Friday, February 29, 2008

projecting and receding leaf pattern

Daily watercolor painting #181
approx 4x4 on cold press
Today's painting goal was to use the leaves of a plant for reference and make a simple design with gradation of high and low values for the foreground and background. then I inverted the painting for an interesting optical effect.

Thursday, February 28, 2008

continuing a journey


Daily watercolor painting #180
approx 3x4 on cold press
Today's painting goal, for lack of formal ideas, was simply to put a mark on paper. What followed was some fun with watercolor mingling (that is let the colors themselves create beautiful shades )

and then a follow the dots situation where I created a simple window view narrative, with a flowering plant in the foreground, curtain middle ground and landscape background.

Wednesday, February 27, 2008

optical quilt designs

Daily watercolor painting #179
3x5 on cold press
Today's painting goal was derived from yesterday's "quilt" pattern and follows along the lines of the experimenting I've been doing the past few months with effects of color. So these colors were chosen to produce optical effects of projecting objects versus receding objects. For example, the central white object should appear to project (that is, be closer to the viewer), and the black central object should appear to recede(that is appear further from the viewer)

Tuesday, February 26, 2008

Moorhead Cultural Center, Iowa

This is an additional design created for a 2008 brochure to represent our local quiliting group who meets each winter at the Moorhead Cultural Center, Iowa.
Daily watercolor painting #178
approx 3x5 on cold press
Today's painting goal was to paint a picture using a photo reference of our local Moorhead Cultural Center for a 2008 exhibit schedule brochure.

Monday, February 25, 2008

patterns

Another attempt to convey the simple harmony of a pattern that was observed from an amyrillis flower.. 3 x 4 on watercolor on coldpress.
Daily watercolor painting #177
approx 4x4 on cold press
Today's painting gold derived from a critical observation of everyday patterns and use of limited pallete for a interesting design. Also, a chance superimposing today's painting on last week's amaryllis painting created an interesting effect.

Sunday, February 24, 2008

toddler's marrative

Daily watercolor painting #176
approx 4x5 on cold press
Today's painting goal was to develop the theme of large group of people, in this case, toddlers. There was some landscape elements also.

Saturday, February 23, 2008

toddler narrative

Daily watercolor painting #175
4x4 on cold press
Today's painting goal was to compose a narrative with a toddler. For scanning necessity I utilized one of the amyrillis paintings as a border and then decided to include in today's post!

Friday, February 22, 2008

street scene


Daily watercolor painting #174
aprox 4x4 on cold press
Today's painting goal was like yesterdays except a plan to use an urban narrative was established. Begin with Point on paper, and a simple design that incorporated foreground middle ground and background of urban landscape. will post later!

Thursday, February 21, 2008

connect dots exercise

Daily watercolor painting #173
approx 4x4 on cold press
Today's painting goal was interesting because it developed from place a point on paper to connect the dots to create a narrative. I look forward to implementing this fun exercise many more times.

Wednesday, February 20, 2008

letting colors mingle

Daily watercolor painting #172
approx 4x4 on cold press
Today's painting goal was to "take a break" and let the watercolors mingle to create their own interesting patterns and design. I added a few dots for optical interest and contrast to this very simple painting exercise.

Tuesday, February 19, 2008

february amaryllis pattern

Daily watercolor painting #171
approx 4x4 on cold press
Today's painting goal was to use the amaryllis pattern for reference for a fluid watercolor design.

Monday, February 18, 2008

amaryllis pattern

Daily watercolor painting #170
4x4 on cold press
Today's painting goal was to use lines to suggest the pattern of the amaryllis.

Sunday, February 17, 2008

Loess Hills february thaw

Daily watercolor painting #169
5x6 on arches cold press
Today's painting goal was a landscape from memory of a February image of the Loess Hills.

