Art and Illumination

I saw a really fun thing on another blog several weeks ago. There  were alternating images loaded below each comment left by the readers. It looked fabulously fun! I have been thinking for a while about how I would like to restyle my comments in a way that is interesting, fun, and sticks with the old-world style of my blog.

I spent a week working out some new knotwork creatures and knotwork patterns to use. A few I scrapped, because while they were very handsome patterns, they wouldn’t work with the blog’s style too well.

In addition to the alternating comments, I also noticed author specific styling on a different blog. This idea is something I chose to use as well. Naturally I worked up a raven knotwork for my own reply comments. Additionally, I chose to choose switch the direction of this one to balance out the page composition.

Now that I have the design and painting done, I can prep them to work on my blogs background and the web. The next step is rewriting the code, but that wont take too long. One thing I noticed, once finished, was that all knotwork animals I chose are animal forms of the celtic goddess Morrigan.

I want to do a couple more simple, non-animal patterns but that can wait a little longer. I still plan to customize the bottom page navigation which I left half worked on, and then setup Pinterest etc.

Hope you are all having a little creative fun this week!

Every Autumn I select a new dry texture to challenge me in my painting and art work. Last fall it was this dry crumpled Ginko leaf. For me such exercises serve as creative artistic play. They can be very challenging but supply much opportunity for growth both in the medium and in creative problem solving.

I want loads of intimate detail, but know I also want to avoid photorealism. I absolutely adore the mechanics and devotion to micro-details in the work of some photorealists, whether they work in watercolor or in oil. However, what I aim for is to capture a kind of inner nature of the subject in addition to its physical nature.

Techniques

• Use several layers of veining, because of the leaf’s dry texture, and because the tone and color change often in the ripples of the leaf.
• The color of light shining through the leaf calls for the merging of cold and warm tones in a shadow. Neutral tint is a must here.
• Indigo lends a subtle purple tone to the shadow, which brightens the yellow through the use of chromatic contrasting.
• Use Lamp Black on the edge of the leaf with 000 sable brush to punch it out.

Supplies

• Paper: Strathmore 140lb coldpress
• Paint: Winsor and Newton Artists’ Water Colour: Naples Yellow, Indigo, Neutral Tint, Lamp Black, Chinese White, Burnt Ochre, Cadmium Yellow, Quinacridone Red
• Brushes: Round Sable 000, 00, 1; Round Camel Hair 1 (for lifting, as needed)
• Other: Arabic Gum (liquid), H2 pencil, Q-tips

This dragonfly painting (darner), is from a photo taken in my garden in Florida. The plant it rests on is commonly called horse tail, which is indeed a favorite perch of dragonflies. I took a much needed hiatus this summer and in that time frame made a trip to visit friends and family in Florida. One of my favorite resting places was the faded green bench on the back porch of my best friends home. It faces a view of a lovely garden. To the right of my view lies a trellis covered with twining jasmine- the perch of the dragonfly.

I sat there often watching the dragonfly dance. Off he would circle while doing rounds through the well groomed and loved garden. Back he would come and rest. For whatever reason, it was made clear that my job was to sit and watch. Any time I got up to take pictures he would disappear, maybe he didn’t recognize my face. My friends however had no trouble getting many great close ups of him. This allowed me to do start this painting. Per my own artistic tastes, and the good tastes of KC, I swapped out the trellis for horse tail.

So here I am thinking about perspective, times of work and rest, and how balance feeds the appetite for a creative life. I am calling it the Dragonfly Dance, which I will name this collection I am working on. I love all the ascribed meanings and attributes of dragonflies: dream keeper, stripper of illusion, remover of obstacles in vision and so on.

I have spent the last few months de-cluttering my workspace in every possible way. Largely to take out obstacles for what is usually my most productive time of year. I need a regular “active rest” period. A consistently used time to serve the purpose of reflecting, learning, and circling through the garden of the goals I have set.

I forget how challenging depicting white can be with watercolor and to shade with out loosing vibrance. This was one of my favorite fish. I sat by my pond working on sketching him out from life. Sketching from life produces a very different form than from a photo.

Sketching wildlife can be challenging as you can not hold them captive. I often elicit the use of photos to capture things missed during the initial sketch. Luckily in this instance my lil’ fish was bound by the pond and I could count on him swimming in his usual favorite path over and over again.

Artist Tips:

• Grays can be chromatic or achromatic (so don’t assume the limits of achromatic shading)
• When sketching from life do not look for the outline or color book lines to copy- you are replicating an understanding of the form not the actual form.
• Don’t feel a need to hide sketch lines in a painting they can add character; but do avoid using softer pencils whose  loose graphite can muddle the pigment and it’s transparency.
• Think about the positive and negative ground concept to the use paper.

Here is the rose I have been working on. The first close up of a bloom I have done in a long time. It is my favorite rose and I have been craving it’s scent. With any luck I will be able to track down this antique variety and add it to my garden this summer. I especially love quarter blossoming roses and this one is very low maintenance. I will be missing toiling in soil until the weather is warm again, till then I guess I can paint the flowers.

I tried painting on a new surface, a paper that was not made for watercolor and very smooth. I am going to have to play with the paper some more and see if it handles layers of translucent pigment as well as the opaqueness of white gauche. The only draw back to the gauche with such layering is it did not dissolve and reshape with later layers as well as I would like.

Artist Notes

• Damp on damp altering colors to create papery texture
• Use light and dark lines to create veining texture
• Authentic vermillion pigment as key warm red hue