1,2,3

I didn't state it on my last post, but I vowed to do 29 little watercolors this month  and post here.   I did two today and half of one yesterday.  So now I will put my intentions out there.  We will be traveling to Florida on the 19th and I hope by then I will have some momentum going.  I hope to get back to my oil painting too, though there's a lot of inertia happening on that side of the studio.

about 6x4 inches

This is the half painting I did yesterday.... well maybe less than half.   I added the snow....

about 6x4 inches

 ... over this that I painted  from my window in October 

It has looked much the same for most of the winter.  Yesterday afternoon, we had the first snow  in over a month.  The willow and cottonwoods are budding out.  I think this January was the warmest on record.  And there was lots of rain.

Today, I called my friend Kim and asked if I could go over and paint this morning.  She has a much better view.  I did these 2 from her window towards the mouth of the Salmon River.

about 5x5 inches

about 4x6 inches

Four Little Sketches

I did these little sketches to fill the last couple of pages in a sketchbook I'm retiring.   In it there are some nice little watercolors that I should have posted over the last few months.  Maybe having my scanner 2 floors above my studio has something to do with my lack of posting, and maybe I should do something about that.

The two on top are from my studio window, the two on the bottom from my car at the beach. 

South of the Airport

These two paintings were done from a pencil drawing I did last year in April, north of the airport runway. There was no snow on the ground but I put it in the second one.

watercolor, about 6x4 inches

watercolor, about 6x4 inches

Blue Waves

watercolor 5x5 inches

I picked these blooms off of my blue wave petunia plant that is still blooming on my porch despite temperatures in the twenties.

More of England and France

 I'll try again to get this blog going again with some more of my journal paintings from my trip to England and France.  All but the last are about 7x7 inches.

And now I'm making a promise to myself to add something more recent this coming week.

Across from Tentagel Castle, Cornwall

 

 

Merlin's cave is supposedly around here.  I don't know if this is it.

Train Station at St Erth

 I missed a train on a day trip to St. Ives and spent an hour waiting for the next one.... long enough to draw and I added the paint later.

 

Dart River, Totnes, Devon

 

 

 

 

 

The tide goes out here and leaves the boats on the river bottom.

Branscombe, Devon

Anne's teacup

 I loved this little cup.  It seems so French.

England and France

After returning from a wonderful trip to England and France earlier this month, I've decided its time to start adding to this blog again  Friends and I started in London and traveled to Cornwall and Devon and then to Paris and the countryside near Angouleme France.  My friends were really into walking long treks most days and my knee wouldn't allow me to keep up, so I spent a lot of time sitting and painting.  These are some of my painting in my journal and are about 7 x 7 inches or smaller.

Lemorna Cottages, Cornwall

 

Alone Circular walk from Port Isaac, Cornwall

View from Pendaris B&B Port Isaac, Cornwall

View from Tentagel Castle, Cornwall

Along the Dart River between Totnes and Dartmouth

                        

Anne's house near Angouleme France

Anne's garden shed  France

End of the Runway

watercolor 4.5 x 6 inches

 I  painted this on Friday from my car at the end of the airport runway.  I moved a mountain and lots of trees.   It was very cold with wind but I parked where the sun was shining on me.  I spent most of the time with the line of spruce and cottonwood and would have gone back the next day, but nothing guarantees a change of weather the next day as much as me going out to paint.  I finished as well as I could in the studio.  We had a weekend of snow.

Sky on Thursday

watercolor painting 3x4.5 inches

I sort of resolved to start posting here more often at the beginning of the month, but ddn't get very far.  Well, now I'm going to start again.  I painted this little watercolor on Thursday.  I think I nailed the color in the sky pretty well. 

January 3, 2015

5 x 6 1/2 inches

I painted this from my car this afternoon.  It was a very cold clear days and the Fairweathers were beautiful.  This was the last spread in a little book I've been painting, drawing and writing in since June. 

January 2, 2015

I hope I'm not getting too ambitious here.  I signed up again for Leslie Saeta 30 paintings in 30 days challenge and started posting them on my other blog.  Since some are going to be small watercolors, I think I might as well put them here too. 

4x6 

I painted this after a spectacular sunrise this morning.

30 PAINTINGS IN 30 DAYS COMPLETED!

Here are 25 of the paintings I did in January.  I could figure out how to get all 30 of them in the template.  Leslie Saeta sure deserves a lot of praise for this challenge.  I don't know how she does it. Besides painting, she teaches and hosts a radio show.  You can hear a radio show about the challenge on  Artist's Helping Artist's

DAY 30 OF 30 PAINTINGS IN 30 DAYS

watercolor 6 x 6 inches

Whoo hoo!   I'm posting my 30th painting for the month and sitting down with a glass of wine to celebrate.  I started cutting mats for them this afternoon and was so rewarded and pleased with myself looking at them all.

Tomorrow, I'm going to return to work on my year of the snake print until it is done..... I have one block cut already.  My studio needs a day of cleaning up, and I'd like to cut some more mats.  I could list a dozen other thing that need to be done,  but I want to keep painting. 

For the month of February, I'm setting a goal to paint at least two small paintings a week and also to spend 6 days a week painting for at least 2 hours.  I'm hoping and pretty sure I will do more and spend more time than that.  I'll see if I need more commitment to get more done.

