Bird & Sunrise photo

Bird & Sunrise photo
Because "someday" is today!

Tuesday, February 27, 2024

January Blooms

 

The creative process rarely goes in a direct line.

The creative process rarely goes in a direct line...


Bloom wherever you are planted.
In the spring of 2023, I started 3 mini-geraniums from seed. They bloomed so well all summer that I didn't have the heart to let them die in the fall, so I brought them inside to my studio.

 I was amply rewarded because when the snow was at it's deepest in January, they were blooming with all their hearts. 

Summer in Winter
The low winter sun shining through their petals was such a boost to my winter time blues, I wanted to make at least one painting of them, to try a capture some of that summertime beauty. This winter I was determined to make that wish happen.

 

The perfect side light highlights the star.
I set one of the potted geraniums down onto my office chair and was able to take this wonderful photograph. The way the sunlight made the petals and leaves glow was very inspiring to me.

Practice makes progress.

Several small practice attempts in my sketchbook this year led to the 6x8 inch painting on the right, but unfortunately, I didn't feel like I came close to expressing what I was after, I know I've missed something when the photograph is better than the painting!

 

When one stands out from all the others.
 I went back and studied more of my original photos from 2023 of the flowers against the snow and tried again.

All that vivid pink against the snow makes my heart glow..

 This painting is much, much closer to the feeling I was hoping to express, so it was definitely worth trying again. I think there may be an even better painting waiting to come into existence, but I won't know until I give it another try. It's a zig-zag journey from one painting experiment to another.

Happy creating!


>^-^< Tina

Thursday, January 4, 2024

Oh, Christmas Tree! Revisted

 

Practice can make improvement!

Which one do you resonate with? Honestly, I like them both, but it was an unsolved puzzle that made me want to revisit this painting.


Practice can make improvement!

The key to solving that puzzle was found in that black and white drawing on the upper right hand side of my sketch book, plus going back to the original source material.

 

Even one light in a dark night warms the soul.
 

This was the original inspiration, and even though my painting from 2020 is nice, it has bothered me since then that I didn't capture that same sense of winter magic, I wanted my lighted tree to glow at night too, dang it! 

(Note, I would give credit to the artist if I could find them, if you know, please tell me.)

Lovely even in basic black and white.

 What helped me see the solution was dropping all the color out of the original so I could get my brain to register how truly dark that background sky and foreground snow really is. 

 

Organizing my palette and ideas.

The irony is, this is my first sketch in 2020 and I had the right idea. It's a mystery to me that I ended up with such a different final painting. 

 

Calm, peaceful, twilight.

I do know that even as a beginning artist, I always struggled to get the dark values truly dark. My brain seems to default to seeing a lighter value unless I consciously remind myself to triple check.

 

Everything in life is a process.
 

Even with this year's painting, I wish I had taken a photo of how light in value that first sky background was at the start. It took at least four more layers of ultramarine blue and purple to get that value dark enough!

 I'm pleased to say that now I feel that wonderful sense of completion from finally solving a puzzle. After the success of this experiment, I'm always going to make a value sketch of every subject before I start painting!

What dreams lie in our minds eye?

 For example, here's an interesting exercise I created for myself. I made the value sketch first from an idea in my mind, no reference photos, gasp! Next I did my best to match those values in color, it's not an amazing painting but I think I matched the values well. I'm determined to train that brain of mine!

Happy Creating!

>^-^<

Tina

P.S. One of my favorite things for making those value sketches, besides plain black acrylic paint and water, is a water soluble graphite pencil. The brand is "The General's Sketch and Wash" No links to sponsors or anything, I just wanted to share.

Thursday, November 30, 2023

A Tale of Two Kayaks

Dipping deep into the wet landscape.


 It's November and another free class taught by artist Chris Fornataro becomes available. I almost didn't sign up again because there is so much to get done in putting the garden to sleep for the winter and Thanksgiving just around the corner, but at the last minute I decided I really need the practice with landscapes.

Mangroves photo ©Chris Fornataro

Again, I wasn't exactly thrilled with the reference photo, but I knew from the last class in March that it is still possible to end up with a decent painting even with a less than inspirational photo.

Big values, big shapes!

The first lesson was breaking the landscape into large value shapes and not getting stuck in the details which is great practice for me. I already like where this painting is going better than the photo.

The details can really drive you crazy.

Here it is with all the steps completed, but the water reflections and getting that illusion of sand underwater in the foreground didn't look right to me.

