Summer Painting

These long summer days certainly encourage my painting. I have done more painting in the last few weeks than I have in many years. Most recently I pulled out an old painting of some irises that I had removed unfinished from the stretcher board for some reason. After painting in the foliage background, I decided that the sky looked rather plain, so I got out my painter's tape and began painting in subtle stripes. It took some guts to start doing this, as it could have meant the demise of an otherwise promising painting. I actually felt kind of nauseous after doing the first stripe. But in the end, it really added some zip to the composition. It has the same kind of poster quality as my old favorite, the calla lilies. In fact, I sold it right after posting it on Facebook. Perhaps I should specialize in this flower/stripe composition.


One thing I should learn, though, is to paint to standard frame sizes. This iris painting will have to be custom framed, and, because of it's size, it won't be cheap. But that will be my buyer's problem as he chose to buy it unframed.

What?!! Not accepted!

I guess it is not so easy to get your art into the fair. Neither of my paintings was accepted by the jury judge, some Joan Moment who is a professor at Sac State. I suppose I shouldn't be so surprised as there were over a thousand entries and only about a dozen watercolors could be accepted. But I'm not used to rejection when it comes to my art. I keep imagining this judge looking at my technique with disdain. Or maybe thinking my subject matter is so old-fashioned.

So I signed up for a watercolor class at SCC for the summer. Unfortunately, I am 5th on the waiting list, so I may be disappointed. But I'll be there with my fingers crossed on July 7th.

Also, dear readers (if there are any of you out there), that rose painting turned out rather well in the end, so I am going to post it. I like the fuzziness of the lower petals quite well.

The Frustrations of Watercolor Painting

It's spring break. The deadline for entering art in the California State Fair is April 23, so I've been painting. I spent three days working on a watercolor from a photo I took at Table Mountain, and today I was nearly finished. But the wash I'd done for the sky was nearly colorless, so I decided to redo it. Bad idea! First the trees I'd already finished began bleeding into the sky. I decided to leave a bank of clouds behind the scene to avoid this problem. Then the wash I was doing for the sky had a white blemish, probably from my fingerprints from handling the block. I tried to patch the white blemish unsuccessfully. Then I tried to do a wash on the clouds to add some shadows, but they came out too heavy, so I attempted to scrub and blot them. That didn't work well, so I used a little sandpaper, which left an unsightly texture on the cloud. Next I tried to erase over the sanded area, and a whole chunk of paper came off. I don't think the painting is salvageable anymore. I certainly don't want people at the fair thinking, "This artist doesn't even know how to do a wash!"

Aaah, the frustrations of working in watercolor! I think I have no choice but to start over. Baaaah!