Watercolor Kitten

Happy New Year! Let's make 2015 a great year filled with love, family, friends and of course, ART!!

Last Christmas, I gave my friend a little watercolor painting of her kitten.  She got another kitten over the summer and when I asked her what she'd like for Christmas this year, she asked if I would be able to do another painting of the new kitty so she could display them together.  I was more than happy to, as I love cats and really enjoy doing animal portraits for people. 

When I paint animals, the first thing I start with is the eyes. If the eyes are wrong, the rest of the painting will be wrong, so that's why I start there. I also love painting eyes, the challenge of making them look real with different tones and colors and highlights. It's the best part of the painting!

 He seems to look a little angry here, but that's just the shape of cat eyes. So enjoyable to paint, especially in watercolor. I love painting cat's green eyes, like my cat has and my friend's other cat. This little guy has more yellowish eyes though, and finding that shade was a little tricky. I used some sap green, yellow ochre, naples yellow and burnt umber. I think. 

Next is just the progression of the rest of this face, body and background.

"Maverick", watercolor on paper. 4"x6". 

A Black Cat Halloween

In honor of Halloween, I'm going to share some small paintings I've done of my brother's black cat.  I love this guy and I take tons of photos of him whenever I'm home for a visit. (He's very photogenic).  Several of these photos have  become references for paintings.  They're on the small side, the largest is only 9"x7". 

Watercolor on paper, 9"x7"

Watercolor on paper, 3.5"x2.5"
Artist Trading Card (ATC) size.

Cut paper, about 1.5"x2".

Acrylic on mini stretched canvas, 2"x2.75".  


Happy Halloween!

Poppies

Taking another quick half a day break from commissioned work a couple of weeks ago, I made this little picture of poppies.  I found the blue and purple background I had put aside from a friend and decided to draw some poppies on it.  More simple free hand drawing with no worry about precision or pleasing anyone but myself. 

I had taken several pictures of poppies on a road trip through the Balkans last summer.  These particular ones were from a pretty area right on the border of Bosnia and Croatia, looking out to the sea.  

First, I picked out the poppies I liked most and drew them on the first scrap of tracing paper I could find. When I had all the flowers I liked, I transferred it to the blue background paper.  I actually really like the scrap tracing paper and I might do something else with that in the future. I like the horizontal composition. 

I traced these flowers onto the blue background paper and then filled them all in with white gesso.  I wanted to use watercolor and colored pencil for these and if I colored straight onto the blue, the colors would have turned muddy.  So I gave them a clean white base to start. 

I decided to use my Cretacolor watercolor pencils to put down a base color of yellows and light oranges. After I sort of scribbled the color on, I washed over with a watercolor brush and clean water. 

 Detail of the scribbled color.

After washing it with water. 

After the base color was added, I filled them in with more colored pencil, but not with the intention to turn it into a watercolor wash.  I used a variety of oranges and reds to fill them in, and then used a fine black marker to hatch in some lines in the darkest areas.  I used a white gel pen to add some more hatched lines for the highlights and then outlined the whole composition with the black marker to make it stand out more. 

Details...

Details....

Finished picture, about 8 1/2"x11". 

Thanks for looking!

Watercolor Coming Up...

On a trip to Italy three years ago, I took this photo in Florence:

 I had climbed to the top of the Cathedral and took this shot looking up at the gorgeous carved architecture.  I've been wanting to do a watercolor painting of it ever since!  

I made a quick sketch in my sketchbook on top of some random orange scribbles from some other project or other (and I think it actually adds to the sketch, I like it!) 

 Anyway, that's nothing special but this photo has been on my mind for a while and I finally took the time to start it.  I did a sketch on large (well, large for me, 14"x20") hot pressed (smooth) watercolor paper. 

 

I know it's hard to see, but it's a very light pencil sketch and as I'm using watercolors, I don't want the pencil to show through or get smeared and dirty the color.

I did make a small print of the drawing and played around with some of my Winsor & Newton colored drawing inks I've had forever and never used. (Another problem of mine, hoarding art supplies and not using them. That's going to be a new project, start using all the supplies!)

 

This one is small, a little larger than 8"x10" and my aim here was to loosely apply some color and see what happened.  It was also a small break in the middle of my dresses and I wanted to not worry about being precise and accurate, but throw down some color and get this image off my chest a little bit. 

