Past Their Prime
[ Past Prime, Sacred Lotus in Autumn, 10×14″, Watercolor – SOLD! ]
These are Indian or Sacred Lotus plants, seen in October last year, with the flowers long gone and the giant leaves turning into curled brown rags.
Even without the iconic pink blooms we usually see, they’re beautiful in the right light.
I’m a huge fan of green on green paintings. I had read that the human eye sees more shades of green than any other color. I don’t know if that’s just the physics of light, or because our eyes evolved in a plant-filled natural environment? Either way, I love a warm green-gold color palette.
Like the sketch of Thomas Hardy’s cottage from a few days back, this was an exercise in carefully tinting my favorite Daniel Smith Green Gold in various different directions.
I pushed a puddle of Green Gold into the sunlight with Nickel Titanate Yellow, or the shadow with M.Graham’s Turquoise, and aged the leaves with sedimentary DS Olive Green, and my off-whites (Buff Titanium and/or Holbein Grey of Grey), and in the brown areas, DS Goethite (Brown Madder), DS Quinacridone Gold Deep, and M. Graham Transparent Red Iron Oxide.
People say – always mix your greens – meaning making greens from yellow and blue.
But I disagree. I just start with green! and only nudge it a little.
And I try to mix as little as possible – that leads to watery paint. I place rich pigments side by side – so the colors mix on the paper.
I’ve arrived by experiment at the colors that look good to my eye – and I pretty much stick with them. Everyone needs to tinker with their palette and come to their own conclusions. But I prefer staying away from the more chromatic mixing primaries – often you see recommendations for Cadmium Yellow and Phtalo Blue – and instead staying in a warm, neutralized color-space. I find it makes the paintings much more restful.
Ok, take care, stay home and paint, and talk to you soon!
~marc
Playing Koi During Quarantine
[ Playing Koi, 11×14″ Watercolor – SOLD! ]
So, I went back to my Koi fish from a few days ago, and painted him with some of his brothers.
This sketch looks like there’s a lot of accidental color bleeding – but really that’s not the case.
I painted each fish individually, one at a time. It was quite organized actually.
I start each fish by wetting its body and fins with clear water, let it pause just a moment to be not-sopping-wet – then touch the fish with an intense color – letting it flood into the fish silhouette.
(You might remember this is called ‘charging-in’).
Same with the floating leaves. Just touch some strong pigment to the wet-shape.
I like to touch the nose of the fish, or the tips of the leaf, so the color flows from the edge, towards the center.
‘
Sometimes I’d do that twice. (To get a darker color). Like the yellow fish with the orange nose. (Upper right)
Or I’d touch, leave a gap, and touch again, like the red fish with the white bands. (upper left).
Then, after my fish are fully dried, (it’s just orange fish on white paper at this point) – I wet AROUND the fish with clear water – inverting the wet shape – and painted in the dark background with bold strokes of indigo.
When that scary dark paint touches paper, I don’t have to worry about carefully painting around the fish – because I already did that with clear water. I just touch my water and the dark indigo goes where I want. This is a kind of ‘safety first’ approach :)
If you mess up the cutting in with indigo, that’s bad. But If you start with clear water and mess up – you can just let it dry and start again.
I admit it’s a little tricky to see the wet area – you have to look for the wet shine. Sometimes slanting your lighting helps see your invisible-outline.
Any effect of the fishes’ color bleeding into the background was created by dropping Pyrrol Orange into the wet Indigo. Making it look like the wet-touched-wet – but that never happened. There were no accidental bleeds – it just looks like it :)
Fun hey? By letting the water control the flow, you get all the creativity and spontaneity of watercolor – but you keep it under control so you’re happy with the accidents!
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Oh and, Iif you want to try this at home (maybe with your kids) – Here’s an older example that’s much easier to draw :)
~m
Far From The Maddening Crowd
[ Far From the Maddening Crowd 8×8″ Watercolor – SOLD! ]
Painting of Thomas Hardy’s cottage, from a found photograph.
