stuff about art: #watercolor

Showing posts with label #watercolor. Show all posts

2024-09-29

watercolor: Fully Involved

Watercolor ~ a challenge doing a painting of a night scene, and showing water and fire

2024-07-16

Still Life / Watercolor Lynn's Coffee table

In private collection

2023-07-10

2023-07-09

watercolor: "Learning the basics"

"Learning the basics" - a youngster begins to learn about watercolor painting. Based on a photograph. Setting is inside East Haddam's historic Town Hall building; the Grange roof in the background through the window. The wood/coal stove is still in the building.

2023-06-23

watercolor: Koi Pond

"Koi Pond" was part of a "house portrait" commission. There were two pieces composed: the house, and the pond. My decision - when doing a site visit it was evident that the pond, built by the homeowner, was a source of pride and love. But the view of the house the owner wanted was from below the pond. This perspective was one looking front the deck to the yard. There was no way the portrait would have been complete without a suitable depiction of the pond.

2022-11-09

Watercolor/gouache : "Lynn's Coffee Table"

2022-08-19

LANDSCAPES: Shady Acres, Lakeville, San Diego, CA

Pet Portraits: Jack and Friday

2022-08-14

Watercolor: Leaving Belize 2

"Leaving Belize"

Watercolor/gouache on Arches paper

(from a plein air study)

Domestic Scenes: House portrait; pond painting

A client asked for a house portrait. Customarily, when doing a house portrait I interview the residents of the house to determine their interests and what unique things they would like in the completed image. In this instance they told me the location from which the house was to be painted.

Yet during an interview and a site visit it was evident that a key feature of the property, a koi pond, lovingly built over time by one of the couple, would not be clearly visible from the preferred vantage point. Additionally, on the site visit I could see that much of the family's outdoor entertaining and visiting was conducted from a deck overlook above the pond. It seemed certain that providing a portrait without the pond was as if one did a portrait of a couple with only one person in the picture.

So I elected to include, as part of the original agreed upon commission price, the pond.

The house was painted in acrylic 22"x28". For many reasons, this one was more of a challenge, from how to make the base of the pond look like more than a pile of rocks to angles and quirky add-ons and how to make them appear as a cohesive image. The personalization make the complete picture easier.

The koi pond is a watercolor. 12" x 16". This was, for me, a pleasure to paint. During the sketching phase, I observed a Chinese character for "Spring" on a stone plate. In interests of completeness, the other three seasons were added based, clock-wise, with the original siting of Spring.

Commissions are often a challenge. Sometimes the query isn't clear. But I learn from each of them.

2022-06-28

Watercolor: Leaving Belize

Plein Air from sea cruise. In Private Collection

2022-06-21

Hunting Cabin - Whigville CT

Two versions of the same site, one a watercolor on paper; the other acrylic on canvas. I tend to paint "dry"

2021-11-09

plein air : At the Sequoyah Birthplace Museum, Lavore, TN

This Historic site, The Sequoyah Birthplace Museum, in Lavore, TN, is on a river that was dammed up in the 1960s, in order for the Tennesee Valley Authority to build a nucear power plant. The construction resulted in flooding lands where members of the Cherokee Nation had been living.

Naming the site after a local Native American Indian was considered a small political token to the Cherokee in compensation for the dam-flooding and destruction of their historic sites that TVA required to control flooding on the Tennessee River.

In a sense, the Sequoyah Birthplace Museum is also a monument to the "Second Trail of Tears" for the Cherokee Nation.

2021-09-11

Remembering the World Trade Center

Remembering where I was:

I went to work on September 11 just returning from vacation. 
At the time I was the senior patient advocate at a maximum-security forensic psychiatric hospital. 
Typically, even when gone for the weekend there is always someone – usually two or three – who want to see me.  I’d been away for over a week. Checking the voice mail, making note of those who’d asked to see me I expected I’d be busy all morning.
Once in the building while walking past the nurse supervisor’s office, some staff were inside talking about a plane crashing into the side of a building and how shocking this was. My guess was they were talking about a film on TV the night before. I gave it little thought. Given how many had called asking to speak with me I headed toward the units to make my rounds through the building.
The facility is constructed as a roundabout. Anyone going to one of the units quite literally passes through each one to get to the next.
During day hours there’s considerably more social and emotional distance between unit staff and the patients; interacting with some reserve except for when patients are attending groups or need fresh bedding, towels or some other items brought from storage. Yet that day things were different. Unusual for the hour (9 am) the nursing station on the unit was empty save for one person, and no one was in the hall.
Everyone had gathered in the two big common rooms. I could hear the TV’s on. There was virtually no conversation taking place. Even the clinicians (who usually didn’t interact with patient or direct line staff except in formal meetings) joined patients and staff filling the two TV rooms. I had to squeeze into one of the rooms to see what they were watching.
People acknowledged my presence, but everyone was focused on the screen. People who had called me said they’d speak to me later.
The north tower of the World Trade Center was on fire. Someone turned to me and said that an airplane had crashed into the tower, just like staff in the nurse supervisor’s office had said.
The second plane had yet to hit.
So I went on to the second unit. Same thing. Everyone crowded into the TV rooms. Everyone intermixed sitting and standing side by side. I don’t think I’d ever seen this before
Upon arrival on the third unit, the halls were empty. So was the nurse call station. The TV rooms were at the far end of the unit. Some were standing in the hall looking in.
As I came to the doorway of one of the rooms, I saw – as did everyone else – a second plane headed towards and witnessed it smash into the south tower.
Off unit activities for the morning were cancelled though people were permitted to go out into the courtyard. 
The twin crashes of the towers brought everyone together in a muted unity. Any rancor that might usually have been reported remained unstated.  All of us were stunned.
No one had anything to say.