October 23, 2015

Painting about Income Inequality

I received a notice of an upcoming exhibit focusing on income inequality and was thinking I could enter a painting in it.  It wasn't hard to come up with an image, as every day when I come to the studio, I walk through a tunnel that is often a refuge for homeless men.  The tunnel is at the metro, and the contrast between the successful metro riders on their way to and from jobs and the huddled men is striking.  At the tunnel entrance, the space between the haves and have-nots is very small, creating a very intimate setting.
I didn't take any photos, I'm just painting from my memory/imagination.  As it turns out, the actual tunnel isn't a barrel-roof as it is where the actual subway trains are -- but since this is about what I think and feel more than representing what's there, I like the way it works.


October 12, 2015

Experimenting with Gouache at the Severn River

It felt like a vacation today spending time on a dock at the Severn River.  Tranquil was the perfect word for it.

I'd recently purchased some gouache to see if the opaque watercolor paint would be something I could take on when I travel.  I've painted with watercolor but gouache was new and I wasn't sure how to use it.

My first dabs ended up a lot like watercolor; as I layered paint on and used less water, they became more and more opaque.  I liked the feeling of it, but I didn't have a good red for mixing -- it makes gray or brown or pink, but it's too muddy/opaque to make a good purple or violet.

I got looser as I went along -- I need to keep working on this to see if I can make this work!





October 10, 2015

Garden Bouquet

I picked these annual flowers in my garden yesterday -- nasturtium, gomphrena (I think people call this globe flower), petunias, salvia -- and put them in a small glass bottle to paint.

I've been really stressed outside the studio and needed to focus on something bright, loose and colorful.