Jody, Maribelle, and Baby Jonas

This painting has a history.

I had just finished most of the painting of Jody and Maribelle, and had set it aside until I could work on it again. Glenn was home from knee surgery, and had taken it off the desk for some reason. When I came home from work, I found it on the floor, and it had two rips in it and some creases.

I guess all artists have times when they struggle between their relationships and their artwork....this was one of them.

I took it to class, where we had a "can this marriage/artwork be saved" session. Sandy came up with the idea of disguising parts with rice paper. We looked through her very interesting stash, and found this one. I decided to do the entire background in rice paper, cutting carefully around the figures and applying it with mat medium. I also pulled some of the threads of the paper into their hair.

After seeing the finished product, Ginger suggested I thank my husband for ripping my painting, since it forced me to find an alternative solution, which ended up better than my original plan. I'm not planning to thank him, but I didn't kill him either.

Barn Wax Batik

I took a wax batik class from Sandy Maudlin Nov 13 and 14. I'd had this picture in mind to do for a long time. It is my sister, Judy's, barn that you can see from Mom and Dad's back door.

I've done batiks several other times (I counted about 8 or 9), but I forget a lot of stuff in the process, and Sandy has added some things to make it better. I am pretty happy with the way this turned out.

One thing I do differently, is that I don't use ink for the last part, but a very dark mixture of watercolor paint. And I am more careful about applying it between the cracks, so I don't overdo the black crackling look. If I don't get enough on, after all the wax has been ironed off, I crinkle parts in my hand, and just put black over the tops of the crinkles until I have the effect I want.

Patrick

Here is a recent painting of a friend's
German Shepherd. It's only the third time
I've tried to do a dog. It's about 11 x 12 unmatted. It's a Christmas gift for June.


I was having some problems with spotting in the background. Since I'm not the neatest painter in the world, I end up that way sometimes. I found that going over the background with white gouache helped blend in the background with the more noticeable spots and gave it a mistier look.
I don't usually like to use gouache with it because it can make it look chalky if you're not careful, but I like the effect this time.

Here is a batik I did of one of Katy's photos. It doesn't really look like her, but I thought the style was pretty cool. This one is a cropped version of the first one. I have to study it a bit before I decide how much to crop. Maybe the title should be "Star Gazer" or something like that. The finished painting uncropped and unmatted is about 12" by 13".

Rose of Sharon/yupo and masa

I did the same rose of sharon picture two different methods. First I did it in yupo, and then masa paper. The masa one is around 11 x 12; the yupo is around 11 x 14. The masa paper flower is the one on top, the yupo on the bottom.

Baby Portrait of Ayanna

Ayanna was born this past winter, and I finally got to see her so I could make a painting for her parents.
She's really so cute, it's hard to do her justice, but this comes pretty close.

Done on Arches CP 140 lb. The original is 10 x 12.

I wanted to compare what it would look like with white background to blue background. I had originally thought white would show her skin color better, but now I think the blue does.

The Last Iris

I just finished this painting of an iris. Made the big mistake of not doing a value study first. I just started in on the iris, and really liked the way it turned out. I did a lot of glazing to make the petals look velvety.

Then I started doing leaves and background and thought I'd ruined it forever. My teacher and friends in class suggested I darken the background so I like it BETTER, but I'm still not in love with it.

The main thing I like about this is that it is a step in achieving one of my goals, which is to rely more on my own sketches for paintings and less on photos. I sketched this out first in the book Sandy bound and gave me a few years ago. I did take a picture because I can't paint faster than the flowers fade and die. Next time....value study.

Quilt block paintng

Sharon Roeder taught a class for DHAC today. We took 6" canvas squares and painted a basic shape on with acrylic paints., just to undercoat the canvas and give a guideline. We painted watercolor on tissue and used texturizing techniques to create a "fabric" for our quilts. We layered tissue paper over our shapes. When I was finished, I had to repaint some of the outlines in acrylic for mine, because they'd gotten lost. I think they will look nice hanging together.
Thanks Sharon.

abstract pastel

Went to a DHAC class on abstract taught by Donna Ashley today that was a lot of fun. We started with a blind contour drawing of a portrait, outlined the most important lines in dark, then filled in with pastel.

