DAY 12

watercolor 6 x 6 inches

I'm really surprising myself that I am still enjoying this challenge.  I suppose there will be a day when I just don't want to do anything, but so far, so good; and its been enjoyable to look at the other paintings each day and read how others are getting along with the challenge. 

Thanks to Laurie Miller on her blog, Laurie G. Miller's Painting Patter, I learned how to make and use a really nifty view finder for drawing and it has really saved time with the little still life paintings.  I haven't quite mastered keeping it steady enough to draw on, but the grid and dots really help.   And her paintings are beautiful, and worth a look.

About the painting for today.... the bowl, plate and spoon all have similar floral designs on them; the plate is the same one as in my day 3 painting.  After doing all but the designs, I liked it and decided to leave as is, but now am seeing some definite problems with my ellipses, so there is more work to be done. 

DAY 11

 watercolor 6 x 6 inches

I almost painted over the table design with gouache, but thought I'd think about it for a while. I''ve been trying o use up some Strathmore and W&N paper that I've had for years....  not like Arches which is the best.  Hope to write more tomorrow, but have to go out tonight and I'm late. 

DAY 10

watercolor 5 x 5 inches



Another painting from the studio window again today.  It was painted with watercolor and I splatter gouache on for the snow again.  I started another still life today.  One of these days I'm going to get ahead with two paintings completed. 

DAY 9

gouache 7 x 5 inches

I've had a cold since Saturday  and today is the first day I really felt bad.  I didn't want to go to the studio, but finally did and finished painting this that I had started a few days ago, the view from my window.  It is snowing again.  It is painted on a gray watercolor paper with  gouache and some ink pen.  I splatter white paint on for snow.  I'm not very happy with it but  it does look better than the scan which for some reason doesn't look like the painting. 

DAY 8

watercolor and gouache,  about 4.5 x 4.5 inches

I'm really starting to like painting these little still lifes.  This is another little bowl made by  Kim Ney, a local potter.  It is a little bowl.... these are cherry tomatoes.  The background is gouache. 

I did some rearranging in my studio today to make it easier to set up the objects.  And again I didn't have time to do a second painting.  I did though make a change in the painting from day 4.

 I just didn't like the blue background.  I put a gray wash on it which didn't work, then used black gouache.  I also cropped it a little differently, leaving more of the table.

DAY 7

 watercolor 5 x 5 inches

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I got back in my comfort zone again and did another little still life today.  I still keep hoping I'm going  to find time to do two paintings some day so I'll be ahead.  I'd like a day to look at the finished piece before I say it's done.   I'm already seeing a couple of things on this piece I'd like to fix.

DAY 6

gouache on matboard  3 x 5 inches

This is another take of the same photo I painted and posted yesterday.  This time smaller... the measurement includes some of the matboard in the scan.  I taped around where I painted before starting.  My plan was to paint this one looser, but almost always when I use a photo, I seem to want to paint every detail.  Maybe I should use a bigger brush. 

The reddish color in the trees are dead lodge pole pine. The photo was taken in late summer.

I'm liking this challenge.  So far, I've been anxious to go to the studio every morning.  I hoping to get more than one painting done some day.  I did part of this one yesterday and started another today, so maybe tomorrow.    

DAY 5

watercolor 3.6 x 5.6 inches

This is painted from a photo I took of Mount Fairweather about 15 years ago.  I was out to the same place I took the picture from last summer and really surprised how much the trees have grown.

I realize now that I will probably do some more work on the foreground, or maybe crop it.  

DAY 4

 

 Watercolor 4x6 inches

Well here it is day 4 and I've finished another painting.  I got a late start today.  We felt the 7.5 earthquake here last night about midnight, and it took me a long time to get to sleep and up this morning.  Thankfully, there was no tsunami. 

The bowl was made by a local potter, Kim Ney and I love it.  I have several other similar ones.

