Today's WC

Here's today's watercolor effort. It's from a photo I took from the moving car as I was driving to Harrington. The clouds were so beautiful. I meant to just use the clouds as information for some other painting, so I didn't think about what else was in the picture. Still, since the subject doesn't really matter, I decided I could just do what was there. I have such a good time balancing color and shape....getting the illusion of aerial space on a flat surface. I like this one, and I narrowly escaped overdoing it
It's not that I have done nothing but paint for the last week. I just feel that my paintings aren't finished until I take a picture of them and post them. Yesterday I went to Machias with Toni and bought a new DVD player. I wrecked the one I had by blowing its mind with too many commands at once. Even though I have very little money left for the rest of the month, I felt I couldn't get by even one day without it. I used my one puny credit card to buy it and was rewarded with the next episode of "Six Feet Under." I am watching that TV series on discs from NetFlix and can't imagine life without it now. Every night I watch one or two episodes. I wonder what I will do when I have seen them all. Start over? Maybe.

Toni and I are playing the recorder together three times a week for an hour or so. You'd think we would be great musicians by now, but luckily we still have a very long way to go. There are a few things in life you can never finish, and learning some kind of art form is one of them. Or it's possible to create such a situation. I remember an old friend telling me that she never could bring herself to finish her housework because then there would be nothing left to do. She always left at least one task for later, I suppose to make sure there WAS a later. We spend so much of our lives looking forward it's hard to get out of the habit. After a certain age we have done all the significant life events we planned on, or not. Our future can't be depended on in the way it once was. The next big change is death.

Well, it's a different orientation.

Not So Good

I took this photo from the cabin that Lisa and Will were working on to sell. My first mistake was using watercolor pecil to draw in the sunject. It turned everything orange and I had a hard time irradicating it. Next, I chose a subject too big for my paper. Groups of houses need a lot of space when you painting style is as indelicate as mine.

Nevertheless, I learned some things..............and have put one more lousy painting behind me.
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Wednesday's Work

Going to Sydney's yesterday required a lot of determination. We had a terrible ice storm with high winds and freezing rain that turned to a torrential downpour. I couldn't scrape the ice off my windshield so trod back and forth with buckets of water to throw on it until a small area was clear. By that time I was literally soaked through to the underwear. I took off my boots and my socks squished when I walked. I changed my clothes, went back out to the car, and turned on the wipers. One of them was frozen to the windshield and the blade ripped off. I drove to the garage peering through the deluge, where Jim Spinney replaced the wiper, and then proceeded to Sydney's, clutching my painting supplies and a big bottle of wine.

Before I left I had found an old watercolor block, around 9x11. It still has several pieces of paper on it, so I have several more opportunities to do small paintings. The one I did yesterday, another Epping Road clone, was a lot of fun and came out fairly well. I'm getting it better, but I should have quit on this one about fifteen minutes before I did.

Nevertheless, I consider it a success and am looking forward to the next one.

Another Try

Still on my quest, I went at my watercolor again. This time I used one of the Epping Road pictures as subject matter. I found a long narrow piece of paper left over from some former project.

I feel that I'm finally getting a handle on this. I was thinking about my conversation with Thelma the other day and remembered her mentioning using yellow ocre to put the "drawing" on the paper. I decide to try it and it made a big difference. It's what I used to teach my students to do, and it was a good idea. Lightly sketching in the values with paint got me started in the right direction. At this point pencil lines are making me forget value, which is at the heart of watercolor. Using the paper to make light values is essential, since there is no white paint. The degree of transparency is how values are established.

Stretching the original photo out to fit the paper was interesting. I like the reverse repeat in the shape of the tree line and the rock, the lines of the rolling hills heading toward the center of interest. It's composed almost like "The Last Supper." :-)

I am entertaining myself with this effort to restore my skill at watercolor. I like to have a project with a measurable goal to focus on. It doesn't matter that once I reach the goal I toss it asside and move on to something else.

It's good that I am process oriented, since Lytton won't wear his sweater. I enjoyed knitting it....