Back to painting water and sky - well at least a little water. This is a very small canvas - 8X8, acrylic. It is pouring rain and I am thinking about our classes at Spring Lake Park. I haven't had my fill of water and sky and the season is over. Well, we have our memories and sketches and photographs.


Spring Lake Park - What a nice place to paint.

Warming up a little this morning with some peppers.

If you were in my drawing class last night, you have probably seen enough peppers.

I am off to the drawing board to finish up the full size sketch for the current commission I am doing. (See previous post)

If you are reading this - stop now and go draw something!!!

This is the rough sketch of a commission I am working on. I have some adjustments to do on the perspective on the front - especially the porch - at the top of the steps. That line should go down toward the right a little.

I will enlarge the sketch, transfer it to the watercolor paper, and get busy painting! Stay tuned.

Can we take one more geranium?

This is watercolor on canvas - just for fun. It is a 5 X 5 inch canvas, 1 1/2 inches deep and primed with "watercolor stuff".

This is another watercolor done on clayboard.

It didn't scan too well - I think clayboard has too much texture for the scanning process and the subtleties of shading get washed out. I will try photographing it a little later.

By the way, did I explain what clayboard is http://www.ampersandart.com/products/h_products/cbtext.html

Here is the sketch I did out at Kauffman's Flower Farm on Friday.

I needed to get some more darks in there and do the ink. A little over the top with busy-ness, but oh well. It was fun and that's what it's all about!!!

Then we drove back down State Road to Kauffman's Flower Farm.

What a beautiful place! These sketches were actually painted a couple weeks ago when we went up there. It was hot and overcast, but yesterday was sunny, and the colors were just amazing. I didn't finish my paintings enough to post - but I will!

Had a wonderful day of journal painting yesterday. We started out in the garden of Three Pines Gallery in Cross Village.

Trying to decide if this is finished.

This is watercolor (right) on clayboard 14 X 11, taken from a journal page done on location a couple of days ago.

I really think I like the original sketch better. It is much fresher. The larger watercolor seems a little stiff in comparison. Hmmm . . . what have we learned here. I don't know - nothing yet. Have to think about it.

I am in the painting frenzy mode!

And I love it. It feels so good.

This is the painting I started at Harbor Cove the last day of our Water and Sky classes. Thanks, Ginny for having us all out there to paint. It was an absolutely beautiful day. We had a great time watching the sky and water do its thing for three hours. It was constantly changing making painting a bit of a challenge - but that's what we like, right? Everyone did a great job!!!

Now I am working on clayboard doing a watercolor from a sketch I did in my journal a couple of nights ago. This clayboard thing is fun. Stay tuned.

I'm STILL working on the class mailer for heaven's sake! I have the emails sent out and am getting replies, but am still doing the post cards. Don't anybody ask me what I've been doing - I'm embarrassed to say I AM STILL WORKING ON THE POST CARDS. But I said it anyway, didn't I.

Please check out www.catherinecarey.blogspot.com for class info. And, hey! Sign up for a class!

This week marked the end of my summer classes for 2005.

I hated to see them end - however, I don't know if I could keep up the pace all year. Now I will have to go through that transition of BUSY AND SCHEDULED to just busy and scheduled. Well - a little scheduled. I know I need some structure, but let's not over-do it.

I just love all of the people I interacted with all summer. I get very attached to them although I have a terrible time remembering who is in what class.

I have a commission to get going on, and I have a zillion paintings in my head.
For the past few days I have been getting my Fall Class mailer ready to go. It is so time consuming. I used to do just a flyer, now I do a post card, email, and a website. I don't think it takes any longer to do than it did to lay out a flyer.