At the edge of the forest

For my final painting I used a photo I had previously taken of a small rock building at JCCFS.  I love the multicolored rocks in the building and the contrast of the shadowed deep woods and open area around the building.  Part of the class discussion, was about narrative.  How do we convey a story through our paintings.  This painting tells a story of living on the edge; between the beauty and unknown of the deep green forest and the structured world humans construct.

To create the deep green shadowed forest. I masked the trees on the forest edge.  I used a small masking fluid container that had a thin tube applicator, which I thought would make it easier to apply.  But it wasn't as easy as I expected.  The tree trunks were large and I needed to use a masking brush to cover them effectively.  The branches were smaller, but where the branches and trunks met I had problems controlling the fluid, causing blobs.  This was the first time I had used this type of masking application.  In retrospect I should have done some testing and had a well thought out plan for my application.

After the masking was completely dry, I wet the paper and used saturated pigments to create the vibrant dark green depths and light in the forest.  While the paper was still wet I used the side of a credit card to scratch in branches.  Scratching the wet paper let the pigments penetrate and create dark lines.  This worked very well, but next time I will try to vary the size of the scratches to imitate the change in branch size more accurately.

I carefully removed any excess paint from the masked areas.  This is an important step to keep unwanted pigment from accidentally getting on other parts of the painting.  I proceeded to paint the light green lawn and rock house in the foreground.  I enjoyed painting the multicolored rocks and distressed wood of the shed.

Now It was now time to remove the masking fluid and paint the trees.  Once the trees were painted I added in darker shadows on the lawn and rock house.  The final addition was the red bird house at the upper left.  The addition of that bird house changes the feel of the painting.

Bone yard

For the second painting I used a photo recently taken on the north end beach of Bulls Island NC as my reference.  Barrier Islands like this one are constantly changing.  The currents and waves push and pull the sand on the beaches, constantly reshaping them.  Northern ends of the barrier island on the Atlantic coast looses sand, while their southern end gains sand.  On Bull Island the erosion of the send on the north end in the past few years has been extreme.  Old forests of oak, pine and palms have been left stranded on the beach where they die.  In this boneyard the bleached and worn skeletons cast eerie silhouettes against the sky and water.  A beautiful but sad reminder of the how fragile life is.

I made a small sketch to work out my color pallet and to practice the wet washes for the sky and sand; and dry brush techniques for the waves and tree textures.  This also gave me a chance to work out which branches were in front and which were behind.  Helping to define the depth of the painting.

The larger painting uses the same colors, but I darkened the sky and water, lightened the tree's shadow and added added more brown to the tree.  These changes shift the viewers focus to the tree skeleton.

Daffodil larger then life

Before the snow and sleet arrived, I picked a few bright daffodils to sketch.  I kept the flowers in my fresh water glass throughout the week as inspiration.  One of the sketches was used as the basis for my first large watercolor.  The sketch captures the flower and leaves leaning out of the cup.  The bright red of the corona's lip reflect on the surrounding flower, even in the bluish shadows.  I used this sketch as my thumbnail for the larger painting.  I drew a box around the part of the sketch I wanted to use in my larger painting.  At the bottom of the sketch are some color mix test blocks.  I used them to help me decide which pigment combinations to use while doing the sketch and for the background in the larger painting.  

For the larger watercolor I pushed the colors to make a more vibrant painting.  I increased the reflected colors on the petals and added Quinacridone Gold to the shadows.  I also added a wet in wet background of blue and green to provide contrast.  The result is a bright cheerful spring painting, that communicates that feeling.

JCCS Dynamic watercolor workshop

I spent an unexpectedly cold week at the John C. Campbell Folk School in March while taking a class in Composing Dynamic Watercolors.  Taught by instructor Annie Pais and assistant Suzy Deslauriers. We had hoped to be able to do some plien air painting around campus capturing spring unfolding, but it was too cold for that.  Instead we stayed in the studio, painting still life compositions or from photos.  Working in the studio all week had advantages.  We had group exercises and provide were able to provide feedback to each other while actively painting.  I really enjoyed the social interactions and watching everyones paintings come to life around me.

We started our class with some drawing exercises.  We did several blind contour sketches of each other while sitting in our discussion circle.  This turned out to be a lot of fun, both to do and to share.  Sometimes the images look more like a Picasso, then the person we were drawing.  Mine exhibited disembodied heads and disjointed faces, but the drawings still contained aspects of the people I was drawing.  

Then we moved on to do some blind contour, contour and thumbnail sketches of objects around the studio.  We arranged several objects then used a view finder to help us select the composition to use for our thumbnail sketches.

Blind contour

Contour

Thumbnail sketch