When I start this painting, I'll post as I go along. Until next time!

Red Tulips

In my last post, I put up a cropped photo of a work in progress.  Well, I finished it!  I did this painting as part of an art swap with a friend.  She makes beautiful crochet blankets, so in exchange for a beautiful handmade blanket, I painted her some red tulips.  I love painting flowers and have become pretty good at it, if I do say so myself, so that's what she requested.  

My favorite part of the painting is the bottom tulip.  I love the perspective, the way it's just coming out towards you.  That's why I took a few other photos of it from crazy angles. 

Another thing, I don't paint glass very often. In fact, this is exactly the second time I've painted glass, but I really love it! All the different colors and abstract shapes in the reflections are really fun to do.  I had a lot of fun painting this picture and I think I want to do a larger version of it sometime in the future. 

Sneak Peek....

I'm still working on my friend's tulip watercolor.  Here's a little preview...

Variety of Tulips

A friend and I recently decided to do an art swap. She makes beautiful crochet blankets and she said she would make one for me in in exchange for a painting of tulips.  Good deal! She likes red ones, so I bought a bouquet of red tulips and took several reference photos for her painting (which I'm doing in watercolor). 

I had two other commissions I was working on though, before I was able to start her painting.  By the time they were finished, the red tulips had died, but I really had wanted to practice some more drawing straight from life, so I bought another bouquet of multicolored tulips for sketching (and decorative purposes, of course!).  

Here are my life drawings of tulips.  

I just bought myself a little Moleskine watercolor journal and I was so excited to start painting in it. This is my first entry.

Quick pen and ink sketches. This sketch and the one below were both done in my 5"x7" sketchbook.

Getting detailed in pencil. 

The tulips were starting to wilt and die, and I always find drawing wilting flowers a good exercise. This one is a bit larger, done in my 9"x12" sketchbook.

These ones were really falling apart! 9"x12".

Sketching Outside

So the sun was out this morning (finally!) and I couldn't wait to get outside to draw that little park! (I posted the photo in yesterday's blog).  I had some things to do this morning, then I came home for lunch and went right outside, and of course, that's when the clouds rolled in to stay. *sigh*. I really wanted the sun because it casts more shadows, which of course add nice contrast.  I'm not sure how long these gorgeous trees stay in bloom like this. That and the serious lack of sun in this country made this sketch pretty time sensitive.

When I walked outside into that sunshine, it was so warm and made me so happy.  I was outside for a good hour or so, when I noticed my hands were getting cold and it was a bit windy. Grr, Scotland...

Well, at least I did it. I went outside, into a public park and did some art.  No one bothered me, if anyone was looking over my shoulder I didn't  notice, so besides the clouds, an overall success!  I didn't do the whole thing outside.  When I realized the sun was not coming back and my hands were cold, I went inside to finish painting from the photo I took the other day. 

I really love these trees, I wish they would stay this pink and flowery all spring and summer.  It's so nice to look out my window and see so much color. 

Drawing From Life

I've been thinking that I need to draw more from life.  My usual MO is to take a lot of photos and pick one or a few as reference and draw and paint from that.  I especially never wanted to do much "en plein air" work because, well, dragging art supplies from the studio to wherever was a pain, wind and rain are uncomfortable conditions to try and focus on drawing and the biggest reason, I am pretty introverted and like to be left alone while doing art.  Drawing outside draws people, who can potentially hover or even talk to you. To some of you, that might be fine and even welcome.  Not so much for me, it's distracting and I'm not in the mood to talk to strangers while I'm trying to work. 

These sketches are all done in my little 5"x7" sketchbook. 

My first recent attempt was drawing some flowers I had in my house, orange gerber daisies.  I didn't use any color, this was just pen and ink.  I placed them on my coffee table, put the tv on and just sketched away.  It's definitely more challenging than drawing from a photo, but I really enjoyed it and was happy with how it came out. 

 You'll probably notice "shadow dancing" written up in the corner.  Well, the show I was watching had that playing and I wrote it down because I like the song.  Don't hate me for liking the Bee Gees! haha. 

These next three drawings were done outside in my yard back home in New Jersey. I was just back for a few weeks visiting and there were flowers popping up all over our yard.  The weather was a bit bi-polar while I was home, some days hitting 80 degrees, another day there was snow. Go figure. But those gorgeous sunny days found me outside sketching flowers. This time I used some watercolor with my pen and ink. 

