Monday, September 22, 2008

Karin Jurick's newest blog:

Who doesn't love the work of the very talented Karin Jurick. Karin recently started a new blog titled different strokes from different folks. Every Wednesday she posts a new picture for folks to try their hand at. I hope to participate on a weekly basis and post my attempt at painting from her photo here each week. Click on the link to check out all the entries.
From a photo by Karin Jurick

7 1/4" x 8 1/4" Watercolor and ink

Tuesday, September 09, 2008

This is amazing ...

Geranium, a watercolor sketch by Nancy Van Blaricom Geranium watercolor sketch

Aprox. 6" x 4"

Noooo, not that this little watercolor sketch is amazing ... it's not. Although I did enjoy myself sitting outside in the fall sunshine sketching this poor sad geranium (ok, I took creative license and added a 3rd bloom). Again, I used the back of an old watercolor painting I had cut into smaller pieces. (I'm finding it very freeing to paint on used paper.... go figure).

What is amazing is this beautiful flag painting done by Deb Ward .


Deb Ward Flag painting

It is approximately 11" x 8" and it arrived yesterday in the mail. On September the 1st, she wrote "I will put up some photos of my class demo paintings with a short description of them. And they will go on a first come, first served basis". So, I wrote her with my name and address and next thing you know I received this great painting in the mail. It truely is a beautiful work and it will serve me well to strive to become better. Thank you SO much Deb. I love it.

Friday, September 05, 2008

Watercolor sketch - inspiration, the last of the pansy's

watercolor sketch 4" x 6"
300 lb. cold press arches

Today I was in the mood to do a little watercolor sketching. Since I'm always intimidated by a clean sheet of paper I used the back of a painting (way beyond any way of salvaging) that I had cut up to test colors on the back side. I had cut the painting into small 4"x4" and a little larger size. I thought by using this 4" x 6" size today I might add a large mailing address label on the other side (the badly painted side) to write a few words and a smaller label with an address. There you go, a post card ready to mail.

The last few days have simply been beautiful, and the weather is only expected to become warmer the next few days. Yippee a beautiful fall after all. Today after my daily two mile walk I took my new camera to the beach and was able to take a few photo's of areas that I thought make great paintings. Lately I've been thinking about a lot of different scenes I want to paint. I only hope this motivation lasts.