February 25, 2016

Pond Painting Evolves

I started this painting months ago, based on work done a couple of years ago when I spent time at Kenilworth Aquatic Gardens and Lilypons.

I'd taken a photo of the scene which, in the way that photos can do, flattened the scene to emphasize the sense of a lush, marshy scene.  My first work on the scene lacked a sense of distance that I've since decided was important to the painting.  I ended up working this week on reenvisioning the work and you can see the earlier, much different version, in the blog post from 6/15 entitled Lotus at Kenilworth Aquatic Garden.

February 14, 2016

From the porch in Mexico

Using the small gouache painting from Mexico, I'm working on a large -- 30 x 40 painting of the view from the porch of the house I was staying in.  There's a huge pot of a tropical flowering plant on the porch, and a view of the pool a few steps below on the patio and beyond that, the ocean.  I'll be continuing to add more paint to create more nuanced color and depth to the painting, but the start looks like this:

February 12, 2016

Gouache painting in Mexico

 I'm just back from a vacation in Mexico, where I spent mornings painting on a beach.  Amazingly, I was the only person out most mornings!  I painted with gouache using Multimedia Artboard paper, which is very stiff and very absorbent without any buckling or warping from applications of paint.  The absorption surprised me -- I often found I thought I'd laid down a lot of color only to see it disappear as it dries. I used a clipboard to hold down the 8 x 10" paper and found it was a great painting setup, easy to transport, able to withstand ocean breezes and well suited to capturing the experience of being on a beach on the Pacific Ocean.