And The Series Continues ...

Coneflowers ~ Acrylic on Black Gesso 12" X 12"

This is the sixth painting I have done since last Thursday as a result of taking a workshop on Experimental Acrylic and Mixed Media with instructor, Jacqui Beck, who is also a creativity coach in Seattle.  She helped me loosen up and access a better creative me.  Doing a series and "beating it to death" is not an original concept, but I "got" it this time.  As well, I read a recent post by Skip Lawrence on painting at least twenty paintings of a series.

What I need to try for my next "go" at a series, is to paint the same thing over and over again different ways.  I have heard that before, and, being an Aries, I get bored too quickly.  Jacqui suggests that we paint the first one, and then paint from that first one, and then the next one, and the next one ... etc., always asking "what if." 

When the student is ready, the teacher appears!   

Sunflowers and Poppies

Stylized Sunflowers ~ Acrylics ~18" x 24"

Poppies and Pods ~ Acrylics ~ 8" x 10"

Am still "in the flow" of all that I learned in last week's Jacqui Beck Workshop [jacquibeck.com], although I felt myelf tightening up a bit.  I planned to do another painting today with a promise to self to stay loose and to not overthink.  Can I do it?  We'll see.  Am still enjoying the process and still trying to not be wed to the outcome.

Sunny Saturday

This past Saturday was lovely and sunny, the day before the start of spring.  It was so great to see the sun, but, it was REALLY breezy with a little chill in the air.  It didn't matter, though, because the Saturday group of painters went outside and clipped a few sprigs of blossoms and painted them from inside.  Fair?  Not plein air, but close!  Here's a quick sketch that was fun light-hearted, and spring IS in the air ... cold or not!

The tulips are coming, the tulips are coming!

The snow is almost gone, and Skagit Valley will soon be ablaze with color.  Acres and acres of tulips bracketed by the foothills of the Cascades and Puget Sound.  The month-long Annual Tulip Festival starts April 1st, and so will an abundance of art shows presented by the various art groups in the Valley.  So many artists paint tulips, of course, because that's what visitors buy when they are here.  I enjoy the tulips, but, frankly, I am "over" most tulip field watercolor paintings that I have DONE, and that I see each year.  

So, in a drop-in watercolor class, the group was doing tulips, and I chose not to do what they were doing but to "play" with my Dr Ph Martins Hydrus Watercolors.  Because I am still "feeling them out," and experimenting with them,  I tend to get heavy-handed and overdo.  And, I am still experimenting with Tyvek, never sure what the medium will do on that, so I like, but don't LOVE, the tulips above. To camouflage the amateur work, I spattered the painting with metallic acrylic ink, again, just playing. I am "getting there," and will still keep on trying, but this is an effort that may end up in the pile ... my gallery in the closet.  

To absolve myself in the group of pretty traditional tulip painters, I did a quick more traditional tulip painting, again with the Dr Ph Martin Hydrus Watercolors, that might redeem myself in the wonderful world of tulip art this spring.

We'll see ...  Maybe I should try some daffodils.  I need some remedial flower painting classes!

   

Taking my own advice

Well, I'm really taking the advice of all who know, and tell us to check values and to not be a slave to the source.  When I first painted a little series of poppies from my garden with acrylics, I was relatively pleased, because they were MY poppies, in MY garden.  But, I wasn't really thrilled with the paintings.

 

First one

So, lately, I have been observing and advising students and painting friends at critiques [when asked!], that values are so important, and the colors used are not necessarily as important, when I finally "listened" to myself, and took another look at my little poppy paintings.  Yuck!  No value change at all.  I took a dab of dioxizine purple and deepened the values around my poppy, which, I think helped a lot.  What do you think?
 

Today's effort

Fun with my Irises

Am more of a painter than a gardener, but these irises indeed were in my garden this spring.  I think of irises as hardy yet vulnerable and "feminine" and frilly, sort of a reflection of who I sometimes think I am. 

In any case, I like them and paint them each spring, always with mixed and different results.  This year, I painted the first image in a quick sort of traditional way, adding the finishing touches with my new favorite brush, the lizard lick that Myrna Wacknov introduced me to.

I have been fiddling with Photoshop, experimenting with several of the "artistic" filters, and color enhancements, and came up with the following.  Of course, it's fun to fiddle, but the benefit to my painting is it opens my mind to trying different color schemes, compositions, and ways to paint outside the box.

Azaleas

I took a photo of one of my clients' azalea bush the other morning, because it was just after a gentle rain, and the sun was shining, causing the raindrops to twinkle on the blossoms.  I love the photo as a photo, but I wanted to paint more the impression of the blossoms than a botanical image [frankly I haven't the patience to do much detail!].  I also wanted to practice with the lizard lick brush I bought for Myrna Wacknov's workshop in Portland [in April].  I haven't mastered the brush yet, but it was fun trying.  Back to the drawing board! 

Poppies live a short life but a bright one

I have a few wonderful random poppy plants in my garden, and love the virbrant reds and oranges when they bloom.  I rush to take photos of them, because the blooms fade and the petals fall so quickly.   Here's a photo "posterized" in Photoshop to help me see the larger value shapes.

After experiementing with some fluid acrylis on Tyvek, I created a dead dull mess of a poppy, so I just had to redeem myself a bit, and quickly did a couple of acrylic 8 x 10s to get my groove back.  The renderings aren't that great but the colors make me smile.