Mothers' Day Daffodils (watercolor 5 x 7) $25.00
I’ve spent my gallery shifts this month making postcard sized paintings for the OSU Mom’s Day Weekend Craft Fair. It’s a fun fair to do. Where else do you get to see a crowd of college boys with their moms?
As part of the Mom’s weekend celebration I’ll be at the gallery demonstrating polymer clay cane-making on Friday from 1:00 to 2:30 at Art in the Valley, 209 2nd Street, downtown Corvallis. The craft fair will be on campus in the Memorial Union Quad. The fair runs from 10:00 a.m. to 5:00 p.m. Saturday.
Three Tulips (watercolor 5 x 7) $25.00
The Green Mister (watercolor 10 x 14) $150.00
This is probably the last watercolor for my one woman mini show this coming April at Art in the Valley, Corvallis Oregon.
I’m using a new technique to replace liquid mask when reserving soft edged areas of white paper in many of my latest still lifes. Puddles of clear water on the paper will resist paint. In this painting I made little lines of water along the reflected light from the mister and silver vase before painting the window sill. The result is a soft sliver of white paper remaining after my washes.
To use the water resist technique use as much water as you can without running outside the area you wish to reserve. You may need to renew the water fairly frequently too.
The water resist technique is more trouble than either masking whites or carefully painting around them, but it has the advantage of creating a much softer edge. This technique is not suitable for fine detail.
Or purchase a print from Fine Art America.com.
Cherry Blossoms in a Blue Pitcher (watercolor 12 x 19) $250
We planted a two ornamental cherry trees the year we moved into this house. Five years later the trees put on quite a show each Spring. The branches I take inside don’t make a dent in the abundance of blooms.
I made two fundamental design decisions in painting this image. Both help make the blossoms pop. First, rather than paint the blue gray evergreens in the actual background, I added an abstract green background to compliment the pink blossoms. Second I painted my white window blue. I also moved the branches around to improve the composition.
I began by masking the blossoms. Then I painted the background and window casing. The blossoms and branches came last.
The palette was raw sienna, new gamgee (yellow), phthalo blue, quinacridone magenta, opera pink, dioxazine purple, and burnt sienna. The background is raw sienna and phthato blue painted wet into wet. The casing is phthalo blue and burnt siena. The blossoms are magenta and opera pink grayed with phthalo blue or diaxazine purple. The leaves are a wash of new gamgee and magenta washed over with dioxazine purple.
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.
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.
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