DAY 3

watercolor and gouache 5 x 7 inches

I started this yesterday and it took longer than planned to finish it.  The back ground is done with gouache.   The message is "When one door closes another will open."

DAY 2, 30 PAINTINGS IN 30 DAYS

 watercolor  5.5 x 8 inches

I painted 3 pieces today and started another one, and this is the only one that I dare put here.  The problem with this and the other first 2 which are the same image is the wet on wet wash to make the line of  cottonwood trees. 

I took the photo I painted from yesterday at the airport.  I had taken my grand-daughter, Alyssa, there to fly home to Juneau.  It was quite foggy.  These mountains, the Beartracks, were covered with fog a few minutes after I took the picture.   When Alyssa left, there was fog all around accept up.  Kind of scary, but the pilot said it was clear just past the beach.

30 PAINTINGS IN 30 DAYS- DAY 1

watercolor about 5.7 x 5.7 inches

Today is the first day of Leslie Saeta's 30 Paintings in 30 Days Challenge.    I doubt that all my paintings will be as detailed.... or maybe I'll get faster at painting.  I want to do more than a sketch for the month.  And will get out my oils before the month is up.

The design in the table is done with gold watercolor which is a powder.  The message from the fortune cookie is  "The seeds of an idea you planted long ago are about to blossom."   I'm hoping.

WHELK

watercolor about 4 x 2.5 inches

 I think this is a lightning whelk.... also called left-handed.   

BLUEBIRDS AND BOTTLES

watercolor, about 6 x 6 inches

This is part of a painting I worked on for several days last week.  It was a dud.   Today, I cut it in two pieces.  I tilted it some to try to make the perspective right.  That helped a little bit  What helped more than anything was to outline the bottles with ink.  I'm thinking now that I might lighten up the birds in the tablecloth which are competing a lot with the rest.  

CHRISTMAS PRESENTS

 

watercolor 6 x 9 inches

I spent longer than usual on this painting than I do on most of what I post here.  This is where I've posted my small pieces and sketches.  Any thing that take more than about an hour, I put on my other blog.  

For the first time in a while I've been posting here everyday and to  give myself some help in  continuing, I signed up for a challenge to do 30 paintings in January on Leslie Saeta's blog, joining what is now over a hundred other painters, to do the same.  These are mostly oil painters that are doing more than sketches.  What one calls a painting might not be what I've been doing here.

So today, I decided to do something more than a sketch or small study.

A friend gave me the bamboo box for Christmas and the pears came from another friend in the mail yesterday from Eastern Washington.  I took the pears to the studio in the box to set up a still life and they looked pretty cool in the box, so tried something a little different.

ANOTHER ONE

ink drawing

Yes, another view from the studio window this morning. 

HORSE CONCH

watercolor about 4 x 2.5 inches

I've found several of these on Florida beaches.  This one is painted close to its actual size, but most are much larger.  It is Florida's state shell and can be up to 24 inches long.

TULIP SHELL

 watercolor,  about 4 x 2.5 inches

This is another shell I found in Florida.  I decided to put a shadow on all the shells.

CONE SHELL

 watercolor, about 4 x 2.5 inches

I found this shell at Little Gasparilla Island Florida a few years ago.  I'm painting the shells on a printing paper that is very absorbent and not at all forgiving.  I messed up on the left edge and added a shadow to fix it. 

YESTERDAY'S SUNSET

  watercolor 3 x 5 inches

At about 2 yesterday afternoon, the sky looked like it might produce a colorful sunset and I walked to my friend Kim and Wayne's house witch has a great view of the southern sky.  A big cloud obscureD most of the light, but I did a couple of little paintings anyway and enjoyed a nice short visit and asparagus fritters that Wayne had just made.

MUREX

  

watercolor,  about 4 x 2.5 inches

Another shell from my collection. 

