Summertime Sketchbook Tour

 Summertime and I can never get enough of sunlight shining through the various types of green leaves, whether it be flowers or trees, I'm always looking for those glorious, glowing moments. 

Here's a quick look at a few "stop me in my tracks" inspirations which have made it into my July sketchbook pages so far...

Early morning in a nearby park and the blossoming Russian sage is captivating, I took so many photos!! I love the soft purple surrounded by all that green.

 

 Photographing into the sun, hoping to get a balanced image of the brilliant sun rays and dappled shadow below pine and deciduous trees.

 

The formal arrangement of repeating sprinkler arches and strategically placed trees is satisfying to me. It feels balanced, serene.

One of my favorite trees to photograph, I always find it's twisty branches so interesting.

 

 A reminder that all of these little gems are truly small, only 2.50 by 3.50 inches, it takes me about an hour to paint each one. My goal is to choose my favorite ones, then paint them larger and try to capture that same fresh brushwork.

I haven't been successful yet, but I keep trying. I find it's often helpful to have an inspiration and goal to keep me focused and moving forward to improve my skills. 

 What type of creative journey calls to your heart? Decide on one small step you can take on that path and begin.

Happy Creating! 

>^-^< 

Tina

Sunflowers in Series for August

 

"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:

"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.
 

"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.

"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.

"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.

"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.

"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

Learning to Love Landscapes

 

Unlike many artists, I rarely felt the desire to paint landscapes, I'm actually not certain why. I've taken many photographs of wonderful views but haven't very often felt that irresistible pull to put paint to canvas to capture it. 

I have painted a few okay landscapes over the years, but also a couple attempts in the past led me to decide that landscape painting was just not my thing. A particular sunrise sky with clouds comes to mind...ugh, I never got that thing right!

 Last fall, my brother asked me to paint a landscape for him from this photo. With only one point perspective, no buildings and no trees, I felt I could manage it although the clouds did make me a bit nervous.

 After making my usual color sketch to figure out the palette and the basic layout I was encouraged. Plus it helped me see where I could improve the painting.

"Happy Travels"

The final painting came out pretty nice. I still wasn't itching to paint more landscapes, but it was a great feeling to know my skills have improved over the years and it was possible for me to paint this simple one successfully.

 

 June of 2022, I had the strangest thing happen. This early morning view out of my kitchen window captivated me. It was the pattern of shadows and the way the light was making the green tree leaves glow. I finally felt the call of the landscape, I absolutely had to paint it!

This year, instead of going straight to color sketches, I have been making simple value studies of all my subjects first. I am finding they are a great tool to simplify and get to the heart of what is working in a composition before adding color. When the black and white sketch still feels interesting, I know I am onto something good!

"View from My Kitchen Window"

I have also been watching several landscape painting classes on YouTube, specifically Mastering Composition by Ian Roberts. After watching his How to Use Color Temperature video, I followed his instructions and boom, it actually felt like a bit like magic as this great little painting came together for me. 

 

I was feeling so encouraged, I decided to offer to paint a landscape for my sister. She sent me two of her favorite vistas and told me I could choose which one I wanted to paint.

Landscape one.

Landscape two.

      

 Hmmm, which one to choose! I was having a really hard time deciding between them and the value studies helped me clarify what elements I felt were resonating with me and that made it easier to decide what direction to go.

Of course this involved plenty of color palette testing too.

 

"View from Green Springs Drive"

 My value sketches were pretty rough, but the essence of that wonderful dark and light contrast on the red cliffs still came through as the focal point of the painting. I'm really pleased with the outcome and yes, I think I may be learning to love painting landscapes. I've already had a few more calling to me...

Definitely a reminder to keep that creative ear open, you might hear an unexpected Muse! 

Happy creating!

>^-^<

Tina
 

Ian Roberts Mastering Composition

How to use Color Temperature

Another favorite YouTube Teacher:

Paint Coach

Seven Reasons Students Struggle Painting Landscapes

A Little ShihTzu for Christmas

The last week of November, I received a request for a pet portrait to be given as a Christmas gift. It's really fun to be a part of a Christmas surprise, but I also feel the anxiety of getting a special gift like that just right and ready on time! My strategy; make a detailed list of every step required and when it needed to be completed. It really helped my inner 'fraidy cat to get all that information on paper and out of my head! Here's the final portrait and the journey of how I got there.

"Sophie" 8"x 8"in., oil on gessobord, ©2017

Meet Sophie, a miniature Imperial ShihTzu and beloved work buddy of her owner. Isn't she cute? Out of the five photos that I received, I thought this one expressed her personality the best and featured a soulful expression in her eyes.

The portrait size requested was an 8x8 inch square. First step, order the best substrate for the job. I went with Ampersand's gessobord, a cradled hardboard on birch wood that has a smooth surface, already primed and ready to paint. When I work this small, I don't like the texture of canvas interfering with the details.

Next, I adjusted the color tones on the photo, then cropped it down to a square and created a grid to guide me in my drawing.

I forgot to take a photo of my first pencil sketch, lol, but here are the acrylic paint sketches made over that drawing on paper. This is where I worked out the color palette and composition problems.

The  acrylic sketches helped me to decide to change the shadow color I started with and crop the image even tighter.

Because I changed the composition, I needed to make another detailed pencil drawing. In this photo, I am transferring it to the gessobord using graphite paper.

 Finally, I get to the joy of actual painting! I begin working back to front so the layers of painted fur will look like they overlap each other. 

The water soluble oil paint I use dries faster than traditional oils, but it stays wet long enough to blend the paint layers with a soft brush and get that nice fur-like texture.

