Yesterday I kayaked on the Charles River for the first time this year. It’s tricky to paint in a boat, a little tippy and the paint is bound to run. But fun. I put a little ink on top of the paint when I got home.
First Kayak of 2020
Month: May 2020
Kara & Tonka
This commissioned painting, based on a photo, was a real challenge. The woman who hired me wanted a birthday present for her sister Kara, whose beloved cat Tonka recently died. Skin tones are always tough, and portraying an animal who was mostly one color, while giving the illusion of three-dimensionality, is another challenge. It was fun though.
Please know that I make commissioned paintings, and 50% of everything I earn this year will support voter registration efforts in swing states. Information here.
Garden Close-Up
My friend Betsy is a landscape designer. Sitting in her gorgeous garden last week, I tried more watercolor painting on Yupo paper, which produces interesting textures. Fun!
Something New
The Newton Watercolor Society is learning together via Zoom every week, and last week Chetana taught us about painting on Yupo paper. Yupo is not absorbent, and it produces a lot of different textures you can’t achieve on absorbent cotton watercolor paper. Painting on Yupo (this scene was out of my imagination) was fun, different, and required giving up some control. What do you think of this approach?
Faces
Faces are so interesting, aren’t they? We spend our lives looking at them, interpreting them, reacting to them. This drawing was inspired by a photo I found on Flickr. Fun to translate it from a photo to pencil, pen and ink.
Tulips
Finally! New England is really coming into its own this week. Soon the southern part of the country, of which we have been jealous for a couple of months, will start to envy us; we will be spending all our time outdoors, not stuck in air conditioning. The warblers are flying through, the orioles are singing, and the trees and flowers are bursting after the cool wet spring. Gorgeous weather at last!
Sketching Indoors
We’re all spending a lot of time at home, and sketching is a fun thing to do. Try it! I draw first with pen or pencil, and then apply watercolors; you could use crayons, markers, whatever you have. Take the pressure off and don’t worry if it’s messy or the lines are wrong — so what? It’s just a piece of paper, not an SAT test. Here’s my sketch of our family room, and the real thing.
Flowers and Shadows
Can you tell where this cluster of flowers ends and where its shadow begins? Choosing to paint the shadow in green, rather than gray, makes it hard to tell. It was fun painting it though.
People in b&w
Last week I discovered Flickr as a source of photos to draw from. I started a new sketchbook, planning to fill it up with faces and people, using only black, white and gray from pencils, pens and waterbrushes. Fun and challenging!
Thank you for supporting hungry people!
I am grateful to those who generously donated to my (virtual this year) 40th Walk for Hunger, enabling me to raise over $8,000! Many of you have supported me for years, and this year, you helped me set a new record, making me the seventh highest Walker! Thank you!
Your donations will fill the shelves of the 400 food pantries and soup kitchens supported by the Walk, providing groceries for the 38% of Massachusetts residents who are now “food insecure” (up from 8% just two months ago). If you haven’t had a chance to donate and would like to, here is the link to my personal Walk page. Here’s my sketch, which the Walk is using as its logo.