Sometimes less detail is more.

I decided to forget the sand under the water and make the side canal more still and reflective, but I'm still not certain this choice was an improvement. ??? 

One of Chris's tips was to remove detail and add more blue grey color to the background trees to get a deeper sense of depth on the painting. You can see the difference between the two paintings above, I found that suggestion was very helpful and I loved how that little change made such a difference. 

                                              *****************

Paddling a kayak and taking photos is difficult.

Next I decided to challenge myself to see if I had really learned the skills from class by painting from a photo I took of Jeff kayaking Sept of 2019,

Mapping out where you want to go is important.
First step, start with a value sketch. Second, adjust the design to feature your main focus. I wanted to showcase the sunlight through the trees and also extend the land more than the photo so that I could practice adding visual depth.

Structure holds up everything.

Blocking in the shapes, I added an extra step by adding an under-painting of yellow and orange just because I wanted to try it out.

Wow, that sky is not right!
Adding the darker colors of the water and trees went well, I wasn't too keen on the sky and had to go back and fix that!

Finally, some visual balance.

The sky is much improved, but the water reflections don't look correct to me yet, too bright, the lake water isn't that choppy, also not enough shadow on the vest or kayak.

Early morning bliss.
Greying down the water reflections and adding shadows to the  vest and kayak helped a lot, but I still don't think the water looks right. Obviously I need more practice understanding how to paint light on water.

Overall, I'm thrilled with most of it, I improved on the photo, I got the depth and "atmospheric perspective" looking pretty good and I resisted the urge to do anymore detail on the trees which is a big win for me, "Miss Fiddle-brush."

I'm glad I did the class, even though it was very similar to what we did in March, I know the repetition really helped some concepts sink in for me! Practice makes progress...

Happy Creating!

>^-^<

Tina

Here's a sample of Chris's teaching style on YouTube: Click to watch 10 Tips to Improve Your Landscape Paintings

Saturday, September 30, 2023

A Royal Visitor

 

You never know when they might appear. ©2023Tina M.Welter
Top "A Mid-Morning Snack" Bottom "A Royal Treat"

I have been waiting for five years to see a Monarch butterfly in my garden. They were always a favorite, and I especially learned to love them in grade school. In third grade we spent a lot of time learning their life cycle and were encouraged to bring the boldly striped caterpillars in with plenty of milkweed leaves to feed them. 

There was an excited pause in the regular school day when one of them would emerge out of their chrysalis. We waited impatiently for them to pump up those collapsed wings and for our teacher to say it was safe to escort this wonderful new creature outside. If concentrated kid love and energy could protect anything, our class butterflies were triple wrapped for a safe, long journey!

Stunning photo reference for my painting "A Royal Treat"
Photo ©2023 Joanna Katzen

Earlier this year I read a long news article about how there are less oyamel fir forests in Mexico and less Monterey pines and cypresses in California for the Monarchs to hibernate in, and less milkweeds for the hungry caterpillars to eat so there are less Monarch butterflies, around 80-90 percent less since the 1990's! Honestly, I was so surprised and saddened that the numbers have dropped so much in my lifetime, no wonder I haven't been seeing them in my garden.

Butterflies can be particular about what they eat too.
She seemed to like the plain yellow ones best!
 

The morning of August 18th this year, I was looking out the dining room window and happened to catch a flash of orange out in my sunflowers, could it be?!? Grabbing my iPhone I carefully and quietly walked out into the yard, hoping I wouldn't scare this visitor but definitely wanting some photos before they might flit away. 

This monarch was ignoring the zinnias, cosmos and blanket flowers but seemed to be enjoying the sunflowers. I held still as I could while snapping photos as she floated round and round, tasting and sipping her favorites for a magical 15 minutes and then she was gone. 

Happy to provide nectar for a long distance traveler!
"A Mid-Morning Snack"

Even though I want to, it's probably not sensible to try and grow milkweed in my tiny garden, but I also learned that sunflowers and asters are a good nectar source for adult Monarchs, so at least I got that part right in providing a mid-morning snack for one!

What beautiful thing do you wait to see every year?

 Happy creating!

>^-^<

Tina 

This isn't the exact article I read, but it is still very helpful.More information about the Monarch Butterfly. 

The stunning photo of the Monarchs sipping from New England asters was taken by a friend on Facebook, Joanna Katzen, she kindly agreed to let me use her photo for reference, thanks so much Joanna!