This is one I did of Vale. Yes, I do know it is out of proportion...it's an abstract. Someone said it looked like he was an Avatar. When Vale saw it, he knew it was him... but he said, "My hair is brown." Didn't say a word about the blue-green skin, just the hair.

Bethany's wedding bouquet

I must have weddings on the brain lately. This is a very large painting of my niece's wedding bouquet in October. The painting is about 30 x 22 unmatted, unframed. It was so large, I had trouble stitching it and shrinking it in my elements program.

daffodil card

I just painted this as a wedding shower card for a friend's wedding. It is on Strathmore aquarius 80 lb, which is very nice for cards. It is the right weight, it doesn't buckle, so it's smooth. These came from the garden courtyard at our school.

Yellow Roses

These are some roses Candy gave me for a special occasion. The finished painting is 22 x 27. I left all the little imperfections in the flowers to remind me that our gifts to God may not always be "perfect" but they are always cherished.

Tif and Austin

Sometimes I forget to put on my blog whatever I've been working on. I did this as a lesson for someone who wanted to do a portrait of her daughter. So now, what do I do with it? Anyway, I finished it today, and can't decide if I want to crop it down or not.

Not cropped....?

Cropped....?

more kids abstracts

Abstracts from Taylor and Rowan.

Here are abstracts from Emily, Felicity and Aimee.

Kids class--abstract

Our kids class did a small and simple abstract idea that was a simplified version of what Sandy taught us about the "good white shape." I'd give credit to the artist who teaches this, I think his name is John Salminen, but I'm terrible with names.

We started with four items...a Coke glass, a kids curly straw, an egg beater, and a clothespin. We drew each on a 7 x 9 piece of paper, filling the whole space. Then we redrew each one onto a piece of watercolor paper, rearranging the shapes to our own design.

Next, we miskited out shapes we wanted to keep white and spattered with miskit. We tried to find a "path a mouse could take" that could begin or end on three sides of the paper; as if the mouse could walk a maze from one side of the paper to the other. After the miskit dried we applied a layer of light to midvalue colors that we liked.

After the first layer dried, we put in areas of darkest dark of different sizes, using our drawn shapes as guides. We don't want to overwhelm the picture with too much dark. Make sure some of the darkest darks are right next to the white areas. Then we painted in some of our shapes with more of a middle value.

We removed the miskit and made adjustments for the way we wanted our painting to look. See some of the kids' work in next post.

20 minute challenge week 3

Here are images of a 20-minute challenge that our class has taken. Sandy Maudlin challenged us to paint 3 20-minute paintings a week. (But she promises to up the ante later on) She got this from another artist that you can find on Sandy's blog. The rules are simple: set your timer for 20 minutes and paint FROM A 3-D OBJECT IN FRONT OF YOU , not a picture. Drawing is an option, but that has to be part of the 20-minutes. So most of these are not drawn first--the only one I drew a little on first is the candle and sconce. These are in the same order I did them. Note the basket is a bit torn...Katy's dog truly ate my homework!


I found some advantages. For one thing, anyone can commit to 20 minutes. Once you've done that 20 minutes, you're "in the zone" and want to paint more. Another is that you're freer to experiment with papers and paint--it's just a 20-minute investment. So some of these are on regular paper, some on yupo. (The ones that look really shiny are yupo). Some are watercolor, two are watercolor pencil.

So...if you're up to the challenge...Try it! (these are posted in the order that I painted them.)

Sister Cahoon & Sister Ferrin

This was Sister Ferrin's first time to paint, and she did a great job.

Some day I'll actually remember what this is called, but it's a great technique for a first-time painter. You can paint wet into dry or wet-on-wet. You just start with three primaries; paint small amount of one color, then let another color bleed into it. It's a good way to teach about charging color, learn to control the amount of water you use, and decide which you like best. Sister Cahoon went for the bold look, and Sister Ferrin opted for a more subtle look, but they both looked great. Recognize the Young Women's symbol? It's a nice project for the YW program.

Missionary Christmas Cards

Here are some of our favorite missionaries, Sister Holbrook (now a civilian), and Sister Cahoon right before Sister H. left to go home. They wanted to have a last art fling. Sister H. did one of a sister missionary preaching to the birds; Sis.C's was of a snowman teacher, because both her parents are teachers.

It's great fun to paint with the missionaries, something I've done off and on for about two years.