Magnolia: A Master Study

Magnolia is done under the direction of watercolor artist, Jacqueline Gnott through her membership based learning forum, For the Love of Watercolor. The video for this particular painting demonstrates on how to blend smoothly and how to achieve a rich, dark background and how to paint white flowers. A great learning experience.

8 ³⁄₈ by 9 ¹⁄_{8 inches on 300 lbs. Kilimanjaro watercolor paper}
Reference photo by Jacqueline Gnott

Bouquet of Cosmos

I did this painting from an old painting challenge No.57 from A Nos Pinceaux .

11 by 14 inches 140 -lbs. cold pressed Waterford watercolor paper

Orchids

I just finished my first orchid painting a few days ago. I am not crazy about painting orchids but since this was a commissioned piece, I had no choice. I struggled the most with the background. I wanted it to be very different from the reference photo. I was making it up as I went with the background. Now as I look at it, it looks alright.  I already started another painting for a painting challenge. The deadline is nearing soon and I got to finish that fast. See you soon!

11 by 14 inches on 140# Kilimanjaro watercolor paper

Reference photo by Rodney Campbell from paintmyphoto.ning.com

White Roses in Glass

I am so happy to do this painting after the painting challenge No.29 of Evhe’s blog A nos pinceaux  . I love the still lifes offered in her painting challenges. I am glad to paint another subject in white. I did a couple of  white floral paintings before in Merrill Magnolia and in Waterlily Series No.8. In this painting, only a very little area of the white roses is left as paper white. Almost all the petals are painted in quinacridone burnt orange, burnt sienna, raw sienna, indanthrone blue, cobalt blue, winsor violet , yellow ochre and aureolin.

Canna Lilies Series No.7

I finished painting this canna lily a few days ago. I am really pleased with the result. I used glazing the paints and kept mixing different paint colors to the minimum. I have a long way to go to learn about glazing different colors in layers. Especially the transparent and semi-transparent watercolors. I still consider myself a beginner with regards to the knowledge on the properties of various pigments and their behavior.

Surface: On 9 by 12 inches 300-lb Kilimanjaro watercolor paper

Reference image from  Marc ‘macdragon’ of wetcanvas.com

 

Purple Tulip

I painted this tulip for the challenge No.28 of PADT. I used Ampersand Aquabord as the support to paint this in watercolor. I struggled to put more layers on the surface as it was underlying layers were moving and revealing the white surface of the clayboard. Anyhow, I managed to finish the painting.

Canna Lilies Series No.6

I am not really happy with this but I decided to stop here and not do anymore correction.

Reference: Online – I am still searching for where I got it.

7 by 5 inches on 140# Arches cp watercolor paper

Waterlily Series No.9

It has been a long pause since my last post.I have been so carried away with my kid’s school and homework that this painting took me about a month to complete. And there is another incomplete painting before this too. I need to go back and complete that painting. Having said that the waterlily painting is the last painting for the year 2011.

I hope to do more figure drawings and then eventually figure painting for this year. I need to practice more on figure drawings. Surprisingly, I got a gift kit of a book on figure drawing and a manikin.I have been planning to buy one for a long time. I hope to include posts on my figure drawing practice with you this year. With continuous practice, I hope to progress from skeletal manikin figures to fully-clothed real life figures. As I write more about it, it sounds more and more like a new year resolution. Well then, so be it. NOT FOR SALE

Waterlily Series No.9
6 by 4 inches on Strathmore 500 Series watercolor paper
Image Reference: Wetcanvas by macdragon

Canna Lilies Series No.5

I took a bit longer to finish the canna lilies painting this time. I wanted to finish it before this month get over. It seems like I can only do two paintings a month on an average. I would love to paint more often than that but with everything happening in life, I can only paint at this rate. I really admire other artists who can churn out paintings week after week. They must be super inspired!

Canna Lilies Series No.5
9 by 6 inches on 140lb cp Arches
Reference image :wetcanvas IRL by Rod

Spring Has Arrived Ver. 2

What a learning experience it was when I finished this painting! I shall share with you how you can successfully paint on a surface primed with watercolor primer. Atleast for this particular watercolor primer of Schminke with fine texture. I used a regular paintbrush to prime the gessoed surface so the finished surface has ridges that you usually get when using a flat paintbrush. If you do not like the said texture, you can use a sponge brush instead.

I took a small break after doing the background of this piece. The unfamiliarity of the new surface kinda overwhelmed me. I decided to  reduce the amount of water in the watercolor wash. The consistency should be that of heavy cream, not the whipped one but the liquid one. I tried using dry brush technique for the second and third layer to control the value of the color. The subsequent layer was added when the previous layer was bone-dry. Softening a hard edge with clean water was sometimes kind of hit and miss. Since my hand was touching the background while painting the main subject, the background color started lifting from repeated contact.  I decided to spray on a layer of fixative. Accidently, I sprayed on the areas that were not painted too. While painting these areas, I found that I had to scrub in the paint on areas sprayed with fixative. I didn’t have to paint on with light  pressure anymore! So much for happy accidents!