Author: Lynn Holbein

Tulips, Two Media

The difference between watercolor and acrylics (or oil, which is similar to acrylics but dries more slowly and isn’t water soluble) are shown by these two paintings. Note the difference in transparency vs. opacity and delicacy vs. richness. In watercolor white is the white of the paper, because it’s transparent you can’t paint a light on top of a dark, and it’s hard to correct mistakes. Whereas in acrylics you can paint white on top of black and repaint endlessly. I’ve been painting watercolor for 20 years, but just started acrylics six months ago, and I love them both. Which do you prefer?

Brooklyn Brownstones

This is the Brooklyn brownstone where our granddaughter Maggie, now 1 1/2, spent her first year. If you look closely you can see Maggie, our daughter-in-law Eva and son Andrew in the second floor window. Because there was so much detail, I used watercolor pencils as well as watercolor paint.

House portraits make great Christmas gifts. If you would like to commission one, please let me know soon. Information is here.

15-Minute Portrait

Painting faces is intimidating, because it’s so easy to get “the most carefully studied 22-square inches in the universe” wrong. Since I took a portrait workshop in September, it has been easier. The Newton Watercolor Society hires models every other Friday morning, who sit for a series of short poses. This is my result today of one of the 15 minute poses. I see some mistakes, but believe me, 15 minutes goes by quickly.

Striking Portrait

This is the first facial portrait I’ve done without a teacher. Because we know the human face so well, it’s challenging, but also rewarding when you produce a reasonable likeness.

Original watercolor 10″ x 14″ $195.

Ramen Noodle Shop

In New York last weekend, we had delicious bowls of soup at a ramen noodle shop. It was fun to eat and sketch. When you compare the sketch with the photo, you can see I took a lot of liberties, especially with the signs and walls, which were mostly neutrals. I paint because I love color.

Central Park

This weekend I visited my friend Jeff, the grandson of my mother’s best friend, who is 26 and a graduate student in New York studying how to assist in international humanitarian crises. Saturday was a beautiful fall day and we spent time in Central Park. I spent a wonderful half hour sketching the view across a pond.

Watercolor sketchbook 8″ x 10″.

My Eye

I’ve felt stuck lately in my art. Just not excited. I poked around on the web and saw a painting someone made of their own eye. Decided to try it and, while I was painting, I felt that sense of delight and “flow” that is so sought after. It’s elusive and short-lived, but that’s why we create.

Acrylic on board, 6″ x 6″.

Red Tulips

Having fun learning the ins and outs of acrylics. The transparency of watercolor is magical, but acrylics offer such vivid colors.

Original Acrylic Painting on Board, 6″ x 6″, $80.

Your Dog or Cat

Portraits of a dog or cat (or bunny or hamster or …) make a great present for yourself or someone else, especially for birthdays or Christmas. If you’d like to memorialize your animal companion, get information by clicking here.

Girl with Ice Cream

This is the last painting I made in the portrait workshop I took a few weeks ago. It took a lot of redrawing and correcting, especially to get the arm on the left and the hands right. Next week I’m going to try to paint a portrait on my own, without a teacher. Wish me luck!

Watercolor 16″ x 20″.

Painting a Face

I painted this in the workshop I took a couple of weeks ago, from a photo the teacher provided. It was challenging. A lot of time and erasing just to get the underlying pencil drawing. Doubt I would have had the courage to tackle it on my own.

Drawing a Face

“The most carefully studied 22 square inches in the universe,” is how the human face is described. Faces are intimidating to draw because we know them so well, and can detect the slightest distortion. But there are simple guides online to help you; here is one. The most surprising fact is that the eyes are at the halfway point between the crown of the head and the chin. Here’s my pencil sketch of a photograph I found on the internet. The placement of shadows shows that the light is coming from the right. It helps to have a good eraser!

Painting Children

One of the secrets of drawing people or other subjects is measuring one part of the body or subject against the rest. For instance, the average adult is seven heads tall. But a toddler is only four heads tall. This child is about five heads tall, so he looks maybe eight or nine years old. (For more info, click here.)

Painting People

All this week I’ve been stretching my mind seven hours a day trying to learn to paint human portraits from Eudes Correia, a fabulous painter and workshop leader. Luckily, we’ve been painting strangers from photographs, instead of people we actually know, but still my brain is sore from all the exercise.

Watercolor 16″ x 20″.

A Painting of Your House

House portraits make great gift for yourself, or a birthday, anniversary or holiday present for others. They are a good memento of a past or current house, or a holiday cottage. Prints and notecards can be made for others in the family. Thank you, Amy, for letting me post my painting of your house. For more information, click here. 

Watercolor, matted 16″ x 20″.

Sandy Island

Every year since our children were small we have been blessed to spend the last week of each summer at Sandy Island, a YMCA Family Camp which occupies an entire small island in the middle of Lake Winnipesaukee, N.H. The same people return the same week each year, and there are lots of wonderful activities in a beautiful natural setting. We love it, and this week has been great. Here is my painting of the dining hall, where meals are served family style.

11″ x 14″ matted prints $50.

Sun-Ripened

Channeling my Mom (may she rest in peace) who loved nothing more in life than a summer tomato sandwich with mayonnaise, salt and pepper. I had to paint this one before I allowed myself to eat it.

