Rob’s Waterco☺ler

I recently unearthed my Winsor Newton handheld watercolor sketchbox and started falling in love with it all over again.  I have been through several fits of getting the colors I like to use for “Field Sketching” and this is the current result:

Cadmium Yellow                     Scarlet Red             French UltraMarine
Transparent Yellow                Alizirin Crimson    Winsor Blue red Shade

Permanent Green                    Raw Sienna              Raw Umber
Winsor Green Blue Shade    Burnt Sienna           Indigo

And I really like  to have my Escoda travel kolinsky sable brushes size 10, 6 and 2.

Below is a picture of the set up along with a color study using Burnt Sienna as the interest color in the middle and seeing how the other colors react to it.  Notice Transparent Yellow is completely eaten up by it and the difference between how the two blues react.  Note: CR stands for Cadmium Red but is really Scarlet as I have been trying to get away from the Cadmium’s of late.  The dollar bill is for size reference.  No you cannot have it

Been awhile since I painted in my oils, so I thought I would break them out.  This weekend I ripped a stack of Pannelli cotton panels to 8×10 on my table saw and now have a nice stack to inspire some quick oil and acrylic sketches.  This is from a nice friendly squirrel picture I shot a few years ago and it made a nice subject.  This was done very quickly (about an hour) and kept loose.  I also used the six warm/cool primary palette.

Rob

This is an 11 x 14 acrylic sketch from a Middleburg Virginia reference photo.  I completed it the other day, along with a few other odd, less finished works.  Not sure if I am done with this so it will sit on the easel till I am ready to move forward, take it off and sign it, or toss it in the hall of shame.

On a side note: it has been busy here.  I have successfully crashed the website repeatedly over the last week trying to upgrade some of the .php files.  I finally gave up today and went back to the baseline that came with WP 2.3.3.  Maybe this weekend I will mess with it some more.  I am also in process of learning Ruby and Rails (Ruby on rails), and other misc web programming books (any guess how I crashed things!)

Speaking of books, let me tell you about my Amazon Kindle I got last friday.  I have been watching on the sideline the progression of ebooks for at least a year now.  When I found out that the Kindle now:

1. Works (with some manual effort) with .PDF files
2. Will soon (this month) have access to the O’Reilly Books (computer geek books)
3. on top of the other features like wireless, compatibility with other ebooks and document types,

 I went ahead and caved in.  So far I am liking it.  If you are an avid book reader (with $375 sitting around idle), or require a large amount of technical books which you read some times, this might be for you.  Time will tell if I am completely sold (although I guess I am stuck with it for better or worse).

Rob

Not much to say about this 11×14 acrylic painting except it is a work in progress.  It definitely looks better in real life  so I will have to re-photo it in better light.  I also need to tune the perspective abit.  Nice thing about acrylics is they are sooooo… forgiving

***9 June update**** I fixed the pilot house before I went to bed last night and shot a phot in better light today.  Much better!  I used a reference photo of a Tuna Boat in San Diego I tool some time ago.  The background and the pier area is very simplified.

This was done with the same six color limited palette I have been using.

Rob

Last night we had no power in Manassas, again.   Today the temperature was in the mid 90′s and more thunderstorms moving in.  This seems to make it rather difficult to do much painting, however today I managed to crank out this little 9×12 sea bird.  I used a reference photo from a San Diego trip I took some time ago and I have no idea what kind of bird it is, but it was interesting, (hence why I took the picture )

I used the six primary color limited palette again.

Rob

After watching Michele Frantz do her limited palette demonstration last night I came home and whipped out this quick, 45 minute, 9×12 acrylic sketch I have titled: “Whatsa you lookin’ at?”  I stopped last night because I thought I had the basic idea down and planned to go back into it and add detail.  Looking at it tonight my feelings are to leave it alone and sign it.  There is a very nice appeal to it, largely because I used the 6 color limited palette system Michele taught and it seems to have worked nicely.  Of note, I am usually reluctant to paint in acrylics because I rarely like the results, however this painting seems to break that trend.  I am going to try another tonight I think.

Rob

Thursday night we had the monthly Manassas Art Guild membership meeting with our very own artist, Michele Frantz, doing a limited palette lesson and demonstration.  Michele went over the advantages of using a limited palette (less paint = more $ in your pocket) and the ways she uses a limited palette to achieve consistent colors in her works.  Below is a chart showing how to use a six primary color wheel.  

Michele’s colors are: 

- Cool: Phthalo Blue, Cadmium Yellow Light, Quinacridone Red
- Warm: Ultramarine Blue, Cadmium Yellow Medium, Cadmium Red Light

As you can see from the picture above Michele also did a very nice demonstration of a still life using an acrylic six primary limited palette.  I was not able to stay until the end so I did not get to see the finished painting but Michele got off to a great start.

Well I almost finished the Happy Sparrow painting (renamed: “On the Wrong Side of the Tracks”) in time to display it in the Manassas Art Guild eARTh 2.0 show in Old Town Manassas today.

A great time was had by all today and I noticed that many people stopped and looked at this painting so it is on the right track.  Cadmium Orange has a way of hitting you head on and making you notice.  It is almost radioactive

Make sure you take a look at the Manassas Art Guild Blog for all the eARTh 2.0 pictures!

http://www.manassasartguild.com/blog/2008/04/26/earth-20-its-a-wrap/

Rob

Well I started working the Happy Sparrow painting to night.  This is a limited palette event and I am using Sepia, Cadmium Orange, Lemon Yellow and Turquoise.  I am using gum arabic to brighten the colors (which is also repsonsible for the reflections in the photo above).  So far it is going well and I hope to finish it by the weekend.

I have been steadily working on this painting for a few days.  Just have not gotten to a point where I could show any big changes.  Mostly I have been working here and there with small things. 

As you can see, the boys have been detailed.  The foreground boy’s shirt and shorts have changed color and I have started adding color and definition to the legs.  The background boy’s perspective has been changed to match the original sketch.  I also gave him a black shirt and started on his jeans.  The bucket has been painted and some detail added.  There is lots of tree detail coming out, just hard to see yet.  I have also started developing the bank and roots.

Slow progess is progress all the same