This last painting for the challenge is of a cup that my husband gave me for one of my birthdays and it is my favorite.  Tea always leaves a residue with our hard water, so I don't use it very much because it is hard to get clean.  My dear husband appreciates this since he does most of the dish washing around here.

DAY 29

watercolor and gouache 6 x 6 inches 

With only one day left of the challenge, I'm beginning to be a bit apprehensive about ending my daily painting, afraid that without the challenge and commitment that I will not keep painting.  This month of painting everyday has been very satisfying and I really want to keep the momentum up,  but  I have other things that I need to do that I've put aside this month.  And I want to work some on larger paintings.   I know I need a commitment to myself, including painting some larger pieces and some almost daily painting.... I must decide just what exactly that promise to myself will be.

DAY 28

 watercolor and gouache 6.5 x 6 inches

DAY 26 AND 27

 watercolor 6 x 6 inches

 I didn't post this yesterday, as the puplish color was all wrong the first time I painted it.  Then I put some gouache on it which was worse. This morning, I managed to take most of the gouache off which took a whole lot longer than it did to paint it, and what is left is what it is.

watercolor  4.5 x 7 inches

 It was a joy to paint this one, after spending what seemed half the morning fixing the previous one.  We had about  a foot of new snow and it was 9 degrees C this morning. These are the trees out a north facing window.

DAY 25

watercolor 8 x 10 inches

 There are 18 of these Tundra swans hanging out in a ditch along the road to Bartlett Cove and they don't seem to mind cars stopping and people taking pictures of them.  I went there with a friend yesterday and  came home and started painting this from one of the photos I took.  There seem to be more and more of them staying here for the winter and this is the first time I've had such a close look at so many of them.

DAY 24

watercolor 4.5 x 7 inches

I painted the sky from my window one day last week and added the rest while sitting in my car on the beach road yesterday. 

DAY 22 AND 23

 watercolor 6 x 6 inches

 I  scanned this last night but really was unhappy with it and too tired to do anything about it, so decided to skip a day of posting.  I made some changes (not easy with watercolor) and it looks a bit better. 

watercolor 6 x 7 inches

It was a really busy day, but besides fixing  yesterdays piece, I painted the bananas and drove to the beach and painted a second piece while sitting in the car.  So at last I'm ahead.

DAY 21

watercolor 6 x 6 inches

 This was another one that took longer to draw than it did to paint.  I've been looking at photos to paint from, and tomorrow's painting might be a landscape...... or not.  I've got lots of little things around the house that haven't been painted yet.

 

DAY 20

watercolor 6 x 6 inches

Its getting time for me to make a woodblock print for Baren Forum's  Chinese New Years exchange.  I got as far as getting my tools and wood out, then I decided to paint them.

DAY 19

watercolor 7 x 6 inches

It took longer to draw the jar than it did to paint everything.  I'm going to do something without ellipses tomorrow.

DAY 18

watercolor and gouache 4 1/4 x 4 inches

I found these little Chinese cups year ago in a shop in Seattle and have painted them  several times.  A couple of them are sort of lop-sided, so I'll let that be the excuse for the less than perfect drawing. 

DAY 17

watercolor about 3.75 x3.75 inches

A smaller piece today, and it got painted a lot faster.  My set up was originally larger with another little bowl and the olives were in a larger bowl with a pattern and there was maybe going to be a spoon, but after the olives were painted, I decided the arrangement wasn't going to work.  I wish I'd put the garlic a little to the left.    Hopefully, tomorrow I will finally get a day ahead.

DAY 16

 watercolor 8 x 6 inches

I love the shape of these heavy old mugs.   My husband calls these "boat cups" as they were what he always used on his commercial fishing boat.... they didn't tend to move as the boat rolled around, and didn't break when they did.  I don't remember where the coffee pot came from but love its shape too.  The bottom of the wooden handle is broken off.... I think it must have gotten burned at one time.

DAY 15

watercolor 6 x 6 inches

Yahoo!  We're half way through with the challenge.  I'm really developing respect for daily painters.  It takes lots of dedication.   Always in the back of my mind is the thought of continuing this after the 30 days.  So far I haven't gotten ahead on the number of paintings with any redeeming qualities.  And so far, I haven't had any other commitments to speak of.   When the 30 days are up, I'll make some sort of commitment, I'm sure, but don't know what.  For now I'll keep concentrating on this month.

Today's painting was a little more successful than yesterdays, but as always there is something I don't like about it.  

DAY 14

 watercolor and gouache 6 x 6 inches

I"m still enthused  about painting everyday, but not so enthused about what I painted today.  This is the better of two that I did today. I still haven't gotten ahead in my numbers of paintings... at least not of ones that I want to show anyone.   I'll try to do better tomorrow. 

DAY 13

 watercolor 6 x 6 inches

The setup  from yesterday was still on my table this morning, and I moved them around a bit and painted them again.  I really like yesterday's arrangement better.  I played around with cropping it to get a better composition, but will post the whole thing and think about it some more.

I also made some changes on yesterdays painting..... put a little more color in the dishes and fixed the ellipses.... wasn't so hard to do since I hadn't used any staining colors.  I used a little bit of white gouache on the rims.  Now that I've got it scanned again, I see something else I need to fix.

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.