Middle Granddaughter

Let it Snow

A snowy night at Grandma and Grandpa's, lots of art supplies, and a cozy corner to sit in and create.  It would have been even more fun if school had been called off the next day, but surprisingly, it wasn't.

We've been seeing lots of snowfall, but very few snow plows.  It snowed two or three more inches this morning just during my two-hour class. 

If you're somewhere in the north, I hope you're staying warm.  I hope you have a cozy corner with some art supplies!

Underpainting

Simple Still Life

I'm really not a fan of watercolor underpainting.  But just for the fun of it, in class this morning, we painted a light wash of the primaries on our papers, and then painted a simple still life over it.  It's just kind of fun and challenging to figure out what to paint over and around to make it work with the underpainting.  I wish I had taken pictures of the paintings the class did  -  they were great.

If you plan out your composition and paint the underpainting accordingly, you have a better chance of leaving some whites.   We just painted our wash of primaries, and then drew the still life, working with whatever wash we had. 

It isn't the underpainting's fault that the yellow pitcher is a little wonky.

A Little Bookbinding

This is a portfolio/folder that I made yesterday to hold small pieces of watercolor paper.  I had seen a similar one online, but I didn't have any directions, so there was a lot of measuring, cutting, folding, gluing, and fitting.  Trial and error stuff.

On the left is the front cover,  top right is the inside showing the folder, and bottom right shows it with a stack of watercolor paper in it.  The paper is a full sheet torn into sixteen pieces  -  five and a half by seven and a half.

I was so completely absorbed in this, I was actually surprised this morning at what a mess the house is  -  half finished laundry, dirty dishes in the sink, recyclables on the kitchen counter  .  .  .    Actually I'm sugar coating it. But most surprising of all,  no Christmas shopping had been done! 

I like the idea of "loose-leaf" sketchbooks, and I'm trying to come up with a couple of simple designs to teach next spring in a new bookbinding workshop we are planning.  This design may not be on the agenda.

Now on to Christmas shopping. 

Pears . . .

This is another go at yesterday's composition.

I "painted" the objects with clear water, and then started dropping in the local color  (the natural color of a thing in ordinary daylight, uninfluenced by the proximity of other colors)  of each piece of fruit, and letting them bleed into each other a little.  I used a triad again (a combination of the three primary colors  -  red, yellow, and blue).

Today I used prussian blue, quinacridone red, and quinacridone gold.  It's essential  that you  pick out a triad  that will give you a good color mix for the subject.  I had first planned to use quinacridone burnt scarlet for my red, but it wouldn't have given me a good orange, and the persimmons are a pretty important part of this composition.  Using quin. red instead of quin. scarlet gave me a good persimmon orange, and still grayed down well for the other fruit

Ooops  -  I didn't put a shadow under the bottom persimmon.

Pears and Persimmons

 Still Painting Pears and Persimmons  -  and a Lime

This is a small watercolor  (4 3/4 X  7 3/4).  I did the sketch viewing the fruit down the table from a standing position, drawing it as I saw it and not tweaking the composition.  The red pear in the middle was just too much of a RED PEAR IN THE MIDDLE.  Screaming for attention.  I put a little more red on the tan pear on the left, and brightened up the persimmons.  My original composition didn't have a persimmon in the lower left,  but it really needed to be there.

I used ultramarine blue, quinacridone red, and hansa yellow.  I did end up using a little manganese blue in the mix for some of the shadows. 

I'm going to try this same composition a little  (a lot) juicier, letting some of the colors and shapes bleed a bit.  This one is pretty stiff.  I might try a different triad too  -  a different combination of the three primaries.

There was an old Italian couple next to me in the produce department buying persimmons  -  I mean a HUGE bag of persimmons!  I had to ask, "What are you going to do with those?"  They looked at me and said, "Eat them."  Okay, that makes sense, but boy, are they missing out by not painting them!