MITER SHELL

watercolor 4 x 2.5 inches

I have hundreds of shells, some that I collected when I was growing up and Florida.  Every time I walk on a beach, I fill my hands, pockets are whatever container I have with them.  This one I bought in a shell shop in Florida.

MOUNT FAIRWEATHER

 

 watercolor 3x5 inches

I drove down to the beach this afternoon to watch the sunset, which happened about 3; and while there painted three little paintings from the car.  It was way to cold to do anything outside.  I like this one of Mt. Fairweather best though its not much the way the mountain looked. 

WINDOW VIEW, AGAIN

watercolor 5.5 x 5 inches

Well, everyday its different out there.  I painted this about 11 am as the sun was passing by, low in the sky.  

VIEW FROM A NORTH FACING WINDOW

watercolor painting  6x6 inches

VIEW FROM THE LIBRARY WINDOW

 ink drawing 7 x 4.5 inches

It was a slow day working at the library this afternoon and I had time to do this little drawing in my sketchbook.  I used one of my Lamy fountain pens and washed over with water. 

WHITE CHRISTMAS CACTUS

watercolor 6 x 4.5 inches

I finished a larger painting with the cactus and now am wishing I'd thought to put the swan in it.    Well, maybe next year a larger painting with the swan, but now just this little one.  There are only two blossoms left on the plant and I had to prop one up to separate them. 

FROM THE KITCHEN

ink drawing 5 x 3.25 inches

I started drawing this at about 3 in the afternoon, yesterday,  and it was dark before I finished.  Everything was pretty much just a silhouette.  I drew with a fountain pen with bleeding ink which I washed water over and blotted some. I sketch the trees south of the house a lot from my studio which is at ground level.  There's more interest with the perspective from the upstairs kitchen window.

BULBS IN BEACHGLASS

                                                           watercolor, 6x4.5 inches

Two days in a row!... not quite a record, but this constitutes a roll for my posting here.  So to keep it going, last night, I went back to the studio, which I'd been cleaning up most of the day, and found the pot of narcissus, not blooming yet, in my window and drew them with a red Micron pen before painting them. 

GERANIUMS

These two pots sit in the window above my kitchen sink bringing some welcome color.  I painted them yesterday afternoon, about 4 as it was getting dark outside.

WHAT A DIFFERENCE A DAY MAKES

Yesterday the sun was gone, back to normal..  This is what it looks like out my window most of the winter.  I drew with a pen and ink before painting, using a fountain pen with Sailor Ink which  only bleeds a little.... just enough to give some gray in the sky.  This was done on a high plate illustration paper.

A RARE SUNNY DAY

 

 This was the first day in a while that I've seen the sun come up, as we've had lots of snow for the last couple of weeks.  Smoke from the neighbors wood fire added some interesting effects.  I did these from the studio, quite quickly, and not keeping up with the change, but I captured  some of the color. 

PAINTINGS OF SPAIN

I returned from my trip to Spain last week.    Most of the time was spent with friends from Alaska at Las Orchideas , a lovely villa (read about it  by clicking here)  near Valencia in the small town of Beniganim.   Loli and her husband Harold were gracious hosts.   Also, I spent a few days in Barcelona and Arenys de Munt where I made new friends  through the Servas organization which you can read about here.

Here are some of the paintings and drawings I did while at Las Orchideas.  They were all done on folded pages which I have sewn into a book

I drew these glimpses  in pencil on the train ride from Barcelona and painted from memory later...

 

This is the outdoor kitchen where many delicious meals were prepared.

This view from Loli's studio...

a bowl of figs......

These were growing in great number over the gazebo along with grapes,....

The first of 3 paintings of this monastery, perched on a hillside....

This view from the villa.....

and this view from closer....

This is the doghouse and carob tree....

A view from the bungalow porch....

A house on the hill above the villa....
  

in Beniganim.....

  The gardens were full of flowers .  The datura and jasmine filled the nights with delightful smells.






Some morning light


The window in my room....

 

and a table under the carob tree.