After finishing the painting, I stained the birch wood sides with a wood stain to match the sienna background and let the whole thing dry for several days before spraying it with Kamar varnish. The painting was delivered on December 23rd and best of all, was hearing the happy exclamations and thank you's I received when they saw Sophie's portrait. Definitely made the season bright for me.

Happy creating to all, and to all, success!

>^-^<
Tina

Getting On the Grid

"Soothe the Day"4.5x6 inch acrylic painting with 3:4 grid

Since I had surgery Oct. 5th on my left hand/wrist to release the ulnar nerve, I wasn't certain what kind of artwork or painting tips I would have ready to share this month. After 3 weeks, I'm glad to say I finally feel up to painting again. Although I am not allowed to put any stress on that hand for another 4 weeks, that's ok, it hurts to do so! I have become fairly creative at doing things one-handed, but I feel very lucky I can ask Jeff for help when I do get stuck! 

My new painting corner!

He kindly reassembled my large easel that has been boxed up and in storage since 2011. Plus he set up and stabilized the big 36''x48'' canvas for me. I'm so thrilled to have some actual studio space again, it's been six years since I last used this easel!

The main grid is made of 12 inch squares.

First order of business, measure and paint a 3:4 grid on the canvas to match the one I drew over the photo of the small test painting. Now I'm all set up for the fun part, sketching my design onto the large canvas.

Wow, almost like magic I have large flowers!

Since the grid helped me to get the flower outlines in their correct places so fast, I played around with filling in the shapes. I wanted to know how the liquid acrylics would look and behave on the canvas. Thank heaven those paint containers have flip-top lids, screw-top lids on anything are really difficult for me to open right now.

 Original 4.5"x 6" painting and enlarged drawing.

Here's the small original painting to compare with the larger sketch. Some people don't like using grids, but I think they are an incredibly useful tool when I want to enlarge a drawing and get the proportions right. For me, they save a lot of  time and frustration and anything that decreases creative anxiety and boosts my art making confidence is worth the extra effort! 

Happy creating,

>^-^<
Tina

The Blue Iris, finally!

"The Blue Iris" ©2017 Tina M.Welter

I WAS doing a good job keeping up with posting the painting process of the Blue Iris painting on facebook, but like all good things, there is going to be a twist somewhere. I think moving to another state counts as a pretty good twist. I finished the painting about two days before we were scheduled to move.

Anyway, the boxes are sort of unpacked and most of the household is running, so I could get back to sharing the painting process in it's entirety. Since I don't want any grief with copyright, I composed some music to go with it too. I was happy with the whole production until I heard it on my computer speakers, it sounds much better with headphones or at least some speakers with some bass! 

Without further ado, I give you The Blue Iris (click this link to see the video) 

>^-^< 

Tina  

p.s. I am being brave and facing my inner 'fraidy cat by listing the YouTube video as "public"...but I am disabling comments. I'm not that brave!

Lost your joy?

 

"A Joyful Heart" 7"x 6" watercolor on paper ©2016

I don’t know about you, but I can get completely overwhelmed and burned out on all the horrible and ugly things going on in the world. 

“Life is pain, Highness. Anyone who says differently is selling something.”

― William Goldman, The Princess Bride

Sure we may laugh, but for years I have been secretly hoping it wasn’t true! I don’t think I am alone here. Many of us expect life to be much better than it is and then feel really upset and disappointed when our lives take unexpected turns or our fellow humans keep doing really awful things.

I admit, most of my life I have been a “cup half empty” type of person. I never realized until lately that I had this negative point of view because I was expecting life and people to be better! You would think as an amateur student of history I wouldn't be so clueless.

The irony is that finally accepting that life is often hard and painful and really difficult at some point for everyone has actually helped me feel happier. If the norm is pain and difficulty, then perhaps anything in my life that isn’t painful and difficult is beating the odds and deserves to be celebrated!

I am noticing more that even on my difficult days, I have a lot of reasons to celebrate!                                                                    

Don't get me wrong, I still believe that anything we can do to ease the pain and suffering in the world is worth doing and if I look at the big picture of history, mankind has actually made some progress.

I have also learned that being on full anxiety alert all the time isn't healthy for me or anyone else. It is necessary to regularly take a break from the hard realities and lift my own heart. 
 

"A Joyful Heart" 3"x 2.75" pen on paper sketch ©2014

One thing I like about cats is their sense of fun. They can find the most ordinary things fascinating and delightful, i.e. boxes, crumpled paper, a marble under the fridge, and the joy of joys, ornaments on a Christmas tree. They seem completely engrossed and happy in getting that shiny, swinging thing off of the tree! 

What is your shiny ornament on a Christmas tree? Have you ever thought about it?

My equivalent of batting around the Christmas tree ornaments is playing the guitar badly and singing along. Singing brings me so much joy, but the crazy thing is I often don’t do enough of it, unless I actually put in on my to do list! Ridiculous, right? 

This month I have been singing Christmas songs. I would like to leave you with this one in which I made some changes to the lyrics. 

1.     Have yourself a merry little Christmas,

        let your heart be light,

        even though our troubles are well in sight.

2.     Have yourself a merry little Christmas
        make the Yuletide gay,
        even though our troubles are here to stay.

Once again we will hold the day, each golden day is ours.
Faithful friends who are dear to us,
Will hear from us once more.

 3.   Maybe soon we all will be together,

        if the fates allow,
        until then we’ll bless the life we live somehow.
        so have yourself a merry little Christmas now!

>^-^<

Tina

My apologies to Hugh Martin who wrote the lyrics originally for the 1944 movie “Meet Me in St. Louis” starring Judy Garland. Mr. Martin claims that Ralph Blane didn't have anything to do with the lyrics...but that is another story.
 Check out the interesting history of this song on wikipedia here.