Spinning Tales (13 x 19 watercolor) SOLD

My eldest daughter learned to spin last year and the Oregon State Fair.  She came home with a drop-spindle and proceeded to spin several pounds of wool within the week.  The obsession continued and all she wanted for Christmas was a spinning wheel.   We obliged.  Since then, she spins whenever she sits down to talk or watch TV.    It’s a good thing the wheel is beautiful, because it’s become part of our living and family rooms.

Naturally, as I think both the wheel and the girl are lovely, I had to paint them together.  As she also writes I thought a background of our family room books was appropriate.

The painting turned out to be more difficult than I anticipated.  I began with the pouring method,  a process much like batik involving multiple masks and literally pouring cups of paint over the paper.  After a day of pouring, I got out the brushes and promptly ruined the painting by making it too dark.  So I began again, spending another day pouring paint.  I began work with the brushes at the gallery and was very pleased with everything except her face which I though was good, but could be better.  So improved it until is was merely okay.  And then I improved it some more until it was bad and my paper was damaged beyond repair. But I loved the rest of the painting so much that I began a third time, first pouring and then painting.

This time I am happy, and while there are a couple details I might like to alter just a hair, I won’t improve it anymore.

The Sun Peeks Out at 2nd Street (10 x 14 watercolor) $250

Once again the sun on wet pavement caught my eye.   But this time it’s mid afternoon and threatening to rain again soon.  The light was spectacular.  Sunlight streaming from between the clouds always seems so much brighter.

The street is the Corvallis street I know best, SW 2nd looking south toward Art in the Valley and The New Morning Bakery.

The palate is what is becoming my new standard: phthalo blue, cobalt blue, quinacridone brown madder, and raw sienna. I painted conventionally working from light to dark in multiple transparent layers. The “blacks” are phthalo blue and brown madder.

Available through Art in the Valley, Corvallis, Oregon.  Or purchase a print through Fine Art America.

Women in the Surf (watercolor 11 x 15) $175.00

This is a little painting I started just before we left on vacation and finished while we were en-route.   Kinda fun putting the finishing touches on a beach painting while staying at a motel in West Yellowstone, Idaho.  How much more land locked could I have been?

As with many of my beach paintings, I was trying to catch the immediacy of confronting the wall of water.  It is an all consuming moment.  In this case that all consuming moment was in the late afternoon, facing a back-lit ocean.  People were almost silhouetted against it and the spray shown white.

Or purchase a print from my website at Fineartamerica.com.

My Kind of Beach Boys ( 10 x 19 watercolor) $175.00

Believe it or not,  this is February in Oregon.  Where is the rain?  I don’t know, it took a vacation for our vacation.  I took a number of photos of these boys who were obviously enjoying the unseasonable weather.  They seemed immune to the 62 degree water, and quite happy to get wet.

I painted this watercolor very traditionally starting which the sky which I painted wet into wet with ceruleum blue.  I dropped in a mixture of cobalt blue and burnt sienna  to give the clouds some depth.

Then I masked the foam and the boys.  The ocean is a combination of phthalo blue, cobalt blue and burnt sienna. I used the phthalo blue mostly for the green cresting waving.  After removing the maske, I spent much time scrubbing the hard edges left by the maske and lifting highlights from the waves.

I added the boys using burnt sienna, raw sienna, and quinacridarone rose form there skin.  Their trunks are quinacridone rose, colbalt blue, and phthalo blue.

Available for purchase at my Etsy Shop. Or purchase a print from my print shop at Fine Art America. Prints of my oceanscapes and those of others are also available here: ocean paintings

Beach Walk (watercolor 5 x 7) SOLD

This another painting of the beach at Brookings.

I just had to do one of the dogs.  Dogs and beaches  go together.  So much to see.  So much to smell.  So many, many other dogs.

This older dog wasn’t tugging too hard, but he was strongly encouraging his person to walk faster.  I want to see.  I want to run.  I want to go.  I want to do.

I used my typical beach palette: burnt sienna, raw sienna, phthalo blue, cobalt blue.  I masked the waves before painting to preserve the whites.  Painted last Wednesday at Art in the Valley, Corvallas, Oregon.

Beach Birdie (watercolor 5 x 7) SOLD

We call my youngest daughter “Bird” and “Birdie” and even “Birdles” because she looked a little like a bird when she was a baby.  It’s been a long time since I thought she looked much like a bird.   But crouching down on the shoreline, she made me think of long leggity shore birds.

The palette is simple, cobalt blue, phtalo blue, qinacridone deep red rose, and burnt sienna. I used liquid mask extensively to make preserve the white paper.

See more little girl paintings at Fine Art America: girl paintings.