I don’t have a particular fascination with the writer Thomas Hardy, he of Tess of the D’Ubervilles, but – he did have a picturesque cottage.
I’m not even much for sitting in the garden. But I suppose if I had one like this, perhaps I’d be out there, penning longhand letters with watercolor embellishments.
Sometimes I see something online that just grabs me – this place just said – ‘I should be a watercolor’ :)
Another found photo, translated into a watercolorist’s version of the idyllic country home.
Aren’t these the kind of place you’d like to be spending your quarantined days? If there’s any such thing as a nice place to be waiting out this particular storm.
I though this was an interesting bit of painting. Here’s two of the windows on Uncle Tom’s Cabin. One ‘disorganized’ and one ‘organized’. That is, one where the window panes and reflections are broken up into a loose abstraction, and one pretty much painted as it looks.
I’ve always done this with windows. (And any repetitive element). I have this feeling – they’re identical – but it would be tiring to the eye to actually paint them to be identical.
Here’s my advice on painting trees.
Don’t paint any trees.
Paint colored shapes that have interesting edges. Imply adjacent tree canopies and shrubs by making fused masses of green, and slightly changing the green as you go. Don’t let any two green blobs be the same color where they meet. Each leafy blob, a different temperature..
I make all the calligraphic leafy texture with a splayed-out sable round.
Jabbed, twisted and smooshed into the palette till the hairs splay out into a natural rake that changes with every stroke. I keep all my long-hair brushes when they lose their point, and use them for this abuse. They get better with age.
My greens here: Green Gold, Olive Green, Perlyne Green – all Daniel Smith.
Here’s an interesting contrast. The difference between touching rich pigment into wet paint, and touching rich pigment side by side on dry paper.
Soft vs Hard Edges.
My mantra: Soft Inside Shapes, Hard Outside Shapes.
Draw with the wet/dry edges.
Here’s a couple of galleries of the step-by-step process.
Light>to>Dark Value, Thin>to>Thick Pigment, Large>to>Small Shapes.
[ The Wordsmith 10×10″ Oil on Cradled Panel – SOLD! }
In celebration of the April event, Camp NaNo, I’m putting my small series of Paintings for Writers on sale for 25% off!
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Update 03: The last little typewriter looked so lonely there, I’ve taken it down for now. Maybe I’ll be back next Nano with some more word-machines :) You can still click through the images to the shop and check out the landscape paintings on offer. Thanks, Marc
Update 02: The Wordsmith – Sold! Thanks again my friends :)
Update 01: The Great American Canadian Novel – Sold immediately on posting! Thanks very much!
[ The Great American Canadian Novel”, 10×10″ Oil on Cradled Panel – SOLD! }
Well – inspiring myself actually.
I participated in last November’s NaNo and had terrific results. I finished a collection of short stories, which I’ve put into print with Amazon. (More on that soon).
These contemporary impressionist paintings are ideal for hanging over your writing desk. Lending you momentary support every time you rest your eyes. I feel my searching, intuitive paint handling visually convey the writer’s struggle! The quest to make something great out of a blank page.
[ Magic Realism, 10×10″ Oil on Cradled Panel – Delisted]
Just mail me if you’re living somewhere else and we can discuss special shipping arrangements.
I hope you’ll consider one of these original works of art as a perfect reward for finishing your novel, or as a gift for the writer in your life!
Blacks are my Favorite Colors
So – Watercolor.
I was painting the other day, trying some things, came to re-realize – I really like black.
This should be obvious. But you don’t always think about your own paintings. They just happen sometimes.
I was trying to paint some florals from our photos of the botanical garden, as the real thing is closed for quarantine.
Pretty much convinced – I can’t paint florals! OMG. I was hating all of them. Really frustrated with bright, sunlit, subtle colors.
Until this one with the dark water.
