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 49 - Tom again

Tom hiding

This time he's  in the clean sheets. He does love to hide in anything fabric or a bag or a small space.  Can a cat be right handed? He's fond of sticking his right foot out.  All those white sheets...shading done with cerulean and yellow ochre, cobalt and sienna.  Once againTom was done with a wash of a light buff yellow, then sienna, piemonite and burnt umber.  I think this one should be called practice practice practice...because it really does make perfect.

Sunday on River Bend

Painted with cobalt and cerulean blue for the sky color.  The rest is done with the Primateks.  Really enjoy the way they granulate...alot of fun in both the clouds and the trees.

Instead of a wet wash for the sky I painted the sky color first to define the shapes of the clouds...Then I added a wet wash for the trees and the water.  I also tried to time painting this painting..as in I quit after about 15 20 minutes.  Sometimes more is NOT better.  

Day 48 - Tom Cat

I seem to be doing everything by twos lately.

Tom 1

He got a little dark. The thing about watercolor is that even if you spent fourhours painting a tiny painting like this in your moleskine its easier to do another if its too dark.  So I painted him a second time. I do love the quilt part. If there is a quilt around Tom will be either under it or on it!!  Best quilt I have ever painted...maybe I should paint another cat, cut it out, and glue it on OVER the first cat?!

Tom 2

I like the second watercolor so much better. I didn't go too dark.  I started with a pale yellow/yellow ochre wash over the cat.  Then I added stripes of watery quinacridone sienna mixed with a little burnt umber.  The whites were darkened with cerulean/yellow ocher and cobalt / q. sienna.  I also used some Piemonite in the shadows and indigo.

Day 35 - Quick Sketches

Was reading a book  called Drawing Lab for Mixed Media Artists:52 Exercises to Make Drawing Fun by Carla Sonheim. She suggested drawing your animals on index cards. I sat down Friday nite and did a few. Now I have more than a dozen and several more that are lettered quotes.  Thinking about turning them into an accordion book.

I actually cut up some cardstock to draw on instead of buying index cards.

These are my favorites of my cat Tom.

About 11 I decided to paint a couple of them. The card stock was miserable to paint ok. It was like painting on hot press paper. The color literally seemed to stick to the paper.  Drawn with a Kuratake pen that I got at Binders a couple of weeks ago.

I do rather like them. But can't you see the actual brush strokes?! So odd. I usually use cold press paper. Much more forgiving.

His eye is a mistake but that unforgiving paper wouldn't let me change it or scrub it out like cold press would.

One is of Zoe, the rest are Tom...they both are big snugglers and hard to catch when they are awake!! And of course easier to draw when they are asleep! 

Here's some of the sketches. More tomorrow.