Original acrylic on Masonite, 6″ x 6″, $80.

Zinnias

I took an acrylics workshop this weekend from Lisa Daria Kennedy, an excellent teacher. It was frustrating and fun. Here’s the one painting of this beautiful bouquet that I felt reasonably satisfied with.

Grizzly Mom and Two Cubs

The animal most tourists want to see in national parks is the grizzly bear, and we were lucky enough to see them twice in our July trip. The first time was in Grand Teton, where a herd of elk were grazing in a meadow a half mile from our lodge. One evening, two grizzlies came out of the woods and began chasing the elk. The chase went back and forth across the meadow for nearly an hour before the grizzlies, winded, gave up. 

The second glimpse was in Yellowstone and is captured in this brief video (click here) of a mother and two cubs in the woods, causing a line of cars to stop. If you watch it carefully, you will see the motionless mother, the cub on the left, and at the last second, another cub moving in from the right. At that point, I stopped filming because a tourist (in search of the perfect photo) moved down the embankment toward the bears, and the mother got nervous and began moving toward the tourists. Luckily, at that moment, the park rangers, lights flashing, pulled up to save the tourists from themselves, no doubt for the umpteenth time.  

This is my last sketch from this trip, I hope you have enjoyed them.

Old Faithful Erupts

Yellowstone’s Old Faithful geyser is so named because it can be counted on to erupt every 90 minutes or so. We were lucky enough to see two such eruptions. On the July day when we were there, a crowd of perhaps 1,000 people watched from the nearby boardwalk. Below is my sketch, and click here to see my 30 second video of the second eruption we saw. The park ranger said it was an unusually dramatic one.

Prairie Dog’s Cousin

This little guy, found throughout Yellowstone and Grand Teton National Parks, is misleadingly named a “ground squirrel,” when he’s actually not a squirrel at all, but rather a smaller relation of a prairie dog. He has to keep on his toes (literally), as he’s the number one prey of the rough-legged hawks who soar above the sagebrush where he builds his (or her) extensive burrows.

Yellowstone River’s Grand Canyon

We have returned from our 10 day trip to Grand Teton and Yellowstone, but I am still painting from my photos and memories, and look forward to sharing them with you over the coming couple of weeks. This sketch was done sitting on the rocks overlooking “Artist’s Point” at Yellowstone’s Grand Canyon. Click here for a quick video that Bruce took of the actual scene. You can see I’ve taken some artistic license.

Bison Greeter

Just as we entered Grand Teton National Park, we were greeted by this furry fellow. We stayed inside our car, as everyone has been warned to do, and as he got closer he lowered his head, not to charge us, but to rub it in a clump of sagebrush. Click here to see my 30 second video of our encounter.

Grand Teton National Park

We have come to the Rockies for ten days to visit family in Provo, Utah, and then Grand Teton and Yellowstone National Parks. The Grand Teton range is awe-inspiring, especially for us New Englanders for whom 5,000 feet is a big mountain. We are staying at Jackson Lake Lodge, elevation 6,400, with this view of Grand Teton, elevation 13,700 feet. The conspicuous patches of snow are small glaciers.

Homegrown Tomatoes

We are entering what was, when she was alive, my mother’s favorite time of year. Ripe red homegrown tomatoes, perfect for a sandwich or salad. The hard pink store-bought kind never cut it with my mother. She found the best farmsteads around, and brought it tomatoes home a couple of times a week. Plus fresh corn with salt and butter. Salivating just remembering.

Opposites Attract

Orange and blue are opposites on the color wheel. They make each other sing. This watercolor is wet-on-wet, wet paint on wet paper so the colors bleed into each other. If you want a precise and controlled painting, you work on dry paper and don’t let wet colors touch.

Chicken Exercises

Not sure what to expect with that title?

Painters often do exercises like this, and the chickens are a fun twist. In watercolor, when an area of wet paint touches another wet area, the colors naturally mix together (which isn’t true with oil or acrylics). Keeping a chart like this helps to know how colors will look when they blend.

Magic Moments

We have two grandchildren, Maggie, age 1, who is trying hard to master the art of walking, and Lila, age 13, who visited us last week (by herself for the first time) from Chapel Hill. It was magical to paint together — Lila painted this lovely abstract — and reading together — the same book!

Pastel Landscape

This little landscape was made with pastels, as medium I don’t use often. Yellow and purple are opposites on the color wheel (like red & green, and blue & orange), so the combination “pops.”

Happy Summer!

It’s the longest day of the year, and the first day of summer. Time to break out our sandals. Here’s loose sketch of my green Teva’s on our red and green rug.

Rooster in New Orleans

In New Orleans near where our son lives, there is a rooster who makes it his job to wake up the neighborhood, often getting loose and patrolling the streets to make sure everyone can hear him. Here is my photo of him, and a drawing using watercolor pencils.

In New Orleans

We are in New Orleans visiting our son Andrew, daughter-in-law Eva and year-old granddaughter Maggie. They moved from Brooklyn to New Orleans in April. Here’s a quick sketch at a nearby cafe. And Maggie’s solution to beating the 90 degree heat is to sit in her kiddie pool, drinking smoothies.