Saturday, February 16, 2008

spring banner

Daily watercolor painting #168
approx 5x7 on arches cold press
Today's painting goal was to use simple shapes and color for optical effects. The inspiration derived from the colors and optical effect of the Australian Aborigines flag, black red and yellow.

Friday, February 15, 2008

A super vacation


Daily watercolor painting #167
approx 14 x 20 on arches cold press
Today's painting goal was to continue to work on a painting that was a study from a photograph of my niece Olivia enjoying a sunny vacation day learning to ride a horse.

Thursday, February 14, 2008

Enchanting amaryllis

Daily watercolor painting #166
9x12 watercolor painting on cold press
Today's Valentine painting goal was a Valentine theme for all ages reflected by two children together enjoying a beautiful flower.

Wednesday, February 13, 2008

under the tree

Daily watercolor painting #165
6x6 watercolor on cold press
Today's painting goal continues developing the theme of narratives from landscapes and children.

Tuesday, February 12, 2008

kite flying

Daily watercolor painting #164
9x12 on arches cold press
Today's painting goal took a detour from the initial idea to compose a tree on a hill ...I decided to include a child in the foreground, then the landscape elements and the idea for a narrative emerged.

Monday, February 11, 2008

grass study

Daily watercolor painting #163
approx 5x7 on cold press
Today's painting goal began with the idea to explore deliniation of blades of foliage. The composition of a body of water grew out of that idea and the landscape with building and sky followed!

Sunday, February 10, 2008

let's play with spot!

Daily painting #162
9x12 watercolor on cold press
Feb 10 painting goal was to compose a picture of a child and a pet dog!

Saturday, February 9, 2008

little boy in February

Daily painting #161
9x12 on arches cold press
Today I lead a watercolor workshop and our goal was to utilize basic color theory and gradation techniques to compose a Valentine theme painting.

Friday, February 8, 2008

Loess Hills design

Daily watercolor painting # 160
3x7 watercolor on cold press
Today's painting goal is to use the gradation technique to depict a landscape from memory of western Iowa's Loess Hills.

Thursday, February 7, 2008

potentially a favorite polyester

Daily watercolor painting #159
4x4 watercolor on cold press
Today's painting goal continues the Valentine theme, adding red shapes, a limited color scheme and simple lines to the recent painting exercise elements of gradation washes which produced an optical and whimsical composition

Wednesday, February 6, 2008

optical bannister

Daily watercolor painting #158
4x4 on cold press
Today's painting goal: Get red paint on paper and go along with it. And so, a paint in the lines that results in an optical effect.

Tuesday, February 5, 2008

valentine flower




Daily watercolor painting #157
5x5 on cold press
Today's painting goal continues the Valentine theme and utilizing red as a predominant hue.

Monday, February 4, 2008

February sunset

Daily watercolor painting #156
6x7 on arches hotpress
Today's painting goal was an idea that came from the interesting art site About.painting.com
THe painting idea for February is to create Valentine themes, so I built around the "reds" that I have been exploring, landscape elements and used a limited palette for a Valentine theme.

Sunday, February 3, 2008

a red exercise

Daily watercolor painting #155
approx 41/2 x 7 on arches hot press
Today's painting goal was to apply the gradation technique using red and its' complement green, and also yellow, strictly for observing the resulting optical characteristics.

Saturday, February 2, 2008

reds

Daily watercolor painting #154
approx 4x5 on cold press
Today's painting goal began as a study in values of red after reading an inspiring quote on an art blog this morning about letting color speak. After many attempts to push the contrast of red to paint flower petals I decided to crop a piece of an image for an example of values of red using burnt sienna and purple added to cadmium red. I'll be trying this exercise again.

Friday, February 1, 2008

grey, black and white influences

Daily watercolor painting #153
8x11 watercolor on cold press
Today's painting goal surfaced as a result of my fascination with the optical characteristics of color and object size in a composition. Here again I use one hue, paynes grey and spherical shapes of differing sizes to elicit the appearance of variety of spatial depths.