Recent Potrait Studies

I have been practicing some watercolor portraits in limited palettes...I always find these the hardest for me so I am pushing myself.

Here is a recent one of my daughter.


5"x7" on 180lb wc paper

gail

Unexpected Day Off

Well.... one son at home with a sty so that means my art classes were cancelled for the day. Too bad I had all the prep done for the Chinese Dragon puppet. Can't even post it yet as I need the sample unpainted until after the construction phase is done. Oh well hopefully by Wednesday.

So what to do..what to do...


Worked on my daily painting practice.



Still working on those water reflections.






















Started designing some Valentine's Day ideas. I usually have to get these done early as we take our annual winter vacation over Valentine's.

Haven't embellished them yet but if you are interested here is the template.





Otherwise just planning out projects for the next few weeks. Came across a great paper mache Penguin project I am going to do with Grade 1. Hope to post our results.

later

gail

Calendar Portrait Studies

As promised here is another way to use those old calendars. They make great teaching aids for portrait studies. Often a student can get intimidated by trying to do a portrait, by giving them half the picture they learn placement by drawing/painting the mirror image. As they gain confidence you can go to a quarter page if you want. My kids love to do these studies. My youngest(6) does his in crayon and pencil crayon while my oldest(11) attempts them in watercolor.

Find a good image. This is from a local wildlife calendar the city sends out every year.

Fold and cut in half. Often the image is not centered on the page so try to find the center of the subject and make your fold there.

Glue on some paper with a glue stick. I did mine in watercolor as I was trying to get my daily practice in so I stuck mine on 140lb wc paper.

For my kids I usually use heavy sketch paper.

Do your sketch trying to get a mirror image. Hold on to the half you cut away for reference if needed. It's useful for determining shadow and highlight.

Add color by painting, using wc pencils, pastels, or even crayon.

Here is another example.

Give it a try. If you don't have an old calendar you can find lots of portraits on Google images.

We woke up to ice fog this morning. The trees were beautiful but we didn't get our blue sky today. Calgary is usually the sunniest place in Canada, (even though it's still cold).

see you next time

gail

St. Paul's #2

Ok, so I wake up this morning and take a second look at my St. Paul's and go YUK!
Not what I was going after at all, I study the photo again to get a feel of what drew me to it in the first place.

Here they are, I couldn't get them to show side by side no matter how much I edited. I changed the sky trying to capture the sunlight coming in from the left. Increase the drama on the bottom of the cathedral because it's the contrast I liked.

I also added the tree branches for good or bad....but I think it adds to the composition. Now at least I can live with it.




Here are the same two wc sketches in black and white. I do this a lot to check my tonal values.

I been meaning to make a tonal value tool for my field kit. You just secure a piece of red transparency paper in a small mat. When you look thru it you can see your tonal values quite clearly. I'll try to make one today and post it tomorrow in case anyone is reading this.

well later
gail

St. Paul's

Well we are back home from our BC vacation. It was a good unwind. The last few days were incredibly hot so not a lot of painting or crafts. We spent most of our time on the beach or in the lake.




Today I attempted some daily practice. I chose this photo that my hubby took of St. Paul's Cathedral. I liked the angle.





I have all these wonderful photos from places my husband has travelled to (work), unfortunately I have never seen them.














I started with a fairly detailed sketch, more than I usually do.














I laid down my first few washes.














Added in more detail and shadows as I went along.





I've just taken Shirley Trevena's book "Taking Risks with Watercolor" out of the library.


It is an incredibly inspiring book. Her style is so different and her color choices are breathtaking. I was trying to keep her in mind while I painted but its going to take a while. (...I'm maybe a little loose and undefined on the bottom...) anyhow it is a wonderful book and I'll probably review it over and over in the next 3 weeks.

Well here is where I called it quits. It was hard to keep my lines and the statue messes up the corner a bit. If I was taking more risks I could have made all my lines a bit wonky.

I'll keep at it.













see you later
gail

Painting Conundrums Part 2

Well here was that painting I was working on. I scrubbed out the end of the road because it looked like it was floating. I'll lower it to the base of the tree trunks.

I also scrubbed out the shadows a bit because I didn't like how they looked.









Here is a picture of the same road as it looked this afternoon.

I studied the shadows to see how to correct my painting.










I fixed the road now and I'm working on the shadows in this shot.

Here is the finished painting. I'm still not completely happy but I like it much better than before the fix.

I'll wait a day and it probably will grow on me.

gail

Painting Conundrums

Here is some painting I've been working on in the last two days.



This is a Mission we visited during Easter in San Antonio, Texas. The sky was a very deep blue and the sun was very bright. I was trying to capture it here. My sky didn't take exactly as I had hoped. I was working on the back side of 140lb wc paper in my sketchbook. I try to paint on both sides of the paper when I'm practicing. The back side tends to repel the paint so its harder to lay down a wash.









This is a picture of the road in front of the cabin where we are now. I took it last year in the fall. The sunlight was very intense thru the trees. I decided to make some changes when I started painting. I wanted a more afternoon light feel with some shadow play on the road.

I got frustrated with it so I still have work to do and changes to make. The road seems to climbing into the sky so I'll have to fix that and the shadow play doesn't look right. I will watch the road this afternoon to get it right. I also have to unmask the birch tree trunks and fill in the details there. I'll post it when its done.

