A horse with attitude

I love the expression on this horse...lots of attitude. This horse is a Paint horse which is used on ranches and rodeos.

I've been Tagged

Ok, I've been tagged by my friend

Brenda from http://www.amberridgedesert.blogspot.com/

I've never been tagged so I'm not sure how this works...but according to Brenda I need to tag 4 of my friends or favorite blogs that I visit daily. Other than meeting Brenda face to face, the following blogs are one's I like to visit to see what's new and get ideas. Go check out their blogspots you won't be disappointed!

Linda from Frenchless in France http://lindamathieu.com/ wonderful blog on insights to living in France. She takes wonderful photographs that really give you the flavor of France.

Belinda Del Pesco http://www.belindadelpesco.blogspot.com/

Belinda does wonderful watercolors and prints from her hand craved stamps...lots of wonderful information.

Geninnes' Art Blog http://www.blogdelanine.blogspot.com/

Great illustrations,hand craved stamps,and she has such a well organized studio to die for.

Diahn http://www.diahnott.com/

I use to see her posts at WetCanvas so was pleasantly surprised to find her blog.

I visit many blogs but I thought this would give you a sprinkling of what's out there. Lots of creative people .

Appaloosa with baby

I wasn't sure if I wanted to add grass to this painting since I'm trying to do a series of horses and wanted to keep the back ground white. Baby horses are so awkward when their young.

Gypsy Vanner Horse

I love learning about the various breeds of horse there are. This beauty is a Gypsy Vanner Horse which was developed to pull heavy caravans.

Lipizzaner horses

Lipizzaner horses were used in Spanish Riding School in Austria. I think I like the way this wc painting looks in person. I decided not to paint any background. I'm finding as I focus on one subject i.e. horses,dogs,flowers, per month, I am becoming comfortable with each piece I do.

At night before I go to bed I've been sketching various parts of horses using pen and ink or rendering them in pencil. I've found by doing these nightly sketches it helps me to see the various parts of the horse and think about what I'm actually painting.

Trio of horses

I've been working on this for the last two days off and on. Interesting what you can do with a really limited palette. 9" x 12" watercolor, using DS watercolors

mother and baby

I need to find my color wheel to come up with combinations of colors for my horse pictures. Working small has it's advantages...I can produce a painting in about an hour.

A chesnut

Today I had a doctor appointment in Beverly Hills...meeting up with my new Rheumatologist who happens to be a very published book author. I decided to take my small prismacolor portfolio along so I could work on my new horse drawing. I exchanged the colored pencils with watercolor pencils. It's a good thing I did because I had a lot of down time waiting to have tests done.

I layed down the initial colors and thought I brought my portable watercolor water brush, which I didn't. When I got home much,much later, I used a small #4 round brush to activate the wc pencil color. I was not happy with the Cretacolor aqua monolith pencils. The color did not blend very well so I used my Daniel Smith watercolor paints. I was much happier with the results.

Working 4 x 6 postcard size is a good size to experiment with. I also was working on this painting on my patio. The breeze was so strong that the wind dried my wc paints rather quickly allowing me to work fast and add a few layers.

Horses

I thought I'd devote the month of August to painting and drawing horses. Since I've only painted one horse in my life, I thought it would be fun to learn something new.

I plan to paint horses using my own color combination...getting away from traditional colors.

I also plan to paint these guys in a really small format 4 x 6 watercolor postcards.

trees

This is my last landscape for the month of July. I used my liner brush and my deer foot brush to do some of the detail in this painting.

I still have a lot to learn about painting landscapes. Each one presents a different task to workout. But now, I'm ready to move on to something else. I will continue do landscape sketches and hopefully in time will feel comfortable executing them.

Japanese Garden @ Butchard Garden, Victoria, Canada

Even though I didn't get to paint 31 landscape paintings for the month of July, I did paint!!!! Each piece got easier and I found I was using a lot of my watercolor tools that I've collected over the years.

This is from a photo of mine that I took last year in April at Butchard Gardens. April through September is the best time to really see this garden at it's best. Silly me bought a year pass thinking I'd be visiting the garden monthly, not knowing my life would move me further away from the garden. At least I have over a 100 photo references pictures to work from.

Painting landscapes really stretched me artistically. I found I had to figure out how to convey more without being a slave to a detailed sketch. I also found my hundred watercolor technique books helpful. If I got stuck I could usually find a solution in one of those books.

Bryce Canyon Utah

I know the landscape is more red,but here is my interpretation of Bryce Canyon.

reflective painting

Tried to capture the reflection of the hills and trees.

No painting today

On a sad note, today my mother-in-law died. She was 82. She had been ill for the past year and her health steadily declining. I was just rather thankful that my husband was able to fly home in time to say his goodbyes before she passed. Sometime in August we will fly to Canada for the memorial service.

cliffs, rocks, and ocean

This painting was relaxing and fun to do. The only problem I had was with the grasses between the rocks. It wasn't until I was almost done that I found my liner brush and was able to do some of the grasses with the liner.

The beach

There is always something relaxing about the beach.

Meadow

This is a landscape from memory. I've been playing all day with my Derwent watercolor pencils on various papers, and I've come to the conclusion that the wc pencils are most effective on traditional watercolor paper 140lb or 300lb with a smooth surface.

This drawing was done on Lama Li paper. I didn't like the fact that the paper is rough and the watercolor pencil doesn't glide on when the pencil is dry or even when it's wet. I tried applying the wc pencil to a wet brush and then applying it to the paper. If the brush is too wet the Lama Li just soaks up the color and the paper itself starts to lift.

I have used Faber Castell watercolor pencils on 300lb paper and the pencils work with no problem. The color goes on smooth and when you take a brush to the wc pencil, it moves like traditional watercolor paint.

So If I do use watercolor pencils in the future, I'll stick to my Faber-Castell and 300lb watercolor paper.

Experimentation is good and that is what this whole blog is about.

Another view of yosemite

Another view of Yosemite. I did this in my Lama Li watercolor book using all of my watercolor pencils.

Somewhere in the UK

I decided to try my Derwent signature watercolour pencils. I had bought these years ago, and recently found the 24 pack tin when I was setting up my studio in my new house.

I also used Prismacolour pencils as the first layer and then added more colour with the Derwent wc pencils. I used my watercolour brush, the type that hold water on the top to fine tune the painting. This was a quick sketch and I like the intensity of the wc pencils.

Landscape done in Chinese Brush painting "Love & Good Luck"

Today was my monthly Chinese brush painting class that I'm taking with Nan Rae in Burbank,California. www.nanrae.com

The lesson of the day was using black ink and creating a landscape painting. I've been putting off working with the black ink because I wanted to get another set of Chinese brushes that I would use only for my ink work. Anyway, using the ink was easy and found the whole process rather relaxing. I basically did a very thin line drawing in ink of the tress; then filled in some of the branches with ink and then with watercolour. I was amazed at how easy it was to make images of mountains with just the side of the brush. The paper I used was rather thin flower paper...it absorbs really well. Once the painting is dry I turned the painting over and on the back side I used a large hake brush and wet the whole backside. Then I came in with a very faint colour, which I spread on the entire back of the painting.

On the bottom right hand corner is my official Chinese Chop or Seal. The seal establishes the artist's identity and is used to authenticate the painting. So my seal is my first name translated phonetically with Chinese character representing each syllable.

So "Irene" translated means I= Love; rene= Good Luck;

So my artist identity is "Love & Good Luck." I just think having my own Chinese Chop/Seal is so cool.