Lenten Series 2015

Saint Francis de Sales Church 

The Scripture reading for today was the Ten Commandments of which "Keep Holy the Sabbath Day" is one.  This parish church and community is represented here with abstract flowers and vivid colors.  It is indeed a holy place where people like myself go to keep Sunday holy and to try to carry it through the week in sometimes unexpected ways.  

This parish rests among an urban environment and is a beacon to the community; an anchor and inspiration to the neighborhood.

Festival New Richmond

This watercolor is the most recent painting shown (and sold) at the Front Street Cafe in New Richmond on the Ohio.  It's another in the series of bright and fun shapes depicting events and places in this quaint river town.

Sunflower Poured Ink and Watercolor

Poured Ink and Watercolor Sunflower

This is the finished product.  Below are some of the steps of this process.

Here is the sunflower drawn with edges and highlights masked.

I added yellow, red, orange and brown ink to the sunflower after wetting the surface of the flower only.

Here I have added green, yellow and blue to a rectangle around the flower after wetting the area with water.  I repeated the process for the light blue area.  Each time it must dry. 

Here is the painting with the mask removed.  The colors of the ink are really quite brilliant.

Here is the painting after adding some negative painting to suggest leaves.

Watercolor & Pastels

Below are small paintings that are watercolors embellished with pastel.  Each is matted to 8" x 10"

Edge of the Field

Sunflower

Poppy Please

Seaside Fence

Path to Yosemite

Fall on the Marsh in bright gold and soft blue 

Cottage by the sea is soft and gentle for Irish memories.  

Shore Marsh is almost abstract with its strong patterns of color.  

Trees

Fall Trees stresses design, color and texture.  The fall trees grab my attention with their color while the fall skies with muted gray provide a counter balancing background. 

Winter Dance shows the same trees stripped of foliage.  The title comes from a book about a man's participation in the Iditarod in Alaska.  The description in the book of the cold, the whiteness, and the starkness of the landscape inspired me to try to capture some of that feeling in the painting.

Both paintings are 10" x 22" which is a different format but intriguing for this design.

Technology Art

 Here are two images of watercolors that were imported into an i pad and then altered using special apps.

 The first  image (Brown Abstract) beame this exciting collection of polygons of the same color.

 This watercolor went from a stylized rendition of Fall Trees to:

This image of pixels of the same color with exciting changes.

It's challenging to think of how to use this capability (a friend did these) but somehow there must be a future in these altered images.

Grapes with Texture

"Grapes with Texture" is another watercolor that started with lots of random shapes and colors painted onto the paper.  Then, gradually the shapes emerged by painting positive shapes and then embellishing them.  The background was painted behind the shapes.  Details were added with both a fine brush and by lifting out details to get branches to show.  Colors were adjusted to get complementary colors next to each other to give more "pop" to the colors. 



Bright Peony

"Bright Peony" glows with color because I painted it with many, many glazes.  I used three watercolor colors: yellow, quinacridone orange (I think) and ultramarine blue.  Each color was applied separately in a very light wash and left to dry.  Then I added the next color, again in a very light wash and left to dry.  Then, I added the final (ultramarine blue) very lightly and dried.  I continued to paint these colors in rotation for probably a total of 20 times or more. 

This painting is about 15" X 15" and will look lovely with a silver chrome frame.