I actually wrote this story three years ago, and sent it out to some friends and family members in a holiday e-mail. I thought I would publish it again here, because now I have the tree painting to go with it. I had planned to send out a few hand painted cards this year, but [...]
I started this new watercolor a few days ago, using a piece of watercolor canvas glued to a piece of corrugated cardboard. Watercolor canvas is interesting stuff. When you first start to paint on it, it’s almost water resistant. You have to go over it with plain water to condition it a little before you [...]
I finished the Colocolo picture, and I like the results. Unfortunately, it was a little hard to get a good photo since the flash was bouncing off the surface of the colors and making glare in places. I didn’t work much on the Weimaraner, so will wait on that photo until next week. I spent [...]
This past week I have been working on the colored pencil “painting” of the colocolo, and I’ve discovered something. It’s the medium I’m really best at. I also was reminded of why I wanted to find a different medium to work in. 1. It is slow. 2. It is often hard on my eyes. 3. [...]
So this week I decided to do some experiments with my watercolors. The results look like something a juvenile orangutan might paint. But that’s immaterial. Juvenile orangutans probably have a completely different creative motivation than I do, but I can only speak for myself, and the reason I made this series of messes was to [...]
So I’ve decided I’m finished with the snow leopard painting. I did a lot more of the detail work with paints than I originally planned to, but it was good practice using the “dry brush” technique. You know what was the trickiest part? Those white whiskers. Anywhere you want to have plain white on a [...]
Since I’m not going to be going back to work in a full time job soon after all, I need to make a schedule for my blog work. I think a Monday, Wednesday, Friday posting schedule is pretty reasonable, and I need the structure. Self-discipline is not one of my long suits. For now I’m [...]
I have not worked on the painting much this week. Adding all the detail with colored pencils would be very slow going, I found out. So this morning, I tried using a very small brush and not much water to add some more color and depth without lifting out some of the color already there. [...]
I continued adding washes to the painting to get the shadows a little darker in the background, and set up the body color of the snow leopard. I used yellow ochre and sepia, and I used a set of pan watercolors, just for variety. There are painters who won’t use pans, and others who won’t [...]
I have no idea how this is going to work. I’m making it up as I go along. This is the sketch I made of the snow leopard I’m going to paint. Yes, it’s a very light sketch. Next is a small palette with two colors — ultramarine blue, and burnt sienna. Mixed together with [...]