Watercolor of wine grapes

A friend of mine had a birthday coming up and one of the things he loves is vineyards, grapes, anything to do with wine. And it's that time of year...Crush! I had seen a painting at an art studio a while back that inspired me to create something similar. With the help of Google Images, I had an image as a starting point and went from there.

Since this was going to be a framed piece, I actually worked backwards so it would fit in an existing 11x14 frame I had with a 1/4 inch border since it did not have a mat. With a little measuring and remeasuring (Why do they make 11x14 sized pads of paper 11x15?) I got the painters tape laid out for the correct size painting. I usually work outside but since I was inside, I had to pull out the blow dryer several times just to get the paint to dry so I could move on...waiting for paint to dry if not one of my strengths!

Here is the finished piece, framed and ready to go!

Practicing Portrait Painting at Patris Studio

It's been a long time since I've done a portrait with watercolor. Patris Art Studio offers a model to draw each 2nd Saturday and I hadn't been there since i did model painting in January. The most challenging part of this was finding a good flesh tone. I started with her left arm, but it was way too jaundice looking.  So I adjusted it and tried the other arm which was much closer to her coloring. Of course after mixing yellow, red, and a couple other washes I had on my palette, I don't know if I could recreate it.
The 3/4 face view is the most challenging for me so I made sure that I set up my easel in the perfect spot. It turned out pretty good, but it is very stiff. I definitly will need to keep working on loosening up.

Study of a Sunflower

Playing with other mediums other than watercolors keeps me on my toes. I started with a colored pencil sketch of a sunflower from imagination.

  Then I tried translating that into acrylic on canvas. Acrylic is definitely my weakest medium here. Some people love it because it is a forgiving medium, but I still don't have a strong grasp of it.

More California Auto Museum sketches

Here are the other sketches from the California Auto Museum Plein air Painting Meet-up. 

This top one is a quick pencil sketch of the car that you see when you first walk in.

 The second one is my "entrance fee", a 10 minute sketch on a note card (it was more like 25 minutes) that I donated to the museum.

 Here is a compilation of the other artists' note cards. I am not sure whose is who's, except for the bottom one. Martha Esch was working on the same 1935 Cadillac as I was sketching.

Watercolor Painting of Model T Ford at the California Auto Museum

Painting cars has never been something that I have done much of since my goal is to be out in nature as much as possible, but I was invited to a Plein Air meet-up at the California Auto Museum and decided it would be a good challenge. Martha Esch, the host of the event, had arranged for our "payment" into the museum to be a quick sketch on a note card to be donated to the museum. What an awesome idea! Of course my quick sketch ended up taking me almost 30 minutes.

It was quite an honor being able to go inside the museum to paint, as long as we didn't spill or clean our brushes like Bob Ross ( ha ha!) There are so many great cars there from a Delorean to a Dodge Pacer. The cars are placed close together though so it was hard to get a good spot to paint. I found a Model T that was in a nice quiet corner. The museum lighting was the hardest part to work with. The model T had a flat finish so reflection was minimal. But then determining how much detail to add or omit was challenging as well. Overall I think it turned out well.

Check out more sketches from this trip to the California Auto Museum here.

Plein air painting at Pinecrest Lake

Can't beat being at the beach, in the mountains, and painting simultaneously! Pinecrest Lake never fails to disappoint...

I love painting the water but I'm still trying to figure out how to best represent the ripples on the water...

Fun with sidewalk chalk

After working as a camp counselor for Camp Celiac for a second week, I just needed to get some creativity out. The "Chalk Garden" was just the place! The impermanence of it is freeing. So with a bucket full of random sidewalk chalk colors, I started playing around. And the great thing is that it was contagious...soon the campers were creating too!