Sunday, January 31, 2016

So many tulips

I made a goal to finish all the flowers in my painting tonight so that I had a chance of getting the rest done by my Monday deadline. Which is why I'm posting this at nearly 2 AM! In my defense, do you know what happens when you stare at one thing for too long? Ha! My eyes start to go a little crazy after searching for shapes in the same colors again and again and again. And the paper is so big, that to reach the petals at the top comfortably, I had to turn the paper sideways. Naturally then I turned my image sideways, which means my laptop was propped open on its side. My husband thinks it's hilarious when I do things like that. In theory it could really help me see the shapes instead of the tulips. That might work better when it's not so late and my eyes aren't blurring together!
But goal accomplished! And that's more important than sleep, right? I'll let you know tomorrow.

Wednesday, January 27, 2016

Winter Remedy

So we've been having a tad more than our fair share of colds this winter and it'd been making it rather hard to paint. I needed to get inspired. I needed spring. No sign of it (or the sun) outside lately so I decided the best medicine would be another translucent tulip painting. I have a store of photos from going to the Tulip Festival years ago (now that I'm back in Oregon, I can go get new photos this year!!). I wanted to do one again where the light shone through the flower petals, making them looking almost like tissue paper overlapping, but with silky smoothness instead of crumply fragility. It's slow going as there are so many layers to lay down, and I flip back and forth between stepping back and allowing the colors to blend together slowly on the paper, doing marvelous things on their own that are the reason I love watercolor, and then tightly controlling where it does or doesn't flow. So yeah, slow going.
And it's a big piece of paper, but one or two flowers per night, I'll get it done some day. Probably not before the Feb 1st deadline I was shooting for since I needed a new painting to submit by that day. Miracles do happen though, right? 
And if it doesn't this time, well, maybe I should've got going sooner. Like during those 4 bouts of strep throat I've had in the last few months. 

Tuesday, January 12, 2016

The bridge one

So I got frustrated with what I had going, as I mentioned in the last post. Looking back now, I don't think it was as bad as I thought. In frustration, I decided to just go and have fun with the sky. It was fun to swirl the shades of blue all around. And then I felt better. The funny thing is, it's now my least favorite part of the painting. Not sure it fits or that it's complementary to the whole.
In progress:
And finished, I think:
Now what to name it? And how to get my confidence back.