Christmas Passed

Whew!  What a busy holiday season!  There was food, company, games, decorating, shopping and celebrating, which could easily have been enough activity, but were were also creating things to be wrapped and ready under the tree by December 25th!

 

You may have seen a photo of the flock of sheep four of us worked on; eleven sheep to send to relatives in Ontario.  Six of them are now lifeguard sheep at a cottage pool and we hope they do the job well and keep their shepherds happy and healthy for many years.

 

Carolyn painted a watercolour gift: this Father-of-the-Bride moment from 2017.  It’s not only a portrait of two people, but also a portrait of the dress that Judy made.

It was nice to create meaningful gifts for some of the people on our list.  It was nice to avoid some of the holiday craziness on the highway and at the mall.  There is a different element of stress involved with producing something good and on a deadline… but the rewards are that much greater as well.

La Belle

Carolyn’s fourth painting, La Belle, for the Peace Watercolour Society Fall Show and Sale came about because the reference photo of a rose was present while one for a waterfall was not.

First it got sketched in fair detail (roses are notoriously complex) and then it was sketched again on watercolour paper.  There were four rounds of masking and pouring, then a few more layers of colour to darken the background and some minor tweaking of the flowers.  It paid off to know that indigo is a greenish blue: the glow on the shaded leaves was almost as important as the bright area to produce a centre of interest.

The purple flowers are the back up singers: La Belle is the star!

A Musical Miniature

We have a miniature show or two coming up and since I was on a musical portrait bent already I decided to attempt a watercolour of a clarinet.  Originally the instrument itself was supposed to be featured, but once I looked at all those keys I thought it might be a good cheat to add the person playing the clarinet.  It is someone famous, although it isn’t meant to be a recognizable person.  Can anyone guess who it is?

 

Fernando Sor

I was given a challenge: to draw a portrait of Fernando Sor, musician and composer.  It was an assignment gladly accepted because I do like drawing portraits and it has been a while since I’ve done one.  Deadlines generally mean watercolours so all else falls by the wayside.  Anyway, here’s the result.  The only known portrait of Mr. Sor on the interwebs is a drawing itself.  I wonder whether this is how he really looked?

Judy had a great oval frame with daffodils carved into it, which seemed to suit the romantic style of the portrait.  It was well received, and may the portrait inspire its’ musical owner!

Glory in Grey

Carolyn’s painting, Glory in Grey, is swirl of soft greys, greens, yellows and blues.  Far from monochromatic, these high-contrast petals are full of colour and life.

Value Sketch Portrait

We’ve been working on value and shape in the adult art class as well as seeing what is really there rather than drawing what we think things look like. To prove that techniques work for any subject we skipped right to portraits.  Just by painting in flat areas of shadow in the right shapes and values, we made faces look three dimensional and real. Then, if the look was a bit too stark we could add some more natural skin tones to the initial monochrome.  Everyone decided they liked the bold and colourful results just as they were.

This is mine (Carolyn’s). It’s a portrait of Jesse Lingard of Manchester United, totally thieverized from the Googlenets. I hope both the photographer and Mr. Lingard will forgive me. I admire their arts very much 😊

The Evelyns

Evelyn’s Great Granddaughter Evelyn is a year old now.  They met in May, when Evelyn the Elder turned 89.  Evelyn Eva very much enjoys looking at this drawing now.  In future Evelyn Violet can look at it and know she had a great lady for a great grandma!

Dreamy

I finally got around to drawing this portrait on top of the inky background I had tried out on canvas. Done in Elegant Writer, it has a dreamy, soft effect. It’s kind of a monochrome since I used the same pen throughout, but the ink separates into several colours so I’m not sure it qualifies. Working on canvas was an all new experience. When the ink was wet it was a bright red colour that didn’t look like it would blend at all but gradually softened and blue-ened. It was quite a trick to get the water levels right too. Too much water scared away the ink and it really didn’t want to come back. It’s such a pleasure to work with Elegant Writers that the result doesn’t matter too much, but I am quite pleased with this dreamy horse portrait. It also matches my walls perfectly. It might have a permanent home already. Maybe I’ll do a series and make a wall installation. A collection of almost monochrome tiles would look great, but then again it would take up valuable bookshelf space.

 

Judy’s Commission

This was finished some time ago and taken away to its new home, but now it is revealed to the blogosphere: Judy’s “grand” commission of a happy couple posed on the rim of the Grand Canyon.   When they came to pick it up we could all see the resemblance. These faces we had all been looking at for weeks were actually living, breathing people!

See if your eye is drawn to her wedding ring. The composition is meant to suggest a heart shape with the two faces and the ring.

 

 

Here is the original photo for comparison.

The Making of a Portrait

Judy is working on a commission right now, a watercolour of a couple at the Grand Canyon.  Just a nine by twelve, with “not much detail”.  So why does it take so long?

It is easy to look at a painting and think it must have been done in a couple of hours (so why does it cost so much?).  Sure, some paintings go that way, but some take a little more effort.  Think of mowing the lawn versus landscaping your yard.  One is done as fast as possible while you switch on automatic and ponder lemonade and BBQ.  The other takes hours of planning, visualizing colours and shapes and composition, preparing materials and equipment, drafting and reworking.  When ground is finally broken, the job takes awhile.  It has to be done properly, and well.  It must meet the standards you have set for it.  You really don’t want to start all over again.  Blood, sweat and tears went into this job.

That’s why a painting can take forever, regardless of size, detail or subject.  A portrait has to look like the people who are supposed to be in it.  The buyer has to want to purchase it, otherwise who will?  A commission has a greater chance of selling, yes, but it is ten times the work of a general interest painting.  LOL, No!  It does not fetch ten times the cash 🙂