‘Til the cows come home

Have you ever heard the phrase “’til the cows come home?”  I haven’t heard it in years (or even thought about it and now you are thinking if that is what’s on my mind, I have a very boring life indeed!  And yes, I do.)  Seems to me that we used to have and use more idioms than we do now but maybe the idioms have just changed and I am no longer “with it.”

When I was a kid, my parents would “drag” us up to Ellijay, Georgia every weekend.  Drag was the word we used then, now going to Ellijay is a pleasure as it was for my parents back then.  Ellijay is in the mountains of Georgia, a back woods kind of country.  At least back then.  Lots of family lore and land, dirt roads, barn cats, corn rows, snakes, grassy meadows, stinky hogs, swimming holes and cows.  We would hear my great-uncle Glen calling his cows home each evening.  That is a sound I would love to hear again.

This is an 8″x8″ watercolor with some white acrylic ink in the background.  I was trying to make the cows pop.  Can you imagine someone with limited knowledge of English wondering about why I wanted the cows to pop?  Or any of the strange idioms we may use/used to use regularly?  But don’t they make talking and listening much more enjoyable?

better nate than lever…

I am a bit behind, but…  Merry Christmas!  I hope your holidays have been lovely.  My month has been busy, and I am sorry I have removed myself from this blog for so long.  I have not even checked it since my last post!  But I have done some art and since Christmas is past, I think I am free to show you some commissioned work.

a pencil drawing -

another pencil drawing -

and a watercolor of the same cute girls  (not a very good photo, though) -

And a watercolor portrait done a few months ago that I never shared with you.  Was holding off until the big reveal and then just didn’t…  until now.  I am pleased with this, actually I am pleased with them all.   I force myself to look critically at my work and when I  see my errors and able to fix them (based on learned knowledge), I am a happy camper.

My daughter introduced me to QI, a British TV show with Stephen Fry.  It is very funny although extremely crude (by American ‘Southern States’ standards anyway) and one episode shows what is called “the Thatcher Effect.”   I think this is the same idea of turning your portraits upside down and viewing them for errors.  (There is a post somewhere in this blog that talks about that.)  Watch QI on youtube for a good laugh when you have time but if you are offended easily, be forewarned!

My title was taken from an old joke.  Do you know it?

happy thanksgiving!

I hope each of you has a wonderful Thanksgiving Day and I pray you have much to be thankful for.  The last few years have been difficult ones for my family culminating with my mother’s short illness and death this summer.  The economy has taken its toll on all who work in the development/construction industry including designers and architects.  My husband and I  would never have dreamt that development would just totally stop like it did a few years ago.  And I am amazed that we have survived intact through what I hope is the worst of it. Counting my blessings over the last few years would not be a difficult task.  And lately, thankfully, we have both been busy and I pray that it continues into the next few years.  (At least for Ken, I wouldn’t mind spending some days in the studio!)  Even after difficult times, we have much to be thankful for.  I watched Ken Burns latest documentary on the Dust Bowl this week on PBS.  My hardships don’t even compare to those days of hell on earth.  But that decade passed and times improved even as they seem to be for us.  It was also evident in the show that we are prone to forget and will quickly repeat mistakes when we let greed take over.

Tomorrow, may we remember and be thankful for what we do have, being satisfied and content at least for the moment.

I painted the pumpkin watercolor a couple of years ago after visiting a patch in North Georgia.   I am not sure there is a much more lovely fruit than a huge pumpkin (I looked it up and it is a fruit, at least Wikipedia said it was!).  And I so look forward to the pie the canned variety will yield tomorrow!

ostrich beauty

Imagine this face inspiring me to do a watercolor for the first time in several days.

It reminds me of  another “beautiful” bird, the turkey.  I was driving in the mountains recently and slowed for a small flock of turkeys in the road.  The turkeys were really interested in me or my car and, just like a country dog, chased me down the road, staying right at my side for 200 feet or so.  Is that typical behavior for a turkey?

leaf fun

Having a little fun with leaves tonight.  These were drawn (okay, honestly?  I just traced them) onto watercolor paper and painted with pan gauche I found in my mother’s studio.  I then painted words on them with acrylic ink and varnished them.  I like the way they look.

These would be great tags for presents if I ever put that kind of effort into wrapping presents!!

The leaves are pretty this year here.  Hope you are enjoying them!

Lily

A companion piece (although they are so totally different) to Ethan.  His beautiful little sister, Lily.

Her father, my nephew Daniel, sent me this photo with scarf around her head.  She looks like a tiny Jewish mother in the photo, not sure I captured that look!