Wednesday, August 30, 2023

Sunflowers in Series for August

 

Designing in Series, a wealth of ideas.
"What a surprising group of lovely suns!"
 

I haven't designed many paintings in a series, I think the last time I attempted it was back in 2010-2011 when I made five 5x7 inch oil paintings of swans. I remember each painting took me many days to complete and I became a bit burned out on the subject.

In an attempt to paint more with less anxious fussing around about the details, I made eight little 2.25 x 3 inch rectangles in my sketchbook and chose the glorious sunflowers in my garden as my subjects. 

I have to say, I even surprised myself with this result! I hope I can capture the same energetic brush work when I try to paint them in a larger size. Now I have a new problem, which design do I want to spend the time and effort to paint larger?

Here is a closer look at my favorites:

Could it be a family resemblance?
"Bouquet of Suns"
 

I really like how this group relates to each other, I planted the original seeds two years ago, one seed packet was burgundy brown and the other pale yellow. These volunteer "grandchildren" plants are interesting, some of them have deep red brown centers with gold edges and others are pure yellow with green centers.
 

Some repeat visitors are welcome.
"The King and Bee"
 

The bees and butterflies have been having a grand time sipping and zipping around the garden, this was my tallest and largest sunflower and that white bit is a quick shorthand for a bee.

Friends large and small are great.
"Blondie and Friend"
 

I was calling the sunflowers that were all yellow with green centers the "Blondies," I wanted to be certain to get a portrait of them.

You never know when a sunburst will surprise you.
"Sunburst Afternoon"

I tried several times of day to get the perfect photo of this sunflower, the afternoon photo turned out to be one of my favorites.

Sometimes going it alone it the best way to go.
"Solo Sun"

 

Since the sunflowers this year are all volunteers from seeds from the year before, some of them were scattered by the birds and it was surprising where they popped up, like this solo beauty standing by itself.

Who can resist a warm heart?
"Warm-Hearted"

 My attempt to capture some of that wonderful warm sun glow through those gold and red brown petals.

Which one of these charming sunflowers would you pick?

I'm reminded of that very expressive German phrase "Die Qual der Wahl" which means the "the torture of choice." That sounds a bit dramatic, but it's a great phrase to try to convey that predicament of having too many good choices.

Happy Creating!

>^-^<

Tina

Saturday, July 29, 2023

Why Crocus in July?

I had great plans this spring, I was going to paint and post flowers that inspired me as they bloomed in my garden, beginning with some lavender crocus that bloomed on Easter morning.

 I set out with brushes in hand and a new book to inspire me, "How to Paint fast and loose and bold" by Patti Mollica, determined to get my art process loosened up and faster so I could keep up with my flowers.

I wait all winter for the first hints of color from the earth.
April 9, 2023- Easter morning awakens.

I started off okay with a clever type of value study I learned from Patti's book. Look at each line horizontally and notice how the same color looks so different on each different grey background. A color can shout out "here I am" and then almost disappear depending on the background behind it.

 

We need contrast to understand what we are looking at.
Background color sets the mood!
 

I painted a couple of small color studies to test out my color choices. Note the May 13th date on the left hand page, I'm all set to go for finishing a painting for my May blog post. 

Then I decided on a last minute whim to go visit family on Memorial Day weekend and ended up with a surprise, an extreme allergic reaction to what the doctor thinks were 6 mosquito bites, seriously?!? Whatever it was, I did not feel well for over two weeks, I felt fatigued and my balance was off.

 

You can't really know anything unless you test it out.
Testing, testing, testing!!
 

Now it's June and I'm feeling mostly better. My plan on this painting was to follow Patti Mollica's advice and try to use more paint and fewer brush strokes, really think about how I'm going to be efficient and not overwork the paint. Here I go, all on the same day...

 

Everything needs a background.
Background wash, one brush!
 

Dark defines the light.
Darkest value defines the light.


Green means Life.
Bring on those green leaves!

Lavender Lights up the Room.
All dressed up in lavender.
  

Boom, layer after layer going on, valiantly resisting the urge to touch up any of the brush strokes and then my painting time is up that day. 

We had made plans to go camping for two nights, something we haven't done in years. We have a grand time getting there, camp site is great, all is going pretty well until evening and then I don't feel well, I feel so dizzy. I can't sleep all night, the next day we hike a little but I am getting worse. We go home and I try to figure this out, I've had these attacks before, and I try all the things, but this just wants to hang on and on and on! 

No painting happening, I don't have the energy or focus for it. June passes by and now it's July before I finally feel up to figuring this painting puzzle out.

