Barn Study

Barn Study.  Watercolor and Crayon.
About 4 x 6 inches.

Lakeside & McKelvey II

Lakeridge & McKelvey II.  Watercolor & Crayon.
About 5.5 x 9.5 inches.

Roadside Barn

Roadside Barn.  Watercolor.
Approximately 10 x 14 inches

In a continuing theme, another barn.  This one is more reality base, which means I used a reference photo taken below on a trip from Columbus, OH back to Cincinnati last year.  I'm using the photo just for the shape of the barn, and a little bit as the suggestion of the landscape.  Once I had the barn organized, I stopped looking at the photo.

I did another painting based on a photo from this same trip, which you can find here.  And, I've been doing lots of barns and buildings lately, just for fun.  I need to take a day trip, and snap some more photos.  

The palette is Quinacridone burnt orange, prussian blue, and nickel azo yellow.  On Kilamanjaro 300 lb cold press paper.

I may still need to dim down the barn.  Will think on that.

I did get called away, mid-painting, so I snapped a pic on my way, you can see that at the bottom.

Blue Barn and Silo

Blue Barn and Silo.  Watercolor.
Approximately 12 x 9 inches

I'm still on buildings. I've been thinking about joining the 30 paintings in 30 days challenge that starts on Jan. 1, 2016.  Formally joining.  Last year, I did a series of paintings informally. If you're interested in what it involves, you can get more information HERE.

This painting, in my opinion, is better than my last post, just because it's significantly better organized.  Planning and practice count for a lot more than I'd like to think.  In this case, because it can be a struggle for me to get what I want, I drew out my plan on the paper before I started painting. I did have one major change:  the original painting included a fence in the background.  It didn't work, so I adjusted as I went.

This is phthalo blue rs, cobalt teal blue, and quin gold on 300 lb kilamanjaro cold press paper.

Wyoming's Holiday One Stop Shop

Limited Palette Barn Study.  Watercolor.
5 x 7 inches.

Calling this a study is a little strong--technically, it's a blank note card on Strathmore Watercolor Card Paper (it's 140 lb cold press paper designed to fold), that results in a card that is 5 x 7 inches with an envelope....

Why would I paint this, do you ask?

Because I need some small things to sell...!

I'll be at our neighborhood Holiday One Stop Shop this Saturday (12/5) from 10 am to 3 pm in the Wyoming Civic Center (1 Worthington Ave., Cincinnati, OH 45215).  At events like these (and I don't do many) I like to bring a bunch of these greeting cards.  (I also sometimes put them up on Etsy.  If you're super interested, you can check some examples HERE.)

eta- to correct the street, doh!  We have a bunch of parallel streets that all start with a 'w.'  Almost a decade here, and I still can't keep them straight.

I sell them for a nominal price--usually, $5 each.  And here's the trick: to make it worth my while to sell them at that price, I need to be able to paint them very quickly.  That kind of fast painting, though, the kind that looks elegant and loose and planned, is frequently what I'm shooting for in my regular paintings.  The cards then, work out to be useful for getting better at painting, since to be able to do that, and do it well......well, I still have a lot of work ahead of me. Still, every once in a while, I get something I really like.

Some other things of note--I need to get a stamp for the back of my cards.  Some day.  It's on my list.

I also need to stop taking photos with my phone after dark.  This picture has a horrible yellow cast that I can't seem to completely shake.

Hope to see you out on Saturday!

Amy

Blue Roof

Blue Roof.  Watercolor.
4.5 x 4 inches.

Just a quick post.  Things have not slowed down yet--we have a major house project that started last Monday, the boys finished school this morning, and we've been had out of town guests (althoug, luckily, not staying with us.)  It's a major accomplishment to just paint.

Indigo, cobalt blue, and Indian Yellow (I think--my paint box is downstairs.)  It may be nickel azo....
On a scrap of....I'm not sure!  It's some kind of 300 lb paper, probably cold press.

Dusk iv, or Dusk in Indiana

Dusk in Indiana.  Watercolor.
9.5 x 11.5 inches.

The fourth dusk painting.  Two others are up here and here.  The third, I'm less certain about, so it's sitting behind my computer, half in view, and I'm thinking on it before I post it.

Mountain at Dusk....

Mountain At Dusk.  Watercolor & Crayon.

I just got back to painting after a week off for the Northminster Fine Arts Show.  The show was a lot of fun--I get to meet a lot of interesting people and then go home and collapse.  I saw this quote recently, and it's very true for me, "Artists are people driven by the tension between the desire to communicate and the desire to hide." -- DW Winnicott  Winnicott, if you're interested, was a pediatrician and psychoanalyst.  Interesting.

The above painting is fairly large, and is the same palette as Cross, An Untitled Abstract .  There is a touch of crayon on the structure and at the edge of the mountain.

I'm not certain about it.  I'll either ignore it (always safe), or edit (not as safe, but more fun.)

One Hundred!

Blue Barn II.  Watercolor.  Approximately 10x12 inches

This is my 100th post!  Woot.  I posted for the first time on October 4, 2012, which means I'm pretty close to averaging a post a week.  However, if you've been reading this blog, you'll know that I've been post crazy for the last few weeks.  This is my 11th post in January 2015--not to worry, I'll be back to my normal pace at the end of January.

An Abstract From a Farm Seen From I-71, SW of Columbus, OH

Over spring break, my family and I drove out to Hocking Hills, a state park located south east of Columbus, OH.  We'll usually camp, but fearing cold temperatures, we rented a cabin.  It turned out to be a good choice, since it started to rain about an hour after we arrived and didn't stop until we were well into the drive home.

I took a lot of pictures from the passenger seat of the car--storm clouds, fallow fields, and distant farm houses.  Between Cincinnati and Columbus(ish), driving I-71, the landscape is flat with big sky.  Closer to Hocking Hills, the landscape borders the northern edge of Appalachia, and it switches to rolling hills and aspiring mountains.