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Category Archives: painting
Y is for Yellow: A-to-Z Challenge
Gee, can’t I just use the yellow from yesterday’s post? No? Okay, timed stream of consciousness writing begins . . . When I was twelve my favorite color was pure lemon yellow. I was a tanned beach girl so I … Continue reading
X is for Xanthophyll Yellow: A-to-Z Challenge
Xanthophyll is the yellow pigments that brings many of the images on this page together: it is responsible for the egg-yolk yellow color in leaf pigments. Their structure is similar to carotenes, as in beta-carotenes, found in carrots, and responsible … Continue reading
Process: Sunday Palms!
Working on mastering this medium enough that I can move away from realism and make art that moves me. Today I finally just moved away — playing with palm trees and deep color and texture. I experimented with watercolor graphite, … Continue reading
Posted in color, creativity, graphite, journal, painting, sketchbook, watercolor
Tagged palm
6 Comments
T is for Texture: A-to-Z Challenge
Where would we be without texture? Click on the details and look at the texture, not the color. I am now agreeing to the Creative Commons Attribution-Non-Commercial 4.0 International License, which you can learn more about by visiting the … Continue reading
R is for Repurposing: A-to-A Challenge
I stumbled on this and after starting, thought, why not do it as a mini class? A friend sent me a fridge magnet, and while I was popping it onto our fridge, I realized we had a couple of old … Continue reading
Posted in acrylic, art, class, collage, creativity, handmade paper, painting, process
Tagged craft, fish, Golden Acrylic Paints, horse, magnets, Pitt pens, recycle, repurpose, upcycle
8 Comments
Process: Tea, Milk, Honey — Our Garden Buddha
If you are following me, you know I am struggling to learn watercolors after years of entrenched acrylic painting. I am following a few folks, and definitely studying the Urban Sketchers. Yesterday I discovered Marc Taro Holmes blogs and he … Continue reading
Posted in color, drawing, painting, process, watercolor
Tagged buddha, hoi toi, Marc Taro Holmes, painting, process, tea milk honey, watercolor
5 Comments
N is for Nicolaides: A-to-Z Challenge
Continuing on with the technique I learned from Gwenn Seemel, I am still very uncomfortable and yet excited by it. I get lost in it. It allows me to SEE better –through my fingers attached to a pen — or to … Continue reading
Posted in art, drawing, painting, process, sketchbook
Tagged alala, crow, drawing, Natural Way to Draw, Nicolaides, Pitt pens, sketching, Tombow pens
4 Comments
M is for Mistakes: A-to-Z Challenge
It’s a cautionary tale. I tend to jump right in and not think about chemistry (which I was pretty good at) when it comes to paints and shellac and all kinds of wet colorful things. When I was first painting … Continue reading
Posted in acrylic, color, creativity, painting, process
Tagged Golden Acrylic Paints, mermaids, mistake, mixology, retreat, shimmer
8 Comments
In the Garden: Memory
(I can see the difference in my second nasturtium, much looser. . . and I like this background.) I was feeling blue. I was also so disappointed because Daniel Smith did not get my paints to me for our time … Continue reading
Posted in art, color, drawing, journal, memory, painting, watercolor
Tagged art journal, frogs, garden, husband, journal, nasturtiums
2 Comments
J is for Art Journal: A-to-Z Challenge
I had to make a change. Running and working in our business means I don’t have the time to set up for painting at an easel and painting with acrylics, which in my case means canvases and 4 oz tubs … Continue reading
Posted in art, creativity, drawing, journal, painting, sketchbook, watercolor
Tagged art journal, journal
12 Comments
H is for Hematite: A-to-Z Challenge
I had long used Golden Acrylic’s Micaceous Iron Oxide, part of their Iridescent colors, straight out of the tub or in glazes, shown above. It is this delicious heavy shimmering charcoal in a pot. In Horse with Red Ball, above, … Continue reading
Posted in acrylic, color, painting, watercolor
Tagged Daniel Smith watercolors, Golden Acrylic Paints, hematite, horse, Micaceous Iron Oxide, Primatek, red ball
5 Comments
G is for Granulating: A-to-Z Challenge
I had no idea what granulating paint was until I began using watercolors. And you have to know or you get wonky things happening that you didn’t want, like the funny paint around Frank’s nose, below. Notice how most of … Continue reading
Posted in acrylic, color, oil paint, painting, watercolor
Tagged granulating, ground paints
3 Comments
F is for Favorite Artists: A-to-Z Challenge
A friend (and favorite artist) published a blog post the other day relating how her style evolved. It has a lot to do with artists who influenced her. I know several of my favorite artists influenced my tendency to one … Continue reading
Posted in art, creativity, painting, process, series
Tagged David Hockney, Marc Chagall, Marc Rothko, Monet, repetition, repetitve
6 Comments
D is for Drawing Pens: A-to-Z Challenge
My favorite drawing pens are Faber Castell Pitt Artist Pens, shown right as the top three pens with their caps off. I love them because they are wonderfully waterproofed India ink, and work best of all the pens on shellacked … Continue reading
Posted in art, creativity, drawing, journal, painting, process, shellac, sketchbook, watercolor
Tagged Cocoiro pens, drawing pens, painting with pens, Pitt pens, Tombow pens
19 Comments
C is for Color: A to Z Challenge
Omigoddess I love color. I became a painter for many reasons but chief among them is the use of all that delicious glistening wet color. My current favorites, and I do have favorites in pure colors, are ALL the quinacridones, … Continue reading
B is for Brush Pens! A-to-A Challenge
I am just learning to use brush pens, as I move to smaller formats and water colors to work my artistic ways. Brush pens are these super devices where the water is carried in tube which attaches to the watercolor … Continue reading
Posted in art, creativity, journal, painting, process, sketchbook, watercolor
Tagged brush pens, Neocolor II, watercolor pencils
5 Comments
A is fo Asphaltum, A-to-Z Challenge
I discovered asphaltum when I was conserving/restoring two dozen pieces of Mason Monterey furniture for the National Park Service. Being a painter who up until that time primarily used acrylics, I had never heard of it before. Asphaltum (also called … Continue reading
Posted in art, oil paint, painting
Tagged asphaltum, bitumen, conservation, MPF Conservation, oil paint, paint
10 Comments
Working With Watercolors in My Journal: Paint Party Friday
I know that the best way to get over fear-of-watercolor-mistakes is to make a lot of them. So I finally dove into my journals, coloring sketches and moving graphite with water. the sketch above was partly made on-site; then colored … Continue reading
Posted in art, creativity, drawing, graphite, journal, painting, sketchbook, watercolor
Tagged Blacksmith, Cherry Grove Forge, Jamison Square, Portland Oregon
9 Comments
