly heavily. And even though I don’t use ultra white paper, gouache white is still bluer that the paper. Also, as I discovered gouache will washback into transparent watercolor and vice versa. Work a little gouache onto the paper and nothing painted there will ever be entirely transparent again.

The effect is interesting, but I think next time I’ll stick to transparent watercolors, unyielding to change though they may be. I like the translucency better.

Or purchase a print from Fine Art America.com

tags: braid, girl, gouache, ocean, Pacific, storm, waves

September 10, 2009 10:37 am

Breakers at Seal Rock or Using all the White Techniques

by Jenny Armitage in for sale,prints available,seascapes,sold,techniques,unfinished

The Breakers at Seal Rock II (12 x 16) $125

This is the second painting I’ve done of the tide coming in at Seal Rock Wayside. The first was a little postcard sized painting I did while demonstrating at the fair. That little painting sold immediately. I liked it too, so when expanding it to a full sized painting I didn’t mess around with the composition much. But I did want to get some more variety into the rocks and spray.

Like the previous painting, I began by reserving the whites with liquid mask while painting in the ocean and rocks. I used phthalo blue and burnt sienna for the ocean.

I used the same basic technique to lay down the rocks as I did with the first little painting. I started with raw sienna and quinacridone gold. Then I added burnt sienna and quinacridone deep red rose. While the burnt sienna and deep red rose were still wet, I dropped in cobalt blue and phthalo blue. Finally I added some heavy burnt sienna and some French Ultramarine.

Once the painting was dry, I scrubbed the edges of the rock where the spay hit them with a stiff filbert brush to show how the waves obscured them. Then I broke out the white gouache (an semi opaque white) and added more spray. Over the dark painted rocks the gouache white looks gray. I used the gouache primarily for the shelf of the biggest rock and the bases of the rocks on the shore side. Finally I pulled out the razor and scratched in fine white lines where the water spilled over the rocks and little cuts for droplets of spray. All four techniques work very differently, and each has a character of it’s own. I like the variety that resulted from using them all.

Or purchase a print at Fine Art America.

tags: guauche, Oregon, razor, rocks, Seal Rock, waves

August 31, 2009 10:53 pm

Breakers

by Jenny Armitage in prints available,seascapes,sold

Breakers SOLD

Dances With Fountains

I expected to sell prints, but not necessarily paintings at the Oregon State Fair. It isn’t exactly a traditional art venue. So I wasn’t surprised that I hadn’t sold a painting over the weekend. But surprise, surprise, I sold two framed originals today. “Fountain Dance” I blogged about when I painted it. It’s part of my Town Center Park “Splash” Series. Breakers is a little painting I did before beginning this blog.

You can purchase a print of either painting at Fine Art America.com

tags: Oregon, Seal Rock, waves

August 10, 2009 9:08 pm

The Best Hot Pink or Playing Chicken with the Waves

by Jenny Armitage in figures,for sale,prints available,seascapes

Retreat (9 x 12) $100

I haven’t been able to paint much recently, so I brought some things to play with at my mother’s. I started with another winter wave painting because they are becoming easy and familiar. This is my youngest daughter playing chicken with the surf. I think in the end she got her feet wet. My reference photo included both girls, but for composition reasons I left my eldest out.

The palette is cobalt blue, burnt sienna, raw sienna and opera rose. I rarely want anything as bright as hot pink, but when I do, Winsor and Newton’s Opera is a good choice. It’s hotter than anything I can mix by diluting my reds. It’s another quinacridone red, PR 122. And like most of the quinacridones it’s light-fastness is rated II, very good but not excellent. Also like the rest of the quinacridones its a very warm red.

The paint came to me by serendipity. Dick Blick’s sent me a sample on the same day I saw it used to effect in small touches in a large foresty landscape. I was painting a picture of a young woman with a hot pink plastic bucket. I grabed the new paint and discovered I liked it.

Or purchase a print from Fine Art America.com See more painting of little girls here: girls paintings

tags: girls, surf. Opera, waves

August 9, 2009 5:19 pm

New Dawn in the Late Afternoon

by Jenny Armitage in for sale,marine,prints available

New Dawn in the Late Afternoon (8 x 10) $100

I painted this little picture while vacationing in Colorado. Obviously I didn’t work plein air. I used a photo I took last summer. We love to walk along the Newport fishing docks in the afternoon when the boats are all in and the fishermen are cleaning up.

This is the New Dawn in dock. I painted her because of the lovely reflections in the water. But while I began it because of the reflections, I found I enjoyed the subtle shades of gray necessary to give the boat volume too, especially where the floats colored the shadows.

I painted the reflection and the parts of the boat reflected first beginning with the red boat side and the gold float. Then I added first the lighter water background and than the darker reflections and waves in it. The lighter water is cobalt blue in the foreground and cerulean blue in the distance. I used burnt sienna to gray and darken and gray the blues. I used a little raw sienna to make the greens.

Then I painted in the dark rail, the lifesaver and the the floats to help me “see” the rest of the boats. The rails are phthalo blue mixed with burnt sienna. I used burn sienna and raw sienna for the floats and lifesaver. The background came next to define the masts.

With that road map in hand, I set about adding all the various shades of gray. For those I used all three blues grayed down with burn sienna.

Or purchase a print from Fine Art America.

tags: boats, Newport, reflections, water

July 31, 2009 12:47 pm

Visiting the Civilized Engineer

by Jenny Armitage in figures,prints available,sold

The Civilized Engineer

My step-father jokes that civil engineers aren’t very civil. But he is a civil engineer and he is both civil and civilized. Here is a painting I did of him last year. The poise is characteristic and setting his own home. It isn’t a portrait, but everyone who sees it recognizes him immediately.

We will be visiting him and my mother for a few days. I just finished showing the house sitter around. She’s very helpful, about watering the garden and feeding the dog, but she won’t ship paintings for me. Any paintings purchased before I get back will have to be shipped after I return.

tags: George, interiors, men