I really love these Daffodils my grandpa gave my mom. They come up in the little garden behind the kitchen. This day was pretty windy though, and it was hard to draw anything, since the flowers were all waving around like crazy! So I got one and called it a day.

Cannot remember what these flowers were called. My mom told me, but it was some weird name that I'm sure I can't spell. 

Now, I am back in Edinburgh and everything if flowering and blooming like crazy. It's absolutely gorgeous here!  

So far, baby steps. Sketched from life inside with some flowers I had in my window.  Then, I was outside at home in my yard sketching flowers where they grew.  Next step...going outside in public here in Edinburgh to a little park and sketching this...

 

I will post a photo when I finish!

New ATC's

In a previous post, I had done mixed media drawings on book pages I had printed and stamped on.  After doing several of those, I thought it would be fun to do some artist trading card (ATC, 2.5"x3.5") sized art, so I cut up a few of the remaining book pages and glued them to watercolor paper for extra support.  I did a couple flower ones (I really love drawing poppies, and since I have a colored pencil called "poppy red", that worked well!) and then a few random ones.

I really love the pink and blue ones (the one with the plumeria and the poppies), those were my favorite backgrounds. And I think the color of the flowers goes really nice with the backgrounds.  I wish I had more of those to go around.  

Colored pencil and extra fine sharpie marker on printed and stamped background.

Both of these are also colored pencil and black extra fine
sharpie marker on printed background.  I love having a pencil called "poppy red"! When I did these, I actually had to do the pencil outline of the flower and then gesso the inside so I was coloring a white surface.  The top one originally was just the pencil on top of the blue background, and the red and blue together made pretty muddy colors, so I gesso'd over them and colored them again.  Much better color!

I love drawing octopus (octopi?). This is also colored pencil on printed book page. Outlined with extra fine sharpie and white gel pen. The white gel pen starts out bright, clean white but as it dries it kind of takes on the colors under it for some reason.

I don't know if you've noticed yet, but I love to paint my cat. He's such a regal animal and at first I thought painting a black cat was difficult, because I could never see much detail in the photos I took of him. But I just kind of go with it and have a lot of fun. In this photo, he was sitting under the table and there was a lot of light coming from the window behind him lighting up his left side and the other was much more in shadow and I couldn't even really tell where he ended and shadows began, haha. 

Inspired by my trips to Italy, and Venice in particular.  I absolutely love all the masks on display everywhere. I took a ton of photos of them when I was there. I would actually love to do a whole series of masks.

Tomatoes!

Last week at the grocery store, I bought some tomatoes that weren't quite ripe.  They had to sit for a few days to ripen and during that time, I noticed the curly, dying vines from two tomatoes that were plucked from this particular vine.  I thought it would make a fun still life, so I started drawing them from life.  I don't do a lot of my art from life, I mostly work from photos, only because I'm a slow worker.  Painstaking details, I wish I could work faster and looser, but anyway.

Between the drawing and painting stages, my fiance had eaten two of the three tomatoes, so when I started painting them, I had to do a bit of guessing on the color and highlights, haha. But it came out alright, not quite what I was hoping for though.  I don't think I used the best quality paper, I'm not happy with how some of the color bled and blended. But it was a fun little project. 

 Tomatoes, 7"x8" watercolor on paper

Finally Finished.

For anyone still interested in these freakin daisies, I have finally finished. ;-) It really didn't take me too long to do the actual painting, which is why it is strange it took a year and a half to get it done. Well, now it's complete and we can all move on with our lives!

I can't honestly say this is my favorite painting I've ever done, it was really more of an experiment for me.  I'm usually very tight and detailed and I wanted this one to be a little more free.  

When I was doing the background, I had the flowers outlined in masking fluid so the background wouldn't wash into them.  When I decided to give the background a very spattery look, it started dripping into the flowers and I thought, "oh no!" But then I just decided to go with it.  I knew the spatter and drips would show through when I painted the flowers, and thought it might give it an interesting effect.

I'm also not thrilled with the composition. I don't know what it is...but either way, it was fun to paint and I love the colors of gerber daisies. I'm sure I'll be doing more in the future.