Category: Windsor-Newton

Get to Work

And now to get back in business, I started the next watercolor painting last night after the kitchen was cleaned up. Mind you, I’m juggling too many apples right now and don’t know how I even managed to walk downstairs to my studio. Some internal messaging was happening. Maybe it’s all the art business classes I’ve been taking? The bad girl inside my head is being knocked down by good intentions I guess.
Keep working!
The to-do list, or task list as we’ve been instructed to call it, had quite a few things on it for yesterday, but I was able to mark each one off and move on. I purchased the tube of paint I wanted and now I can continue. 
There’s no way you can mix colors without the primaries. Nope. I needed a yellow, and I couldn’t remember what my paint was called. Permanent Yellow Light? No. I ended up with a Cadmium Yellow Lemon. 
Okay, I know cadmiums are toxic. I will not be eating the paint.
Also, not thrilled with the latest brushes I purchased. I keep turning back to my old sable Windsor & Newton brushes. When I wet the large Issabey brush and paint with it, it gets mushy. There’s no spring to it. That was a pricey brush even on sale. You can’t try a brush in the store to know how it will respond. So, stuck with it.
Enough drama for today. Time to get to work.

What? Everyone Loves Free Stuff

Yesterday I planned to take a short break while I still was semi free and visit the nearest art supply shop. There are two in my area and both were having sales. One shop sent me a great coupon to take off 40% on a non-sale item. That is huge.

My little artist date started at the office supply store for some stuff I needed to continue working in the Blast Off class. Then I moved on to Dick Blick art supply. I purchased a nice large block of Arches watercolor paper on sale. I needed watercolor paint and chose yellow ochre from Windsor&Newton. Dick Blick didn’t carry MamieriBlu which I’ve been using. Fine.

Afterwards I drove over to Utrecht where the Arches was also on sale, same price. Ok. I found MamieriBlu paints there and bought permanent green light. Sale! I decided I liked the brush selection at Dick Blick better, so that’s for another day.

At the register the manager was fussing with some large sheets of heavy weight paper as I was paying for my paint. He turned to me and asked if I knew what the paper was, because he had no clue and no paperwork for it. What did I know? Was it bristol board? Was it watercolor paper? No idea here.

Then he said, Why don’t you just take it?

Who? Me?

Yes! Happy New Year to you!

I said, Why not? Hey, I will never refuse free paper. I don’t know what it is, but it’s all mine now.
Now if I can only get my butt in gear and use it.

Sunflower Painting is Finished, and What I Learned

It’s Friday and time to show you photos of the latest finished watercolor painting. I had some other fun news to share, but you will have to wait. Painting is happening and the sooner I get this one out of here the easier it will be to get the next one working and I will tell you what was so much fun.
First twenty minutes

There were a few things I learned while painting this work. Firstly, the height of my art table is too high. The dining room table is lower when I painted there, waist level while standing. This was not comfortable and I felt as if I couldn’t get away from it by standing or sitting on a stool. It will need to be lowered if I’m going to paint there.

Secondly, the desk lamp is not natural even though I have a daylight bulb and an incandescent one. It’s just way to bright and also too close to the work to gauge paint colors the way I wanted. I persevered.

Second twenty minutes
The third thing I learned is about the paper. After using Lanaquarelle, then Arches, I can tell the difference in quality. I bought this Canson tablet on sale, it was larger than I was using, and figured it’d come in handy when I was ready to work larger. 
Also it’s a pad, not a block, and if not affixed to a surface it curls and rolls when wet. The painting surface is not that great either, leaving weird brush strokes. Well, I guess it’s okay if you want those brush strokes to show. 
I’m using two different paint companies, MaimeriBlue and Windsor&Newton. When I painted a layer over an area previously painted, the layer beaded up. Was it the paint? Was it the paper? Or does that happen? I thought it was strange.
Blue Vase With Sunflowers ©2011 Dora Sislian Themelis
15×20 Watercolor on Canson paper
After I finished I took photographs while the work was still attached to the table. My problems were the same I had while painting: unnatural and too bright light, too close to get a good shot. I took the painting off the table, went to the dining room table and the nice northern exposure picture window to take a photo. See the difference? Washed out color in artificial light, more true to the paints in natural light.
The fourth thing I learned is that I’m getting comfortable using my photos to paint from. I don’t want to get too cozy because then it’ll take time to get back to painting from life.
I’ll figure it out one of these days. In the meanwhile I’m still in the game. 

The Paints That Annoy

Having time to play with the paints, I thought I would show you the colors I hate in this set. My favorites, Alizarin Crimson and Burnt Sienna, look nothing like what I expect. To remind you, these are MamieriBlu, new to me. I’ve used Grumbacher and Windsor&Newton and never had this problem.

I don’t have any of the other brand of paints or I would show you the differences. However, I think anyone worth their salt can tell the Alizarin Crimson is not how it should be. I think I remember the sales guy saying these paints are the hues of the color. That was after I had already bought and used them. I went back to ask my questions when I figured out the colors were weird. Well, what good is it to me that they’re hues? And the Burnt Sienna? It looks almost like the Yellow Ochre, very little, if any difference.

The other colors are passable. What can I do? A commenter on the 100 Paintings Challenge said Go buy new paints and move on! I’m not quoting verbatim, just the general concept. I’m inclined to agree. This is so annoying. And she named these paints The Paints That Annoy. I love it!

With that, I used The Paints That Annoy and painted. That apple is done. Over. Kaput. I moved the items around once more and painted them without the stupid apple.

I allowed myself the twenty minutes I’ve been having success with and stopped. It’s a little smooshy, but not horrible. Getting away from the apple helped since I didn’t have to use much of the reds. The Paints That Annoy are going to have to keep company with paints I can rely on. Time to shop!

Moving On To The Next Thing

After I had my lovely beach day a little while back, right now it feels as if it was a year ago, I decided to look over some of the photos I took in my garden and elsewhere.  Some of those photos stand on their own as photographs.  Did I really need to work them up as paintings?  Some of them just didn’t feel right at that moment.  None of the landscapes were pulling me in.

Then I printed out the hydrangea photos I took in the summer when they were at the height of deep blue color.  I even flipped the photos upside down to see if a spark would come.  Well, I did feel something click and I sketched out the big petals into some kind of composition.

I lightly painted in some shadows on the petals and went in darker with the background.  I’m still using the MaimeriBlu watercolor paints and not so sure I’m that thrilled with them.  The colors are not the same as the Windsor & Newton paints I have used in the past.  So I can’t even tell you which blues I dipped my brush into.  I’m just going on instinct and mixing and applying to the paper, which I’m enjoying working with.  Thanks to my artist/blogger friends’ suggestions, the Arches paper is making a difference in my work, but I haven’t been able to get going on this piece.

Shall I rant about now?  Why not.

The new baby excitement has calmed down and all is well in that area.  OK.  The idiot light in my studio went out a while back and hasn’t turned on again since.  Has it finally decided to quit?  Just watch when I call the electrician to fix it, the thing will light.  Isn’t that how it always is?

There’s my issue with the watercolor paints, as I mentioned above.  Not that happy with them, but spent the money and now I have to use them up.  When I think about it I feel discouraged.  Move on!

Then there’s the technology thing.  On the old PC I knew how to change the size of my photos, enhance the colors, etc.  Now with this iMac things are a little different and it just takes me longer to get what I want out of the photos, and from the computer.  Cut/paste, new tabs, skipping around looking for help, more to learn.  It’s tiring.

Rant over.  Time to get on with it.