Thursday, January 6, 2011

Jan. 6,2011






Started 2 paintings. The oil painting is an idea I have had for a long time. Years ago we went up to Canada and after seeing Lake Louise we headed west to BC. Along the road we saw a black bear running with the deep woods to his north. Then camping in California we encountered a lot of elk. The figure will be my youngest son Thomas as he looks today. It started out pretty bad. The colors were awful and I was uninspired. Then I thought I wanted to lighten and brighten things up and knew I would add more paint tinted and brighter to the dark shapes. I started to add patches of lighter and sometimes darker blue to the sky and it morphed to me adding the same elements to the tree shapes and now the figures. I want them to shimmer. I want it to be fun and not real. I want it to be colorful and whimsical. I am showing 2 details and one of the whole painting. It is far from done. I foresee lots of colors added to deepen the darks and really brighten the lights. It is approx. 16 inches by 32 inches. Since it is board support I can really use a lot of paint. I had considered sanding it down and starting something else but I am stubborn. No masterpiece but a different sort of use of paint for me. I really don't like pointillism..but I suppose this has elements of that. but with a start of large dark shapes.
The watercolor is huge. Bigger than a full sheet of 140#. I cut some off a large roll of Fabriano. That is a pain..I have to move everything out of the middle of the studio and use whatever I can find as weights to hold the curling paper down so I can cut it!. Since it is 58 inches tall it is so cumbersome.
I will never buy a roll of watercolor paper again! Unless someone can give me an idea how to cope with it.
I started out just adding wet paint to wet support. Some salt, plastic wrap and let it dry for a few days. I like turtles and the large shape in the center kind of looked like one. I added the leaf shapes and think I will find more by painting around negative space. I wanted to see if I could do the dot thing on a large scale and see if it would hold up as well as it did on my tiny paintings. You know that does not always work. Of course it means a lot of dot making so this one will take a while. I want to keep the fresh bright colors of the watercolor medium and so I don't want to do too much glazing except to bring out the found shapes of leaves etc. I know I tend to keep many of the figures and the dots at the same value..but that is what I like to do..we shall see if it works on this humongous painting!!

6 comments:

  1. Kay, isn't it interesting to keep working on a painting and becoming more and more responsive to intuition as you work. I am fascinated by that concept. The turtle painting is becoming quite beautiful already.

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  2. Amazing that you have tackled old paintings and big ginormous watercolor paper at the same time. Stubborn is a good thing and I can't wait to see what sheer determination brings out in these pieces. WAY to go- what an inspiration!

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  3. two lovely paintings that demonstrate your versatility as an artist! I like the combination of leaves and turtle in the watercolour

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  4. I admire your skill and also the patience you must have, I'd love to be more artistic but unfortunately I'm not blessed in that department.

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  5. Wonderful painting!!! Huh! I've always thought buying watercolor paper by the roll would the coolest thing! Not so?

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  6. I love whimsical.
    That roll of Fabriano must have set you back. Maybe cut some sheets in different sizes and weight them down. They'll be ready when you need them.

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