Can you 'beet' this weather ...

It was another hot day here and although I haven't been doin' what I think I should be doin', playing around with watercolor on the back of some printer paper made me feel I was at least doing something in the studio today.

After we had bought some beautiful fresh beets in a local farmers market this week-end I was tempted to do a watercolor sketch... problem was I had already eaten them when I came up with this idea. Today I found a picture to work from. Whew, it's not easy once the subject is long gone. *wink

Finding My Creative Mood: Trying to Get Back in the Groove

Although my last commission almost painted itself, after coming back from vacation I am finding it hard to get myself back in the art producing spirit. In order to over come my less than creative mood, I thought that in preparation of my other commission I should just paint something that I've been wanting to explore to get me creatively energized.

Back in May, I mentioned that I wanted to explore water and reflections this summer. So I looked through some photo's I had taken on our vacation and found a photograph of some water and rocks that looked challenging yet if I cropped it down it may not be impossible for me to paint. So, on the back of a used ready to throw out really awful painting, I took my pencil and roughly drew out an 8 inch square and proceeded to draw what I wanted to show in my painting.

In the first photo you can see where I've started my drawing and have started masking out the areas I wanted to keep light.

By the time I took the second photo I feel I'm feeling I'm in over my head. I knew at this point I should have added darker first washes before I took off my masking. Really get what I wanted from the start. I don't us masking too often and I think I just forgot to think during that step of my painting. I was feeling a little frustrated by then and decided to start on the rocks. Later I realized I really shouldn't have. I would have done better to continue adding depth to my water area, finish that area and then move on.

When I started working on the rocks I lost most of my pencil lines yet should have stopped and drawn them in so I wouldn't wander aimlessly. There are so many factors I should have considered ...

Below is the painting. Along side the painting you can see my photo reference. I cropped the photo about middle bottom for my painting. I'm not going to continue. It's too far gone for that, but I have accomplished finding my creative spirit once again. Just getting started at a painting seemed to make me want to keep painting. Also, because I do want to do more work involving water I'm feeling confident that I could paint this again and do a better job.

Yes, mission accomplished!