Sunset at Brookings I (watercolor 5 x 7) $25.00

Last weekend I was in Brookings, Oregon for the Watercolor Society of Oregon’s Spring convention.   We visit the coast often, but we rarely get so farther south than Florance.   Brookings is on the California boarder and getting there from Salem efficiently requires dipping into northern California, hardly a hardship as the redwoods are on the boarder too.

The southern coast is a different. Brookings is a rocky rather than a sandy beach.  The land drops off rapidly into the ocean there.  The result is that the waves do not feel like them are above you as they do in Lincoln City, but they break larger closer in.  I haven’t figured out how to paint the immediacy of Brookings breakers, but I’ll get it.

In the meantime, here are three  postcard sized Brookings sunsets.  I did the first on location and the other two at the gallery yesterday.

Sunset at Brookings II (watercolor 5 x 7) $25.00

The people in the third one are my husband and youngest daughter.  It was one of the few times anyone stood still on the beach that evening.  Stephen and the girls were much too busy skipping stones to stand still.

Sunset at Brookings III (watercolor 5 x 7) $25.00

These paintings are currently for sale on-line at my Etsy shop.

Cousins at the Brook (10 x 14) private collection

This painting is a Christmas present for my father.   He took the photo a couple of years ago while I was visiting him in New Mexico.  He, my daughters, and my niece all went to Bandieler National Monument.  It was just as hot and dry as you might expect summer in New Mexico to be.  When we had finished touring the ruins, Dad snapped this photo of the girls cooling off by the brook.  I liked the dappled light, and I know he will like the subject, all three granddaughters at once.

The palatte is cobalt blue, phthlo blue, French ultramarine blue, burnt sienna, raw sienna, cadimun yellow, and quinacrione deep red rose.

Prints available through Fine Art America.com.  To see more figurative paintings by other painters see: figures paintings

Summer Shoppers (11 x 12) $150.00

This could be anywhere.  What I liked about my photo was the sunshine and the interaction between the young women.

Poured Version

I intended to pour a very atmospheric painting, and I did pour one reserving only the womens skin for direct painting.  But I was unhappy with the reflections in the windows and the draping of the sundress.  I really liked the bright pinks, oranges and yellows I got through pouring though.  So at the gallery yesterday, I repainted the image using not only my photo, but also the poured painting as a guide.

For most of the painting I used hansa yellow light, new gamboge, quinacridone deep red rose, and phthalo blue.  Using two yellow helped keep things bright.  I added burnt sienna to the hair and the leather bag.

I tried to keep most of the poured feeling by mixing the paints freely on the paper.  I added the windows and other darks in many layers of transparent color.

I’m happy with the results, but were I to do this over, I would pour the windows, sidewalk, and shadows and perhaps the dark bag and pants.  Then I would paint the women directly.

Or purchase a print at Fine Art America.com. See more of my people paintings here: people art

Taking Ten With My Shadow (8 x 10) $125.00

Just Kickin Back by Charlena

Charlena’s picture is moody and emphases the intimate nature of the space and lighting. I didn’t see any way to do that better with paint than she had already done it with the camera.    But I really liked the shadow looming up behind the resting musician, so I changed the format from horizontal to vertical and cut out most of the dark wall to emphasize the man and his shadow.

After Masking

My version of this scene is an almost entirely poured painting.  After transferring my sketch to the paper, I masked the musician, his shadow and everything else dark in the sketch.  The trick to applying liquid mask is to use synthetic brushes and to soap the brushes before and in between dips  into the mask.

The Yellow Pour

When the mask was dry I poured the lights.  After wetting the paper (a necessary first step to get the paint to stick) I poured a tea like mix of hansa yellow light over the paper.  I waited for the hansa to dry before pouring first new gamgee, then deep red rose.  Once again I wet the paper.  I poured the area around his feet first.  Then I poured upwards from his head to preserve the bright yellow halo effect around his face and hat.

The Second Pour

First Mask Removed

When the lights were completely dry, I removed the mask.  I took a moment to renew the pencil lines the mask had lifted. Then I masked all of the areas I has just poured leaving only the darks.  I left the mask to dry.  Then, after wetting the page, I poured light mixtures of cobalt blue, phthalo blue, magenta and deep red rose.  I tried to keep the darker and colder phthalo blue primarily to the shadow and the dark wall leaving the cobalt for the figure in the middle.

After the paint dried, I masked some small highlights in the musician’s face, hat, trousers and shoes.  When the mask dried, I wet the paper and poured the same colors in the same places only darker.

When the final mask was removed I felt the picture was too bright.  So I added little gray shadow under the chair to set off the vivid colors.  Colbalt blue over the orangy pink floor produced a lively gray.

Or purchase a print at Fine Art America.com.