I wasn't going to post these as I wasn't exactly thrilled with them, but then I got thinking. I started this blog to motivate myself to paint everyday......I also started it to chronicle learning to paint which means the good and the bad. I tend to learn more from the bad parts anyway. So I'll try to show it, all warts included. Who knows maybe I'll start a "Mistakes Monday" group to share the angst.
I do know that I have learned that watercolor is not an all or nothing medium. You can try to fix things. It just usually helps to spend some time away from your painting and then come back with "fresh eyes".


If I can tear the kids away from their embroidery I hope to have a new craft tutorial soon.

later
gail

Painting at the Cabin

Well the weather has improved and we have been spending lots of time at the beach.

No new crafts to post but here are some paintings I was fiddling with while on the beach. Sorry for the picture quality but I don't have my high tech. scanner at the cabin, I'm forced to use the digital camera.






This is a lake in Banff National Park which is only 45 minutes from home. The reference photo was in the newspaper last week.


5x7 140lb wc paper


I struggled with the rock face. I am challenged by rocks which is difficult when you live next to the Canadian Rockies.




This is a picture of some Poppies I took last year.




5x7 140lb wc paper










Thats all for now,
gail

How to make a Pompom Owl

We are at the cabin, the weather has been cool, and the kids are itching for something to do. Lets make owls. The inspiration for this craft comes from Tasha Tudor. She was an amazing woman and artist. In her book on Heirloom Crafts she talks about making these owls and we are trying to recreate them here.

The materials you need to make one of these owls are:

brown and white wool

cardboard

feathers

pipe cleaners

string or embroidery floss

felt in white,black,brown(optional)

paint

glue

First you need to make the pompom. For this owl I decided to try making an oval pompom(more owl shaped). You need to cut 2 oval shaped doughnuts out of cardboard. I made mine about the size of my hand. After cutting out one I traced the second so they were the same size.

You then need to make a shuttle. A shuttle is what holds the yarn while you are making the pompom. This is really helpful for kids, otherwise the yarn gets all tangled and you will have tears of frustration, trust me, your kids may even cry.....

I made mine out of cardboard. It basically is a strip, ruler shaped, with a small cut on one end. Insert your yarn or wool into slit and then start winding the yarn onto the shuttle. I tried counting how many times to wind it but after 200 gave up on that idea instead try to wind enough yarn so the thickness is equal to 2 of your fingers. Make sure it will still pass through the hole in the doughnut shape.

Once you have wound your shuttle you need to get it set up on the doughnut shape for your kids.

Place the end of the yarn between the two doughnut shapes and then wind a few lengths of yarn onto the doughnut shape holding tight.

You'll notice I wrote belly and body onto my shape. This is because we are going to make the belly white on this pompom so we are going to switch colors. By writing it on the shape it gives the kids a guide to follow.

Have them wind the brown yarn onto the doughnut filling in the space marked off for the body. They need to wind it tight so no cardboard shows in between the strands and they can go over it twice if they want a fluffier owl.

When its time to switch colors, thread the end of the brown yarn under one of the strands on the doughnut shape and pull tight, clip off.

To switch colors, rewind the shuttle with white yarn (you can also make a new one so you have two in action).

Place end of white between the two shapes and wind a few strands on again holding tight.

Continue winding until you have the belly covered and then end off.

Now the fun part you have to cut between the two doughnut shapes. Cut the yarn all around the shapes put DO NOT PULL THE CARDBOARD OFF YET!!!!

Take some yarn or heavy duty thread and pass it between the doughnut shapes. Pull tight and tie a knot, then tie several knots. You want to try and make it as tight as possible. Yarn can sometimes break at this step so I started to use heavy duty quilting thread. If you only have yarn use a double or triple strand. Clip ends and then pull off cardboard shapes.

Now give your pompom a haircut to get the shape right. Choose where the face is going to be.

For the eyes, we first cut out some light colored felt for the area around the eyes, we then used a little acrylic paint to paint feather like detail around the felt. We also used little touches of color on the white belly.

We then cut out black eyes to go in the center of the felt circles we had already cut and painted. On one of the owls we cut some brown felt into half circles to make eyelids so we could make a sleepy owl.

Then select some feathers for the ears. When you have it the way you like glue directly onto the pompom. Feathers first, then eyes.

For the feet take a pipe cleaner and cut in half. Take one half and make into an m shape. Bend the ends in so you don't stab yourself with the wire. Then take some string or embroidery floss and wind onto pipe cleaner. It helps to lie one end of the string along the pipe cleaner and then wind around it and the wire all at once this takes care of your loose ends.

At the end knot off. I had the kids place a bead of glue onto each end of the toes(or talon I guess) and spread onto the floss(string). This helps to keep them from unwinding. For the beak I took a small piece of pipe cleaner(3 inches) bent it in half, and wound some beak colored yarn on it. You could use the white yarn and paint it or color it with a felt if you needed to.....you could also just use a yellow pipe cleaner. I bent it into a beak shape before I glued it onto the owl.

Glue your feet onto the bottom of the owl near the front so you can see them and TaDa a woodlands owl perfect as a cabin decoration.

I also thought I'd post some painting practice. The weather hasn't been great so I've been painting from some photos my husband took in Switzerland last year.

See ya later

gail