Lupine Trail Curve

These guys whipped past us as we were going up the Lupine Trail, just outside of Crested Butte, Colorado. ...giant grins on their faces. I guess coming down is a bit more fun than going up.

Watercolor
10 x 8 inches
Starting bid: $89
Click to bid/buy

Two Townines

This is the full size sheet done from the Lunchtime Townies.
Watercolor
17 x 30 inches, framed to 24 x 36 inches
This is in Moon Ridge Gallery in Crested Butte, Colorado.

Lunchtime Townies

These two townies were parked outside a home in Crested Butte during lunchtime last summer when I snapped the reference photo for this. I like it. In fact, this is probably going to be my study for a larger piece. The photo had dandelions galore, which I left out, due to the small size of this piece.

Watercolor
8 x 10 inches, matted in white to fit an 11 x 14 frame.
Click to Bid/Buy coming soon

Winter Townie

Everywhere in Crested Butte, one see bikes. Sun, rain, sleet, snow; -they are like the postman, out in all weather.
This little gem was outside the courthouse, and so pretty in the sunlight, that I knew I had to paint it.  
Click to Bid/Buy
Title: Winter Townie
Medium: Watercolor
Size: 10 x 8 inches
14 x 11 inch mat, unframed

Recent work

 

 

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Shortening Mailing Tubes

I bought the Stanley 20-800 Contractor Grade Clamping Mitre Box to cut 4" diameter mailing tubes. It works great. It pushes the limit for height on but does fit. This seems so much safer than using a utility knife or power tool.

I follow up the cut with a couple of quick pulls of a fine sanding block and pop a cap on one side for quick loading of the tube and so I don't have to store as many caps. Initially, I ordered 24" tubes from ULine.com, but the 36" tubes were cheaper so by cutting down a 36", I can get a 24" tube, a 12" tube and extra caps for less than a 24" tube.

I purchased mailing tubes and extra caps from ULine and the saw from Amazon.com.

 

Posted with Blogsy

Some of my more recent work

Nordic Inn

Watercolor

12 x 18 inches

This is the Nordic Inn in Mt Crested Butte. We can see it from our balcony.

The painting took 4 days. I tried to have as much wet-in-wet as possible, learning all about greys which tie it all together.

 

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Partially completed Nordic Inn

This has taken many hours, much longer than I thought. Tomorrow.

I'm learning the value of washed out greys. They are lovely to put a drop of color in. I'm also learning to go back and soften egdes that were to dark. Using strathford paper is working well, as it forces me to limit lifting out areas.

 

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Just messing around

Attempting to match the spontaneity of Fealing Lins's One Fine Day.

Better. More transparent and more interesting. 

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Practice, practice, practice...

 

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Bandit at Lake Irwin

This is one of our favorite hikes, Scarpe Ridge. Bandit loves the hikes because he gets carried when he gets tired.

Paper: Stratford 400 140 lb. WC artist grade paints (Daniel Smith and Winsor & Newton): Phthalocyanine blue (RS) for shadows and UMB for shadows. Viridian, carmine and cobalt for atmospheric colors. Quinacrodone gold, Cadmiun orange, quinacrodone burnt orange and quinacrodone burnt scarlet for warm colors. Phthalocyanine green (YS) for my greens and finally titanium, embarrassingly, to cover up my mistakes in the focal area.

The drawing took forever.. I obviously need to spend more drawing. Ha! I spent so much time erasing that I was certain the watercolor paper would be damaged. The painting went fast at times and slow at others. My attempts were to do mostly wet-in-wet with a decent drawing to create boundaries. Tomorrow is another day.

24hrs later: Brian really likes this but I am very unsatisfied. It took to long and I overworked many areas. It's most likely a matter of experience with the medium. I think I'll focus on individual aspects of this and try again later in the week.

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Another lighthouse

Another one of that lighthouse. I just used colors where I thought they would be, instead of looking at the reference photo.

Brian noticed that the image is darker than the original, especially the blues. I need to figure that out before I post again.

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Sunset path by the sea.

Inspired by another online image. I'm not sure about this yet. I like the warm tone. This has a bit of cad orange, but mostly it is produced by the quinacrodones: gold, burnt orange, burnt scarlet and balanced by phtalo blue and carmine in the shadows.

Value study below.


24 hours later, the pathway shadows are to dark. Focal area is confusing.

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Reardon workshop day 3

 

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Reardon workshop, Day 2

 

Started with a diluted wash of cobalt on top and cadmium orange on the bottom. Background is lovely...diluted mixture of atmospheric colors: carmine (basically alizarine crimson substitute), cobalt and viridian. The foreground is disappointingly darker that I prefer. The path turned out nice. The focal point is supposed to be the water on the rocks...

It's not awful.

 

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Reardon workshop day 1

Blech!! Background way to dark. This is definitely going to be used for the back of the sheet. I did learn a lot. I will post later, after it's been processing for a while.

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