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.
Looking forward to seeing this! On my Mac, I use photoshop elements and really like it- pretty easy. Were you using Microsoft photo editor? I had that on my pc and loved it!
Sheryl
this is looking very promising, Dora. I’m looking forward to seeing where it goes.
Electrics – can be a nightmare – especially an intermittent fault. What if you got a daylight lamp? Birthday coming up, hubby need a hint? 😆
Photoshop elements is the one I decided on when my Windows Live died. PS is cool. 🙂