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.