This is what I like. Hard edged contrasts, dark backgrounds, and aggressive, direct, paint handling.
I have five blacks in my 21 color travel palette.
Indigo, Neutral Tint, Perylene Green, Bloodstone Genuine, Lunar Black.
That’s a lot of shades of black.
I have very few transparent colors. It’s almost impossible to be subtle with this palette. It’s kind of a blunt instrument. Made for drama, not for subtlety.
I’m not sure if this is good or bad. I’m actually fairly sure, it’s not what anyone else wants.
But this is what my eyeballs liked today.
And that’s kind of what it comes down to in art. You have to serve yourself. Your own vision. Art is inherently difficult, time consuming, expensive, and at the end of the day, for most of us the lion’s share of the reward has to come from inside.
~m
At home, looking at old sketches :)
It’s always a pleasant surprise when you’re sorting out some papers, and a couple nice sketches fall out.
These are from South Carolina. We had a wonderful visit a while back, teaching a workshop and jurying a watercolor show.
Right now, during the self-quarantine, the old life of travel and painting with friends seems like such a luxury. I’m sure I didn’t appreciate it enough at the time.
I hope everyone is taking things easy, staying in the moment, not worrying about the unknown future.
And of course, painting at home ;)
Take care everyone!
~m
One Minute Watercolor Ep.03 – Mossy Falls
So – to be honest, this sketch is just a test of my shiny new setup for recording paintings. New overhead mount and wireless remote control for Laurel’s DSLR, new microphone for voice over, and coincidentally – Adobe has some new software called Premiere Rush – made for editing quick and easy jobs like this.
Remarkably, with that many new pieces of technology, I was still able to record, edit and publish this today! Frankly, I’m amazed :)
Here’s the painting :)
And a few closeups of areas I like!
Scraping with scissors.
Wet-into-damp. (Indigo + Olive Green into watery Indgio + Titanium White)
A little area with calligraphic brushwork from a splayed out old sable. Old sables never die! They just get better at painting foliage.
We just recently heard, my painting “Fly the Flag of the Republic” has been accepted into the Society of Canadian Artists 2020 Online Juried Exhibition.
Just in time for St. Patrick’s Day!
This was one of my early works, in a series of impasto oil paintings begun in 2018, painted from my wife’s photo, taken on a recent trip to Ireland.
In honor of the day, and having the painting up in the SCA show, I’ve put it – and all my currently listed landscape paintings – FOR SALE on my ETSY SHOP, 25% off with FREE SHIPPING!
It was months after hanging the painting to dry that I realized – perhaps subconsciously – I had painted the Irish Tricolor!
Here’s a fellow – wrapped in the flag, sketched at the Montreal St. Patrick’s day parade, back in 2015.
Of course, this year the parade is cancelled due to the Covid-19 pandemic. I had been planning to go sketching. It’s a rite of spring to watch the parade, even if it’s really too early to be out on the street, frozen fingers and all.
I read afterwards that the flag of the republic is meant to symbolize peace (white) between the Catholics and Protestants. That’s a wonderful story, I hope it’s true.
In my case, it really was an unconscious thing. These were simply the colors I saw in the land and sky.
Saint Patrick was supposed to have driven the snakes out of Ireland. Let’s not look too hard at the politics of that, and take it as a wish to keep the virus away as we spend this season at home for St. Patrick’s Day!
Please feel free to pop over to my shop: MHolmesFineArt on Etsy.com and see the rest of the available paintings!
And take care everyone,
~Marc
That’s it for my #OneWeek100People 2020. Thanks everyone!
Another year of #OneWeek100People is crossing the finish line!
I’m sitting here at the computer, watching people posting up on the Facebook group. Most are saying they’ve hit their 100, a few that they need the weekend to finish, but either way, it’s been a great experience.
I must say, it’s so rewarding to be part of a group activity like this. Seeing everyone’s work appear each day – and watching your own number tick up – it keeps you excited – and motivated to keep sketching, even with so much going on in our busy lives.
