Personal Art Blog

Sharing the lessons I teach at the Artist Guild and the personal discoveries in my art.

Friday, July 31, 2015

Escargot For The Ducks!



Escargot!
(Ducks at Young Park)
8 x 6 oil on linen/board SOLD

Artist Note
I have a Beta fish named Mr Fabulous 
who lives very happily in his tank with 
Mr Snail
One day I bought home some fresh weed 
and behold...Mr fab
had a new tenant - another Mr Snail.
The striped one below.


Soon I discovered it must have been a 
Mrs Snail because lots of baby snails appeared.
I could not bring myself to kill them
so I kept putting them in another tank. 
At about 100 baby snails I knew I was in trouble
so I decided to take the new tenant and 
offspring to our local park with a
beautiful small lake.
It has a concrete bottom so lots of healthy algae. 
Yummy for the snails.
I checked with the city first and got the OK.


What I didn't know was that ducks love to eat snails.
A friend teased me saying the ducks would think,
yummy - escargot.
I really laughed, but when I got to the 
water's edge, look what happened
Out of nowhere... all the ducks came!

I hesitated, this was supposed to save the snails 
There was no way I was going to let the snails
be gobbled up.

Out of nowhere
my snails were unknowingly
rescued by this enthusiastic young man
who scared all the ducks away.
I was able to slip them into the water 
feeling my good karma was intact.



Tuesday, July 28, 2015

Pike Place Market - Watercolor on Yupo


Flower Lady
9x12in watercolor on Yupo NFS

Pike Place Market is printed on her apron. 
I was told that it is a lottery system 
to get a space each day at the market, 
but obviously 
the fish and flowers vendors
must be permanent.

Artist Note.
Okay - I am not going to pretend that
this one was easy.
Talk about busy - even with all the editing I did.

So, how to get a design that works and at 
the same time try and capture 
all the flowers,
and a person? 
And do all this on Yupo!

It kept me totally absorbed all day.

Linking the lights.
I used the left down light
joining the strong angle of light from the 
left front flowers...across her arm 
to the back white flowers on the right.
Having her head stand out,  
and by how much was the 
difficult part. 
Until I started this series 
I had never painted
women of Asian descent. 
They were all so beautiful.

I will be trying more of these 
in watercolor - trying to simplify.
Like the gouache below... still unfinished!

I know you agree - painting is life long learning







Thursday, July 23, 2015

Pike Street Market - Painted Clothes!



Hand Painted Clothes
8 x 6in oil on canvas panel $135. SOLD

Artist Note.
I always admire the merchant 
who uses the air space
 above their tables to display their wares.
This vendor cleverly strung lines to hang
layers of hand painted clothes.

I was drawn to the scene, 
but it turned 
out to be rather difficult. 
To arrive at a good design
I had a choice to make...
 feature the hanging clothes 
OR 
the two women. 
As you know - 
the eye nearly always sees the 
color white first 
so I arched the white items together, 
and offset the women to the side.
 I started off with one woman, 
but preferred it when I added another.

Lots of scraping off while 
trying to solve problems as
they emerged, 
completely held 
 my interest while painting this one.

Enjoy the weekend! 


Monday, July 20, 2015

Pike Place Market - Flower Ladies




 Flower Ladies

8x6in oil on linen SOLD

The flowers at the market have
competition because of the beauty
of many of the young ladies
who work there.

Artist Note
I have also been painting with watercolor
this weekend, trying to work out
a good format to convey the
power and beauty of all the shapes
and colors. Not easy...
kept me totally absorbed though.
It did end up with me tearing a
sheet in half as the only way to
stop me from overworking it.
Poor hubby gasped, and I thought
he was reacting to my act but no...
it was a missed golf shot
during the British Open!


Wednesday, July 15, 2015

Pike Place Market - Veggies Galore!


 Veggies Galore!
8x6in oil on canvas $135. SOLD


Artist Note.
Continuing the market series.
The line of lights attracted me to this 
stall. The blue is cast light 
from a high window.
 It was a clear day and
the sky outside was a 
true blue. It cast an amazing 
cool color over everything it fell on.

Feeling it is time to do a close-up
of something. These last few have been
rather complex for a small surface.



Monday, July 13, 2015

Pike Place Market - The Flowers




 The Flowers at Pikes Market#1
6x8in oil on canvas panel $135. SOLD

Artist Note.

You can imagine my pleasure seeing
so many gorgeous flowers.
Unbelievable shapes and colors!
The young women who work with the
flowers are beautiful too.

This was a fast one. I want to do a
larger painting of the flower stalls
so will be working on a few small
flower paintings
 to explore my options
for colors and design.


Thursday, July 9, 2015

Pike Place Market - T-Shirts!




Pike Place Market - T-Shirt!
8x6in oil on canvas panel  $135. SOLD


Artist Note.
Continuing to explore with paint my
Pike Place Market experience.
This was fun to paint...
but difficult with the many
shapes and colors. T-shirts were
hanging all over the back
and staggered in different piles
on the counter - and not color
co-ordinated at all.
I had to decide 
on a focal area, and make 
everything subordinate to it.

It is too easy to paint everything
with every little detail when painting
from a photo like I did here,
but I wanted to capture how I
responded to the colors
and artificial lighting because
they were what had excited me.
Every time I got too precise I
closed my eyes and took myself back
and remembered the atmosphere...
then scraped off and redid.

Above, I show the vendor folding up a
shirt and he had the brown bag
already opened to place it in.
Efficient!

This is one I really liked.




Sunday, July 5, 2015

Guess Where This Is?


Pikes Fish Market, Seattle.
8x6in oil on panel $135. SOLD


Never, ever, thought I would paint a fish
market, but going to the famous
 Pikes Market in Seattle
and seeing the fish throwing...
the colorful lighting...
 and the enormous
selection of all types of sea food 
made me want to tackle it.

Artist Note.
I want to thank my hosts in 
Wichita, KA,
Portland, OR and Edmond, WA
for making my time easy and enjoyable.
All of them are art lovers and collectors
so staying in their homes was a 
genuine treat.

The reception to my teaching
and the fracturing technique 
plus seeing the amazing results
was heartwarming and good for my 
ongoing growth as an instructor.

It will take a while to assimilate all the 
experiences and settle back into my 
regular schedule, but I am already working 
on a Pikes Market Series.

Now I am off to catch up on all the blogs
I follow. Looking forward to seeing what 
you all have been up to.