The Garden Flutist

I did this painting under the direction of the watercolor artist, Susan Avis Murphy, on her rivulet technique as explained in her blog. She has explained this technique in great details and has a couple of youtube videos demonstrating the technique here. There is a lot of scrubbing involved to lift the paint to get the lighter shade. I find that Loew-Cornell’s La Corneille flat brushes are the best in scrubbing out the paint. Their bristles are gentle enough that they don’t damage the paper surface. The glazes must be applied gently so as not to disturb the bottom paint layers. I have cross-posted this painting in my blogger account.

11 by 14 inches on 140-lbs cold-pressed Kilimanjaro watercolor paper

Reference photo:  Steve Lyddon from PMP

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

Pear with Blue Bottle

I did this as a part of painting challenge No.52 from A nos pinceaux . I did some minor changes in the finished painting  like eliminating the glass in the reference photo and the background. I think this is the first time I am painting a pear and l loved how it came out as. I must also try painting green pears in the future, considering the fact that pear is a favorite fruit subject for artists to paint in still life. It must be because of the unique shape you can get with each pear.

Apples with Red Pitcher

 

I was able to finish this painting really fast. I did this as a part of challenge no.48 of A nos pinceaux , my favorite blog on painting challenges. You can see that my background is completely different from the reference photo I decided to add a wall paper instead. I am able to push it to the background by painting the patterns in dull black. It was a struggle to paint the red pitcher because the paint layers are shifting when I add additional glazes. I still don’t know how to successfully tackle this.

 

In watercolors on 9 by 12 inches 140# Arches watercolor paper

Teddy and Macarons

I did this painting for the Challenge number 37 of A Nos Pinceux blog. I am really late to submit the painting on time. Being a slow painter doesn’t help me either.

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.

Spring Bouquets

I finished this painting after the painting challenge No.28 in Evhe’s blog A nos pinceaux. I was very slow in painting and it was way past the due date to submit the painting when I finished it. I am very pleased with how this painting has turned out. I was able to use pure transparent paints with wet blending (i.e. no mixing of two paints on the palette but on the paper) to achieve the colors I wanted. In some places, I used glazes using pure colors in as much as 3-4 layers.

Surface : 9 by 12 inches on 140# Arches 

Three Birds

I painted this from my own still life – the first ever I am painting. I own these three bird curios and they sit on the mantle above the fireplace. But painting them was so darn difficult. I almost gave up because I had a hard time not to get too bogged down on the details. The temptation was too overwhelming. I did not include most of the details when I finally decided not to ditch it.

Almost 9 by 12 inches on Strathmore Bristol plate

Spring Has Come

I did this painting after the challenge no. 24 of  A Nos Pinceux blog. I chose this photo  in the spirit of the arrival of spring season. I also love the vase featured in the reference photo and I just couldn’t wait to paint it. This is also the second time I am painting on yellow flowers. The first one I painted a few years back was an epic fail. I had no clue how to do the shadow in yellow flowers and after reading the watercolor forum discussion in wetcanvas that yellow flowers are difficult to paint, I lost all the motivation to paint yellow flowers. In fact I avoided painting any yellow flowers that catch my fancy. I used to drool over the yellow floral paintings of other successful water colorists. Over the years, I learned from online that you can use colors like green, burnt sienna, burnt umber, yellow ochre  and even purple in shadow areas. I used a few of these colors in the shadow areas of this painting. I am pretty much happy with the outcome.I used lampblack in this painting too.

I am not really crazy about the support I am using. It seems there is not much sizing on the Strathmore 500 Series. The water I laid down in the first wash dried up pretty fast. So I had to do wet on dry most of the time. I am not going to buy this support anymore. Usually I like to do a controlled wet on wet wash. So far Arches is still the winner for me.

Thread Spools in a Creamer

This painting is done for the Challenge # 33 of the Rookie Painter blog.  This is also the first time I am bravely using lamp black for a painting. From this challenge, I have learned that we can successfully use tube black paint in watercolor IF we know exactly what we are doing. The most important thing is never use the black paint directly onto the painting. It must always be layered over another color and then glazed to get the desired value. The slopping on the black paint directly will give you a dull, lifeless black; especially if the black pigment you are using is semi-transparent. I am not aware of any transparent black pigment and maybe this does not apply if the black pigment is opaque. Any watercolorist who have played around with black paint is welcome to comment here. Using lamp black for this painting has opened me to the possibilities of using it in my future paintings. For that I am so eager to try out and learn.

Almost 8 by 10 inches on Strathmore 500 watercolor paper