Painting of the Week - Water Cans

This week's class work -watercolor. This is a closeup of the water cans shown in my photo of the little girl at Slate Run Metro Park.

Paintings of the Week - Sketching with Sharpies

The task in painting class last night was to sketch quickly with a Sharpie and add some washes of color on top. This is always a fun exercise. You have to not worry too much about details and just go for it. Obviously, some of the proportions are off, but they convey the scene pretty well.

I did these on small scraps - maybe 6" at best - from a piece of watercolor paper that another student had put into the trash. Using a less than pristine piece of paper makes it easier to just let loose and have fun, without worrying about creating a masterpiece.

As always, you can click on the picture to bring it up larger.....

Walker

This is my latest entry into Karin's weekly challenge. I used pastels and didn't have the right colors for the right hand side of the painting. I painted this in a square format, but really didn't like much of the right side, so have cropped it. I like it much better now.

I did complete most of it upside down as she suggested, and it wasn't that difficult. I am happy with how it turned out.

Painting of the Week - Fruit

This week's painting class work. I couldn't find anything that interested me in my reference photos, so got out some fruit and took some pictures. I used a wild dish towel under the plate. It had printed fruit also - watermelon and orange. When I was painting the towel under the plate, I thought it might be confusing to the viewer to see a slice of watermelon UNDER the plate, so I lightened the seeds up a bit. Still not sure that the towel reads right. The plate was difficult to achieve with a nice smooth curve using my big brush. I am pleased with how the fruit turned out, although with the foreshortened photo, the front apple seems out of proportion.

Pedestrians

This is my watercolor of this week's Different Strokes challenge. It turned out much 'higher key' in the background than I intended. That's the thing with watercolor - you never really know what will happen until it is completely dry. I think I achieved the look of strong sunlight hitting the figures. I am happy with some subtle highlights that appeared on the legs of the figures to the left. This was a quick painting for me and maybe that's the key to my watercolors - get it done quick, let it mellow overnight, and hopefully it turns into a successful little painting - besides, its only paper and there's always another day to paint.

Painting of the Week - Dinner

This is last night's watercolor painting class effort. There is more I could do to this, but normally what I accomplish in class is enough for me. I consider my classwork as practice and don't try for a masterpiece, but just try to enjoy the process. I prefer the short time frame too, as I get bored working on a piece for days and days.

I tried... but it didn't work - Revised

I really tried to paint Karin's newest photo. I used hot press watercolor paper for the first time. Big mistake. I am not a fan! I had worked on this last night, and promptly put it in the trash. This evening, I wanted to start over fresh with pastel, but just didn't have time, so dug out the watercolor and added some pastel pencil on top. Better, but I am still not too happy with it. Still deciding whether to send it on to Karin.

REVISED - I scanned this on the better scanner at work, and it looks much better, so off to Karin it goes!

Honorable Mention - Pear Pair

I won an Honorable Mention for my pastel "Pear Pair" at the Worthington Area Art League, Autumn show at High Road Gallery, Worthington, Ohio! The gallery was packed full of all kinds of art, so I am very happy that my piece stood out to the juror. His comment:
(REVISED) Juror quote: "Nancy's piece excels because of her use of vibrant, expressive color."

I am very pleased to win this award, especially with that huge amount of competition. This is my first award in painting. In the past, I won many awards for my art quilts, but I am always uncomfortable accepting praise for my work, even though that is something we all strive for.

Here are pics before and after it was framed (sorry for the bad framed shot).

In Suspense Until Tomorrow

I had a great email last night. One of the organizers of the Worthington Art League November exhibit emailed that I should attend the Artist Reception tomorrow, as one of my entries has won an award at High Road Gallery! If you are in the Columbus area, please stop by and see the show. The exhibit runs until November 25th.

I entered two pastel paintings which were shown a couple months ago on this blog. One was "Pear Pair" and the other was "Crestone Peaks". I will post tomorrow with the results!