Cornflowers

Cornflowers in My Garden

This is a small (8 x 10) oil on a deep-cradle (1 1/2 inch) Ampersand gesso board so it doesn't need to be framed. It was incredibly fun to paint. These are some of the few flowers in my garden that the gophers are not interested in! I was a bit worried about the colors as I was painting, but a bee came into the shed as I was working and hovered over the flowers in the painting. Risky for her, but solid confirmation for me!

Also impressionism is a combination of painting wet into wet paint and not wearing ones glasses. Impatience, color, myopia.

Thus It Was

 Gamblin Artist's Oils blends all their leftover paint together into a conglomeration of colors they call "Torrit Gray." They offer a challenge to artists to paint only in that gray, black and white. I gave it a shot this week. This is an illustration of a poem by Dag Hammarskjöld's poem, "Thus It Was."

If I get up the guts to enter the contest, and if I were to win, it would be a substantial amount of art material. This is 8 x 10 on Ampersand gesso board. 



Thus It Was 

I am being driven forward
Into an unknown land.
The pass grows steeper,
The air colder and sharper.
A wind from my unknown goal
Stirs the strings
Of expectation.

Still the question:
Shall I ever get there?
There where life resounds,
A clear pure note
In the silence.

The Three Graces

It's 8 x 10 water media in a silver frame and the colors are a LOT prettier in real life!

This is actually a painting of a little girl spinning around in the yard on a perfect summer day. I don't know where the idea came from but it was a persistent image so I sketched it some time ago and tried painting it today. I used Ampersand claybord but I am not sure I understand how this surface can be best used. I'll keep playing around with it.

Blood Oranges and Not

Indoor natural light with flash

Oranges, 5 x 7 Watercolor and Aquarelle Pencils on Ampersand Aquabord
Outdoor natural light

Try Again Another Day!

Interesting discovery today. I was attempting a watercolor of the mock crab blossoms currently in bloom. The painting did not work.

Last week I was attempting a watercolor of a planting of petunias. That didn't work.

These two paintings didn't work for the same reason. I realized today that when I photograph something I want to paint I use the lens to compose a painting, to fill a rectangle. When I paint from life, I paint exactly what I see in front of me because that's what painting from photo sketches has taught me to do. Today I was painting a life-size version of the mock crab blossoms in front of me; last week I was painting a life-size version of petunias. I made no effort to "compose" a painting used to having that work already accomplished when I start to paint -- THAT must be one of the challenges of "plein air" painting (god I find that term pretentious but I imagine it isn't). Fortunately, with the Ampersand aquabord, I can just wash failure right off the surface!

Watercolor!

"Ilia, do we paint light to dark or dark to light?" "Yes, that's the question."

Caran d'Ache Aquarelle Pencils on Ampersand Aquaboard, 5 x 7

Just tried using the Ampersand Aquaboard for the first time. It is a lovely surface but the painting didn't come out as well as I wished. I had forgotten the different rules of water colors and how forgiving and "squishy" oil is. Anyway, first shot on the Aquaboard and first time with a "real" watercolor in quite a while. I think I won't give up yet!

Pretty Copper Frame for the Berkeley Pit Mine!