Day 72 - Out My Back Window

My father and mother in law loved to watch the birds play out their back window...here are a few of the birds they would have seen..

Drawn as I watched them eating and chasing each other on the back porch.

 I ran out of room before I saw the nuthatch and the chickadee which are two of my favorites.

Background is done with yellow ochre and cerulean and splattered with a mix of the two. Shadows are  done with ultramarine blue and burnt umber.

Day 69- Hot Press paper!!

Despite its deceptive appearance of luscious soft finish I DO NOT like hot press paper.  Its very unforgiving.  Once the paint is on its not going anywhere.  I cant do Charles Reid style loosing edges and watery textures of water color doing its watercolory thing on hot press.....the paint just sits there and says here I am and here I will stay!! 

As I have said before I have a lovely journal FULL of Fabriano hot press...fun for playing on but NOT for painting cats.  While I like this cat painting, I have done alot better...I may repaint him on Kilimanjaro aka COLD PRESS paper!!

The final Tom HP which stands for Tom Hot Press

This is the initial sketch with a 4H Pencil

This is an early pic of Tom HP.  I like to take pics in progress to see where I need to work on it...Sorry it's a little blurry...you can't go back to retake!! It didn't matter if it was blurry until I decided to use it on my blog post today!! I will do better!!

I kept having to intensify the darks to make the cat recede under the quilt and make his chin recede...as well as his nostrils.  Painted them over and over again just a touch darker because this paper was NOT going to let you lighten it if you got to dark!!

I had to paint him in layers...runny stuff was NOT an option...I like him...but really wanted to do him runny ...I guess I will get some of the watercolor books out and READ about that darn hotpress paper now!! Report soon.  I have a masters in Library and Information Science so I am a PRO at research!! :)

Thanks goodness for mr. clean eraser sponges...those meant for the walls...a couple of times I looked at parts of it and thought OH NO its ruined but Mr. Clean to the rescue...I always did like Mr. Clean on the ads!!

This is how I set up to splatter Tom.  I laid strips of paper towel around the edges and a wad in the middle to cover Tom.   I didn't want to get splatter on the cat nor did I want to get it on the white margins which really didn't matter since I had already smeared red paint on them!! OH well...something else to improve on!!

Thanks for looking!!

Day 67 - Hotpress???

Or in search of a new watercolor journal and not wanting to make one

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The old journals

Last nite I got out all the watercolor journals I have laying around either not started or a page or two done.  I was looking for a new journal because I really do not like the paper in the handprint journal the same size as my old moleskine I filled up recently

Ferns at Midnite

Four or five years ago I made a journal out of hot press Fabriano Artistico. I handdyed the fabric cover and did alot of fancy embellishments to it.

In April, I mistakenly painted a floral painting on a piece of leftover hotpress Fabriano, and I absolutely HATED it.  Once the paint is on the paper, the paint does NOT move...you can't wipe it off with a Mr. Clean eraser or wash it off  like you can do with the Kilimanjaro or the Canson that I usually paint on.  

Handprint journal (8x8") on left, Hot Press Fabriano Journal(8x10") on right

So this journal has sat on the shelf too precious(or maybe because it was full of hotpress?) collecting dust. And the paper is so luscious- thick and creamy and feels so lovely compared to the moleskines or the Handprint journals.   First thing I did was paint squares of color on it and another larger handprint journal I have that seems to be of better paper. Always a litmus test to see how paper behaves.  They both did well.  

My old Fern painting

The only thing ever painted in the Fabriano journal was a TERRIBLE fern painting I did 6-7 years ago.  By now it was 11 pm...and no good idea usually gets painted at 11...it might seem like a good idea but rarely is.  I got the bright idea to paint a fern and I couldn't.  Now I can quilt great ferns endlessly without ever a mark on the fabric so WHY couldn't I paint one? HMMM...

Ferns at Midnite

I kept trying...and this is what I came up with...lots of free loopy ferns that I eventually decorated with my black Wink of Stella brush marker and my Pentel brush marker both of which I just love.  

I slurped lots of piemonite and cobalt on the background.  Then I spattered it with ultramarine and cobalt.  And was in general having lots of fun...and finally painted a decent fern...the small ones in the middle. I JUST LOVE the background on this page...lots of great swirly watercolor doing its watercolor thing as Charles Reid says!

 For some reason around midnite I thought it was a GREAT idea to write FERN on it...NOPE...don't like the word...might glue something over it ...but calling it quits for today!!


Tomorrow I hope I will have time to paint more ferns in the Handprint journal..same colors to see how it performs! Stay tuned!!!!

Thanks for looking!!

On DaY 31 She Rested - Not!

Sweet Bear, my son's 85 lb pit bull that someone abandoned in East Atlanta. Bear followed him home and wouldn't leave - parking himself on the front porch. Bear knew a good thing when he saw it. A year and a half later he's still there. And yes, Ben tried to fund the owner. No microchip, no lost and found notices.


The sweetest pit bull you ever met. Lucky thing because his head is massive. He's a chow hound and loves to beg drooling while he waits hopefully. Also loves a snuggle on the sofa. He might give you room to sit there too as long as you snuggle him!!

A note or two on how I painted him...in my moleskine...I was trying to loose the edges on the right side using ultramarine blue and burnt umber as the shadows...wet on wet of course...Lately I am in love with cerulean blue sometimes mixed with yellow ochre sometimes not...makes lovely glowy shadows.

OH I used two of Daniel Smith's new granulating colors made from stone...Primateks.  They are quite expensive so only have two tubes so far though I hope to have more.   I used the Piemontite Genuine which is a nice purpley brown on the fur  and Hematite Genuine a nice grey on his nose.

Most of the lettering was done with round kolinsky sable brushes.