What I've been up to.

I'm so embarrassed to realize that I haven't updated my blog in a year. I haven't been doing much painting because I've been kept busy with my two grandsons and another one is expected in a few weeks. Life has a way of keeping me from my painting.

In the last month I've been to a couple of workshops so I'll start with those.

I attended a pastel workshop with a wonderful pastel artist, Colette Theriault. We all did a cat on velour paper.



The other workshop was at a meet of watercolourists and was led by Shelley Prior, a wonderful artist and teacher. We all did these tulips.



Lately I've been dyeing silk scarves and reverse dyeing T shirts. I'll have a separate area on my website for my fabric work once I have a chance to sit down with my webmaster (my sister). My whole website needs updating and I apologize for that as well. It will all get done eventually. In the meantime, I won't have many updates but I will and show you everything I get done.

Char's Jars

Last weekend I attended a meet of fellow watercolour artists who I met through the online artist's website wetcanvas.com. This was the 9th  annual meeting and it was wonderful to see all our friends again. Each year one of us leads an all day workshop and we all paint from the same reference photo. This year Charlene McGill led us painting some of her old mason jars. Here is my interpretation.

Colour Burst finished

I worked on the petals again but mostly on the lily pads to correct the colours. I am going to call this one finished. I could keep on fiddling with it forever but you have to choose a time to stop. I usually wax my paintings to finish them but this time I'm going to varnish it so the shine adds to the wet look of the water.

I have to work a long stretch of night shifts so I won't be painting again for a couple of weeks so I'll get this one finished and framed in the next day or so.

Step 8

Not a lot of obvious changes but I worked on the values all around the painting and did some more washes of colour. The lily pads still have a lot more work to do on them but the lily is getting closer to being done.

Colour Burst step 7

Today I got at least one wash on everything that needs one. Colours still need to be intensified but the main problem is in the values. If those are right the whole painting will be right. I need to change the reference and this step into black and white and compare the values. I don't know why I chose a reference that was so hard to do. :-)

Step 6

Today I made a decision to change my magenta colour on my palette. The one I was using dried dull and chalky looking so I changed it to Quinacridone Magenta. That probably won't make much sense to anyone who doesn't paint but it means that I now must go over each petal fixing the colour to unify the painting.

I also added a couple of washes of quin gold and magenta over the center of the lily then removed the masking and fixed the stamens. That area is getting close to being finished.

I worked some more on the lily pads but there is still a lot left to do on those. One day at a time I guess but the deadline looms nearer and I don't think I'll have time to do a second painting before the end of the month for another show in June.

Colour Burst step 5

Another couple of hours today and I got a little more done. The stamens will look a lot brighter once I take the masking off.  The petals vary in colour from the lightest of grey/pink to a deep magenta. Difficult to reproduce in paint.