watercolor and painting ideas
Last night’s full moon had me thinking of the beautiful evenings we have had while anchored in a secluded anchorage on the Eastern Shore. And the times when we have been sailing and watched the sun go down in the west and the beautiful full moon rise in the east.
We’ve been having a lot of wind recently, with cold fronts blowing away our brief warm spells. Today we had some snow blow through, but not enough to stay on the ground, so this is from my imagination.
Although our weather here in Maryland keeps teasing us with ocassional spring-like temperatures and the ground remains bare, I can have wonderful snow in my studio.
These two seem to bear a strong resemblance to the snowman I posted two weeks ago. Could they be family?
Our winter continues to be temperate with the occasional precipitation coming in liquid form, but I keep thinking about and painting the fluffy crystals.
“As the days begin to lengthen, the cold begins to strengthen.”
The temperature here hovers around freezing and the predicted wintry mix falls as cold rain. This kind of rain feel colder than snow to me, which is probably related to my excitement at walking in the falling snow. But here in my studio, I can have snow if I want it!
What warms your heart on a cold winter day?
I made this tutorial in order simplify painting a tree for my watercolor students. There are many ways to paint a tree, but this one has given me the greatest success in teaching how to think about the light-to-dark process of painting a deciduous tree.
This exercise uses three main steps for painting the tree.
I left a space on the left for my students to paint step 1 while looking at the example. Then they can use my first stage painting to practice step 2, and my step 2 to practice putting in the trunk and branches.
This is an exercise that I suggest you DO try at home!
It is my pleasure to introduce “Camilla Serafina” who is here to dance for you. Can you hear the haunting flamenco music?
While we are digging out after this weekend’s blizzard, she is on her way to Florida, to dance in the New Score Chamber Orchestra’s auction fundraiser.
Many thanks to my husband for his help in completing this project!
I wrote in December that I had been given a decommissioned violin to turn into a piece of art to be auctioned off at a fund raiser for the New Score Chamber Orchestra. As I looked at and held this instrument, the idea that resonated most with me was that of a flamenco dancer.
So I stripped the violin of its remaining strings, pegs, and tailpiece and purchased some black and red fabric.
My husband built a stand for the violin, both to hold it upright and to give it the illusion of having legs under the skirt.
The bow became the arms, with the frog and the tip acting as hands.
Metal plates screwed into the joints allowed me to pose the arms at the angles I wanted. Then the plates and screws were hidden under electrical shrink tubing.
A souvenier fan from my niece’s wedding was cut down and painted to become part of her costume. Here you can also see two of the pegs and part of the tail piece that became her face.
Amazingly, as soon as we attached the arms, she took on the persona of a dancer.
Now to dress her!
I made a petticoat to hold the ruffled skirt away from the box stand and then began making her ruffled dress. I have made clothes for myself and my children, usually from store-bought patterns, but I don’t know of a pattern company that has a dress pattern for a violin, so I was on my own. As I was debating gluing fabric on the front, back and sides for a bodice, my daughter mentioned that she would miss the sound holes if I covered them up. In what was actually a simpler option, paint would became the top of the dress with a ruffle to further define the bodice and a ruffled skirt glued on below.
A friend and I were playing with watercolor, making simple designs that would work well for making into Christmas cards. It wasn’t until I was putting on some finishing marks with a pen that I discovered a couple of birds who had flown down to roost on the wreath!
When a long-time friend helped start the New Score Chamber Orchestra, I was privileged to provide the cover art for their programs, a collaboration that has continued for several years now (see Summer Nights Passing and Brand New Score ).
As a fundraiser, the orchestra has purchased several violins and has asked several artists to each turn one into a piece of art to be auctioned off. So I have this “canvas” in my studio, waiting for its alter ego to appear:
What would you do? How would you repurpose this falling apart instrument as a piece of art?