Besides all the great drawings, I’ve seen few fun ideas this year. I’m just going to link a few highlights (I hope direct-links to Facebook work for you, but if not there’s great stuff to be found all over just by searching the hashtag #OneWeek100People )
Paula Raudenbush – An ‘Advent Calender’ – See all your sketches fill up the page
Fabien Bartz – Hand Made Miniature Sketchbook
StanCreative – Put Everyone in a Single Picture
Barbara Eguchi – Keychain Sketchbook
So yes!
Really, I just want to thank everyone who participated this year.
I know everyone has benefited from seeing all your artwork and ideas, and all the creative ways you find subjects to draw. It’s been a terrific celebration of learning-by-doing :)
Thanks everyone for all your enthusiasm!
I hope we will see you next March!
~marc
Day Four : #OneWeek100People 2020 : In the Zone
Day Four, #OneWeek100People 2020.
I said it already, but watercolor is not at all like riding a bike. You spend even a month away from it, and you lose your sensitivity. Your dexterity. I imagine this is the reason musicians are always doing scales, athletes are constantly training.
I was missing something in the previous days sketches. (I only posted my favorite one :) Some of them seemed a bit lacking confidence – too much reliance on under-drawing. Which leads to that feeling of coloring between the lines.
I still did a bit of sketching here, but more what I’d call a scribble. Just the loosest gesture line, almost a Dot Plot. (another here). This is the level of under-drawing I prefer. With too much planning, your figures become ‘second-hand’. Traced – not fresh, bold statements.
If you’re taking too much care – if you’re painting too slowly – when you finally fuse one shape to the next – sometimes they’ve gone too dry to properly flood together.
And if you’ve filled the entire silhouette – effectively outlined the figure – you can’t have any ‘lost’ edges.
So! All that to say – This One is Much Better!
Speed is in fact, one of your tools. Confidence. Even aggression!
This is my clear favorite of the 100-and-some people painted I this week.
Those massive faux-fur hoods are part of the street-style in Montreal right now. Doesn’t it just look lusciously fuzzy?
They look great, but I don’t know they don’t get hit crossing the street. You must not be able to see anything under there.
This is of course, Montréal’s Chinatown gate, on St. Laurent and René Levesque. Just a block down from yesterday’s La Vitrine.
I’ve painted it before – but I like this rendition better :)
Night has more drama!
So – do you think it’s too rough?
I kind of like it.
It’s an important skill for an artist – to like everything you paint.
You have to love your own work. Don’t be shy, or self-effacing. If YOU don’t love your own work, nobody else is going to give you enough motivation to continue. Day in, day out, slowly slowly growing your skills – for what? The day you sell a piece? The day you paint something you’ll want on your wall forever?
Those days come and go, and you still have to keep painting. It’s not like you get there and you’ve won the race. You get to stop? Nope!
It has to be that thing where ‘The Work is the Reward’.
The feeling when those two big strokes dragged the night sky into the roof of the gate. That was an actual heart-leaping moment. So close to disaster. But then it’s not.
The joy of painting sounds hokey. But I think it’s a real thing.
There’s nothing like seeing a perfect brush stroke happen in front of you :)
So that’s been my #OneWeek100People for this year.
I’m going to call it done on this one! I can imagine I’ll beat this one tomorrow :)
Like many of us, I used the permission given by the group project to push aside work I *should* be doing, and after a few days of practice and play, I made it back Into the zone. The unconscious (dare I say effortless) flow of direct watercolor.
I guess that’s been a pretty good week all around.
Thanks for playing along and helping motivate me – and I’ll be hanging around the finish line (here and on the Facebook group) to watch all of you posting your last few 100 people.
Thanks Everyone!
~marc
[ Girls’ Night Out, 18×24”, Watercolor on Cellulose Paper ]
Citizen Sketcher 