 

Orange centers are delicious.
Orange completes the look!
 

 I wasn't certain how I was even going to finish this painting, I felt so discouraged about all the set backs and then I didn't really like how it was looking! I couldn't quite put my finger on what was bothering me, all the brush work looked pretty good and the values are right, I think... then I compared it to my photo and realized the foreground is a bit too bright for the flowers to really stand out, so I broke the "fast and loose" ideals and painted over the foreground again to darken it.

 

Let there be more dark.
No shining stars without the dark.
 

What a journey, and I still can't decide if I like this painting or not, the brushwork in the foreground isn't as nice and the crocus look too stiff and heavy to me. At least I learned some new techniques and it is done. I don't like to leave paintings half done because they haunt me, seriously, they do!

 Happy Creating and Persevering...

(Sometimes creating involves not giving up, even when you want to.)

 >^-^<

Tina 

p.s. I am feeling better, not 100 percent, but better. Possibly some sort of virus messing with my inner ear and taking it's sweet time to heal. Thanks for reading! 

Sunday, April 30, 2023

Going from Weird to Wow!!

 

Weird to wow, what a difference!
What a journey!


I signed up to take a free painting class from Chris Fornataro, an artist who I admire and follow on YouTube.

The emphasis of the class was practicing how to use large value shapes as a foundation for better paintings. I don't usually paint by following another artist step by step, so this was definitely going to be an interesting hands on look into his process. 

The beginning of the first lesson, a still life, was a little strange looking...

Wow, that pimento is extremely large.
Is that a huge pimento?
 

We began with painting the subject by only representing the largest basic shapes of light and dark. Jeff told me he thought I was painting a giant pimento olive, not a very promising start!

What I did like was watching how efficient Chris was in mixing his colors using a limited palette, this painting only used ultramarine blue, cadmium red, cadmium yellow and titanium white.   

For example, he would start with the basic color, mixing blue and red for the purple background and then adding a little of the yellow to "de-saturate" the purple to make it less vivid and more natural looking. He did the same thing for the apple, blue and yellow to make a medium green and then a bit of red to tone it down a bit. 

Chris also emphasized how we can simplify mixing color by focusing on the primary colors and asking ourselves, does this mix need more blue, more red, more yellow?

 

Second round of shapes, lesson example.
 

Next, we painted smaller shapes onto those larger mid-tone light and dark sections using the same color mixes, but adjusting them by adding some white or yellow to lighten or some mixed purple to darken the colors or add shadow.

 

What a difference refining layers can make.
Snack time!
 

As I added more refining shape layers, I was so relieved to watch the painting begin to take form. The class was taught using oil paints which stay "wet" and are easy to mix for a long time. I didn't know if I could make his process work with acrylic paint, which even with extenders, dries very quickly. I was very happy and excited to try another subject after I ended up with this first result.

The second assignment was a landscape. Here is the reference photo we were given to work from.

Not my idea of a good photo.
Beach photo © Chris Fornataro
 

I was rather disappointed when I saw this photo, it was not my idea of an inspiring subject. I would never pick a photo with lighting that it would make trees look like a huge block of uniform green. The cast shadow across the beach and into the water was nice, but still!!

The first blocking in of the large mid-tone value shapes was not great to look at either. Some of the students called it the dinosaur stage, I thought mine looked like a duck with big hair!


Weird, weird shapes man.
Hello Lochness, I think I found your monster!

I could understand what he was trying to teach though, seeing the large blocks of color and value to build a good foundation for the painting first, then adding smaller value shapes on top to create form. I intended to follow exactly what the instructor was asking us to do, hoping that some how I could eventually make it come out alright.

 

Sometimes more is better.
The secret is all in the layers!

Adding the second layer with the smaller value shapes did help. It took me a lot longer to get the acrylic color mixed and in the right places, but I could see the finish line now.

I could imagine myself here afterall.
I could imagine myself here after all!

The final little details brought it all together and it was a logical way to paint, going from large shapes to small. I am curious how it would have looked if I had used oil paints instead. I suspect it would have been faster! It took me a lot of extra time to remix and blend my fast drying acrylic paint.

Overall, it was a good class and I would recommend him as a teacher. It wasn't anything I didn't know, but it was valuable practice and I gained some insights into mixing color that I'm going to use going forward with my own work. Sometimes it is so worth while to see the world through some one else's eyes.

Happy creating! 

>^-^< Tina