This & That

My rock painting friend, Suzi Chua, who lives in Malaysia, sent me one of the little pet beds that her friend Theresa Choo made, so I could see how they are made.

Isn't it cute?! Thanks Suzi & Theresa!

Have gotten a few rocks painted between other things this past week or two.

Beagle puppy

A Cat

Sleepy Tiger Cub

Cheeky Chihuahua

Mother & Child

These will soon join the others at Hill Street Mall for your viewing pleasure!

More Scratch Board

Remember the tiger in scratch board that I posted April 30? Well I had two more and just fooled around with them. I've been so busy with other things I hadn't taken pictures of them yet, so here they are now.

Duck  5x7 inches water color on scratch board

Pink Roses 5x7 water color on scratch board

I had a lot of fun doing these, I'll have to order some more scratch board!

Pet Portrait

Well the client said make the ears lighter, so have done that and tweeked a few other areas. think I'm about done. Will wait for the OK tho before I declare it complete!

Two Yellow Labs 18x24 inches, acrylic on linen

Pet Portrait

I am nearly finished with this pet portrait commission. Will send this up date to my client and see what they think; the ears may still be a smidge too dark.

Pet Portrait

All right put the watercolors and the experimenting aside, time for some 'work' tho I can never think of painting as 'real work'! I have been commissioned to paint two yellow labs on canvas. They are nearly done, I see a couple of areas that need tweeking, then the final layers of paint will go on and it will be on it's way to a new home!

18x24 inches, acrylic on linen

More Experiments

Well now when I decide I'm going to do something or learn something new I dive in head first and just do it. I've realized that 1) I need to know more about my watercolors and 2) I need to figure out how to paint realistic glass and reflections. So more little studies. thanks to the good folks over at WetCanvas.com for uploading such fabulous reference photos.

Green grapes in crystal image area is 4x6 inches, watercolor on Arches hotpress

 Reference photo maybe viewed at WetCanvas

Lemon and Crystal image size 4x6 inches, watercolor on Arches hotpress

The reference photo for this one may be viewed here on WetCanvas.

I have a long way to go in this area. There are things I like in each one and things that went wrong. Mostly I can say it's a bit tedious doing it in water color where you have to leave the white of the paper and paint in all the little dark bits separately. I will probably try some of these again in acrylic and see what that looks like.

Experiments

Today I decided to play with my watercolors. I found a beautiful reference photo of colored bottles with light streaming through them and making a rainbow on the table in front of them. I did not do the photo justice, but I did learn some new things about my WC paints and their color combinations that I didn't know before, so mission accomplished. I also realized that I don't know yet how to accurately portray colored and transparent glass, so more practice is in order!

Bottles watercolor, approximately 11x15 inches, Arches hot press paper

I can see any number of mistakes, especially when compared to the reference, but the worst is that I got a muddy purple in the reflection on the right, instead of the pretty violet that was really there.