Baby Bear

This one is a fun little wc sketch of our crazy little kitten, Osito. The name means "baby bear" in Spanish and seems to be a perfect fit, as demonstrated by his tree climbing abilities. Kaily caught him in the act with a wonderful reference photo which I used to paint this one. Hope you get a good chuckle out of this one...we did.

Olga's Window

This was one of about three or four ideas that have been bouncing around in my head for the last few weeks. I have not been able to lay brush to paper near as often as I would like to, so this is the only piece that made it's way out of that jumbled mess commonly referred to as my mind! It is about 14x18" painted on Fabriano cp 140lb paper. I have been testing out some new colors that were recommended to me by Char from WetCanvas, and this is my first effort with some of the new paints. Hope you like it.

Village Farm

This is a piece I started last week, that I really kind of gave up on. I went ahead and posted it on WetCanvas and asked for a "no holds barred" critique and received some excellent feedback. I decided to post both the "before" and "after" pictures. Hopefully, you can tell which is which!

As I was painting this, I was thinking about my upcoming class that I will begin to teach in January. I had one of those, "do what I say and not what I do" moments. I had laid down a nice wash in the sky and it was drying nicely when I got this hair-brained idea to drop another color in. Well, that is a watercolor 101 NO-NO, but for some reason, I couldn't help myself! Oops! Of course, it had disastrous results, but overall, I feel I pulled it out rather nicely. Hope you enjoy, it is painted on Farbiano cp 140lb paper and is about 9.5" x 20". It is taken from a lovely reference photo from watercolorbill at WetCanvas.

Doorway with branches

This one is based on a reference photo from "TrishaFitz2" at WetCanvas. Doug ("Yorky" from wc ) thinks I have the makings for a good series with these doorways and windows. I think I may agree, but I never really planned it that way; I guess the series found me! The painting is approximately 11X15" on 140lb Arches cp paper. Hope you enjoy.

Garden Window and more...

Several things going on artistically for me these days...

Teaching is a pleasure, the kids are entertaining and love to create art, so that is going very well.

For the first time in my illustrious career, I am going to give introductory watercolor lessons to adults! This is very exciting and a bit scary at the same time. I knew this was a direction that I wanted to go, just wasn't sure when it was going to happen. Going to start this up in January, so I have been doing some research and preparation to get off to a great start!

Been doing some painting, never seems to be as much as I would like during the school year, but I am certainly not complaining. Completed a Winter scene that I am yet to post and here is a scene from warmer days, that I have titled, Garden Window. It is about 16x18" on Fabriano cp paper. Hope you enjoy; and perhaps it will warm you up a bit! ; )

Venetian Door

Been working on this one for a while. This is taking from a photo in the reference library of Wet Canvas by Sue Galos. I would love to say that I took the photo on my recent vacation...

...sorry, I'm back from my mental excursion. Anyway, this painting gave me a chance to brush up on painting textures which is always a nice exercise. What I am most excited about is the "negative painting" technique I used in the window grating of the window and arch above the door. I laid in all my colors that I wanted the metal to be in the entire area of the window and arch. I then painted in the dark color of the negative space (the area behind the bars) to get my "effect". Usually I lose the shape when I paint "negative shapes" because it is the opposite way of doing it. It would be like you trying to write your name by shading in all the area around the letters in your name rather than writing the actual letters. Sounds complicated...it's not, really, but it is a bit tricky. Hope you enjoy it. Painted on 12"x16" cp arches paper using mostly windsor newton paints.

Blaze of Glory or Learning From Children

This painting marks the end of the paints in my butcher tray---but what a way to go!!! It was fun! I might be feeling a touch philosophical tonight, I KNOW I'm feeling blessed because I work with children; gloriously whimsical, unabashedly blunt and often downright pain in the backside children!!! Since I have been working with lower primary children I have lost all hope that I will ever make it through a day without being palmed, patted on the tummy, or shown the contents of someones nose, but hey it's a livin ! But seriously, I am sorry for the rest of humanity, who grow up, get real jobs and make real money; they often forget way too much! But then again so do I... ...Just the other day I was feeling all proud of myself for teaching a masterly lesson on primary/secondary/intermediate colors and what do I find---a group of kids tossing gobs of every color on their palette into the water bucket! I was attracted by all the "oohhhhs" and "ahhhhhhs" they were making. So of course I get mad, the little twerps were not following procedures! Hmmmm....I forgot...the magic of exploration...the wonder of childhood!Tonight I remembered! I saw all those gooey colors in the tray and thought they needed to get out of there and play around! If these little guys have taught me anything, they have taught me the value of PLAY and looking at things with fresh eyes. I want to encourage all of you to recapture some of that wonder...check out the waterbucket the first time your loaded brush hits it...see if it can make you "ohhh" and "ahhh" and play around...enjoy yourself!This was painted on who cares what size paper with doesn't matter brand paints...ENJOY