What do you think, Daniel?

a week at the beach

I have some close friends who offered to let us stay at their house on Panama City Beach this past week.  It was nice to get away and while I have always found the Atlantic Coast more interesting because of the marshes, the beach and weather here were perfect.  I spent a lot of time watercoloring, avoided a rattlesnake in my path,  crossed a red river (Inlet really.  Deep, deep beautiful red) and survived biting flies (yes, it felt like living through the plagues of Egypt, but luckily, it stopped there).  Here are some quick sketches (done while son and husband were waiting on me).

Rosemary Beach green.  First time I had gone to Rosemary Beach.  Beautiful architecture, would love to design a house there, if you are thinking of building one.  It did feel a bit claustrophobic to me though.  Great bookstore.  Didn’t go to Watercolor.  Wonder if there are great spots to watercolor there???  Wonder who chose the name Watercolor for a development???

The Beach.  Would have like to have spent more time painting this, but those pesky flies kept biting my ankles.

Sitting on the porch of a house built in 1890 something (now a state park), looking at the fountain.  Nothing about this sketch is good, showing it to you anyway.  Wish I were a little better at quick landscapes and live oak trees.

Sitting on the deck at the house where we stayed.  Loved looking over the rooftops. Wires aren’t very straight.  I swear, they look straighter in he original.  Must be that rough paper….

Another rooftop view.  I spent longer working on this one.  Hope you can tell!  Left out about 9 high rises.  I think that is why I like the Atlantic Coast.  No high rises.   My husband worked for the firm that designed of few of these omitted buildings.  Still don’t like them.

Thank you, Blanch, Mike and Peggy!!!  Nice to have such generous friends!

Josephine

Happy Labor Day, the most ill-named holiday in America.  Labor HoliDay is alright.  Labor-less Day makes sense.  Labor Day Not!  And I am not laboring, I am watercoloring.  Here is today’s work  piece, done from a thru-the-fire cabinet card.  I had to improvise a lot on this piece due to the condition of the photograph.  I wonder if she would recognize herself.   I don’t doubt she was beautiful, even from this damaged photo, I can tell that.

I do not know who this woman is, hers is among the damaged photos surviving the fire that claimed the life of my Great Aunt Josephine.  I went through this box of photos with my mother a couple of years ago.  She told me the names of those she knew and I wrote them down on sticky notes and placed them on the back of the photographs.  This photo’s sticky note has “Josephine” written on it.  But this isn’t Josephine, the woman looks circa 1900, Josephine wasn’t born until the 1920′s.    I wish I had written more than just one word…maybe this is who Josephine was named for.

my day just got better

My husband paid me the best compliment tonight.  He told me the watercolor below looks like a Sargent.  Of course, I realize he is trying to make me feel better, I have been struggling lately with life in general  and painting specifically (and then I woke with a cold this morning!).  And he was standing a good distance from the screen.  BUT, if you ever want to get on my good side, compare my work to Sargent’s!!!

This one is also 8″x8″.   The contrast is perhaps a little stronger than it is on the original, at least on my screen.  Wondering how you are seeing it…

Working my way up to 100 faces… maybe.  I do get bored easily.

Ethan

Here is a small watercolor of my brilliant great-nephew, Ethan.  He is modeling a “cow” hat his grandmother knitted for him.  The only problem with that wonderful hat is that it covers up his curls!

8″x8″ watercolor on paper

I had a request from an overseas college student to talk about my palette. The rest of you can totally ignore the following…

I did give some thought to  exactly how it is I paint and it can be hard to put that process into words.  I use tube watercolors, all professional grade.  Student grade colors won’t always have enough pigment in them to get richer colors.   I look at shade and shadow first and usually lay in an ultramarine mixture (and I say mixture because my palette is so messy with color, all colors become mixtures) in those areas.  I will then play with very warm (warm reds and yellows) but light colors for the warm areas of the face (cheeks, nose, chin, ears) and then do the same with cool colors (blues, lavenders) for the cooler areas like under the eyes, temples, upper lip.  I let some of the colors mix on the paper.

Step away from the paper and look at it for a distance.  The one thing that always surprises me is that although my colors look rich and deep up close under the table light, if I put them up and look at them 10 feet away, they are always washed out and too pale.  So I go back and deepen up everything and try to be bolder with the color.

To get drips, make the paint thin and flooded then stand the paper upright and tap (or pound) the edge on the table until the paint starts to drip.  You may have to add more thin paint to help the drips develop.  Practice this before you do it to a great piece!  Keep a paper-towel in your hand to pick up excess or too dark color immediately.  For fun, after your drawing is on the paper but before you have started actually painting it, wet your paper and float light-in-value colors on your paper.  Let that totally dry and then proceed like above.  This will add interest to the colors on the face and can be a fun technique.  Note that I did not do that to the piece above.  Since I know this sweet boy and was trying  to capture his likeness more than I wanted to paint for fun, I was rather tight with my drawing and painting.

This isn’t much of a tutorial but I hope it helps for what it’s worth.  I will think about how I could document and share the painting process.  Good luck with the studies!