Week 8

This is my first layers of yellow, mainly with Yellow ocher for painting the face. I dropped in the dark shadows, probably not dark enough as I am a little timid about putting paint on the paper. Luckily, however, with watercolor I will still be able to push the shadows back darker if needed.  In watercolor you can always go darker but it is really hard to pull back to light.

 Next, on the background I used Cadmium Yellow.

A portrait never feels right to me until you get the eyes in, so I have started to put some detail into the eyes.

I will wait for this to dry completely and then start my red and blue layers.

Here is the portrait now with the red and blue layers.

Happy Birthday!

Its Lizzy's 16th birthday!  Oh how I love this girl.

The cake was created by Molly.

Week 6,7

So far I have drawn 3 portraits but have not been happy with any of them. I just am not getting the portrait to have a strong enough resemblance of the child. Tell me if you think you know which child this is.

Prom for Chris

Birth of First Grandson

Week 4-5

EXPERMENTING WITH COLOR:  One of my last favorite watercolors that I painted was in 1990 for my mother for Mother's Day.  It was a drawing of some Easter Lillies.  I thought that would be a good place to start since Mother's Day is just around the corner.  The following pictures are photos of a few processes I am playing with. 

I first scetched some Easter Lillies and did a few light washes of color.

Next I wet the entire paper around the main lily with clean water and introduced 3 paint colors separately. I painted at an angle to encourage mixing.  You can see that wash on the right side of the painting below.

I wanted to try negative painting.  Negative painting is on of the most exciting approaches to watercolor!  The technique is a unique approach of painting around an object to define it in a composition. Watercolor has a challenge that other mediums do not.  It is what we don't paint that becomes the most important element. With each layer of paint I create a new negative shape and darker values.  Unfortunatly, I have lost some of my vibrant color and am moving towards "mud".  "Mud" is another challenge of watercolor--it is loosing the integrity of the color as you mix them.

This painting still has a long way to go as I drop in my darkest darks and smallest shapes.  When I finish it, I will be sure to post the final painting but for now, I need to move on to the portraits to reach my goal.



Week 3

Week 2

After having a fairly successful week last week with drawing the eye, I moved on to the nose and lips.  This week did not go so well as I struggled a little more. It is a little more challenging to make the nose come up off the paper. 

More than just struggling with the sketching, I struggled internally, wondering if I was spending too much precious time on this endevor of mine.  I found that I was judging myself -- as to whether or not I was being productive and therefore responsible. Interesting that I would believe that my activities are not worthy if they are not productive. 



Week 1 - the eye

Here is the first step - drawing the eye. The most difficult part of this assignment was to get it photographed and posted.  I tried several times to get a quality shot of this sketch - flash on, flash off -  focus close and focus auto.  I didn't plan on taking photography lessons to accomplish this.  Bear with me and I will see if I can get better pictures of the next sketches.

Needless to say  I live a very hectic and busy life. So I have made it a point to sit down with my calendar  and carve out time for painting these portraits of my children. I am looking at these portraits as a way to recharge my creative battery. As mentioned before, I have not drawn in almost 25 years so this exercise starts with pencil drawings before I even dare touch the paint.

Here is the plotted schedule

Week of:


Apr 8 - eyes - pencil drawings (done)

Apr 15 - nose and mouth - pencil drawings

Apr 22 - full face - pencil drawings

Apr 29 - watercolor washes, purchase supplies

May 6 - sketch portrait on watercolor paper of Chris, Lizzy and Hannah

May 13 - paint Lizzy and Hannah portraits

May 20 - submit portraits for critique

             - sketch portrait on watercolor paper of Randy, Ben and Kiyomi

May 27 - paint Randy portrait

Jun 3 - submit portraits for critique

          - sketch portrait on watercolor paper of Molly

          - paint Chris portrait

Jun 10 - submit portrait for critique

           - paint Kiyomi and Molly portraits

Jun 17 - submit portraits for critique

           - paint Ben portrait

Spring Break

Remembering 2011

It is going to be hard to catch up with a whole year of events for our family, especially since this was the year that we had many big events to remember - Molly's Wedding, as well as two of the cousins, Erika and Brock.  And then Ben and Cassidy's expectance of a baby!

Here are just a few photos from the year to remind me of some of the smaller things that were happening in our lives.

 Hannah and Mom got to go camping with our favorite neighbors up to Smith and Morehouse. A summer would just not be the same if we couldn't camp with the gang.

 We lost our big willow tree in the backyard this year.  Luckly the fall did not damage our house or the neighbor's.  But it was a huge mess to clear out.  I am ever grateful to all my friends who pitched in and hauled it away.

 One of my favorite times always is taking pictures on the first day of school.  Here is Lizzy above ready for her first year of High School and Chris below celebrating his last year!

 Hannah is just taking the big step into Junior High.  She seems pretty confident for the first day.

 One of the successes of the year for Hannah was learning to play the violin.  Here she is at her fall concert.  She did an excellant job of performing. She is very talented when it comes to music.

One of the successes of the year for Chris was he was always going to another dance.

And the year ended with the whole family being together for Christmas.  Here we are in our traditional family shot at the top of the banister.  I sure love this big bunch of wonderful people!  

So here is what I imagine myself doing.  I am interested in being surrounded with vibrant color. After looking at art blogs and searching the internet for watercolor portriats, I have found these two that I think would be similar to the style of painting I see myself doing.

This is my affrimation statement:

I am an artist, filled with passion, surrounded by vibrant color.

IF THERE IS NO PASSION IN YOUR LIFE, THEN HAVE YOU REALLY LIVED? Alan Armstrong

April 4, 2012

We all have plans to doing something big, like take a trip, lose some weight, fall in love, write a blog, things we are going to do when we get around to it. Well I have had one of those plans. I have always planned to go back to my artwork when I have time, when the kids are grown, when I'm older. 

I just finished an amazing development class (Power of Choice) and have decided that I need something in my life that I can be passionate about. I don't want to look back someday and ask "have I really lived". So I am setting a goal. In the next 90 days, I am going to fulfill my dream as an artist and complete a portriat of each of my children. Wow, big! Yes that is 7 portraits in 90 days and I haven't even picked up a pencil in the last 25 years. 

Follow my progress with me as I begin this journey.  And if you see me, don't forget to ask me how it's coming.