Dendrobiums

This is a painting I finished this morning, about 9 by 7, framed to 10 x 13 format. I was asked to paint some dendrobiums for a wedding announcement.

At first I thought I was using hot press paper because it had a very smooth texture. Then I realized it was Lanaquerelle, which I don't usually use. But for smooth flower petals, I liked it a lot.

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.