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From now on, blivets.com will remain a repository for whatever I (Steve) decide is worth writing about, but everything art-related will end up on collinsartworks.com.
]]>I also removed all comments from each painting, with the exception of title, dimensions, paper used and year painted. It seemed more fitting to let each painting speak for itself.
]]>I also removed all comments from each painting, with the exception of title, dimensions, paper used and year painted. It seemed more fitting to let each painting speak for itself.
]]>Specifically, I posted six of my most recent paintings, four self-portraits and two landscapes. For Sherry, I posted three recent paintings and four earlier works that I somehow neglected to post previously.
Links to our painting collection pages can be found in the "Links" section of my home page.
]]>Here's the link: Sherry's Collected Watercolors
On a fairly regular basis, as she finishes more paintings, I plan to add them to the collection.
]]>Here's the link: Collected Watercolors
Again, I highly recommend JAlbum. If you have any interest in a tool for generating HTML photo albums, check out their site
]]>In about two hours flat, she came up with this:
Thunder Hole, 140# cold press, 12x16
Keep in mind that this girl hasn't touched watercolors since 3rd grade. Also, she has no formal art training, except for art classes in high school.
All I can add is that I'm dying to see what she comes up with next.
]]>First, I haven't painted a portrait of anyone since the early 1970s.
Second, painting a portrait of a child is significantly more difficult than a portrait of an adult, largely because a child has a much simpler form, with fewer markers for establishing a likeness.
Third, he was lying on his back with one foot shoved in his mouth and the other foot bunched in his fist, so getting the foreshortening right seemed like a major problem.
Fourth, because Jerry is a member of the family, everyone who's likely to see the portrait knows what he looks like, meaning that it's that much more important to get it right.
Finally, I picked rough 300# watercolor paper, which was a surface I haven't used before.
In practice, I found that my greatest difficulty was in getting the initial drawing right, which I had to do five times before I felt satisfied enough to begin painting.
Anyway, here's the painting:
Jerimiah, 300# rough, 11x17
]]>"4 paintings created that will hang together as a group, but not as a single piece, using one of the following themes as an impetus: A Notable Absence; The Location of Inspiration; Color Falls Out of a Window; First Thing This Morning."
Sherry and I both decided to go with "The Location of Inspiration" as our theme, largely because of the impact of the colored pencil workshop we attended in early August. We both created four images based on photographs we took during the workshop. Here are Sherry's, in the order in which they were painted:
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And here are mine, again in the order in which they were painted:
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Sherry and I attended an art workshop at the Acadia Workshop Center in Southwest Harbor, Maine, from July 31, 2005 to August 7, 2005. The subject was colored pencil, a medium I hadn't taken seriously until quite recently. The workshop ran fulltime from Monday through Friday, with a mix of instuction, assignments and critiques. Most of our days were spent drawing outside (plein air) at various sites on the island.
As a small testament to the diverse natural beauty of the island, the excellent instruction by Kat O'Connor (http://www.katopaints.com), the great job done by Gail, Laurie, Dave and Vickie and family at the Acadia Workshop Center (http://www.acadiaworkshopcenter.com/Index.html) and the great group of fellow students, I offer my collection of photos and drawings through this set of links.
The Photos
It marked the first time in my life that I took the idea of watercolor seriously. All of my past experience with it involved using it to add color to pen and ink drawings. Using it as the primary media in a painting was something I'd never considered.
The class flew by, and I loved every minute of it. I rediscovered how fulfilling and enjoyable painting can be, and was delighted to find that I didn't care whether or not I was any good. It was more than enough to simply do my best as I went along.
Other than some exercises and a few odds and ends, I produced five reasonably complete paintings.
The first involved two steps. First, I was asked to mix ten colors of my choosing, which resulted in this:
Next, I was asked to pick four of the ten colors and paint a version of a reference image using those colors. Here's the reference image:
And here's the painting I made of it, using the first two colors of the first row, and the first and last colors in the second row:
My next painting, which I have mixed feelings about, is an abstract rendering of a photograph of some vines against a stone wall. It represented my first attempt at working in glazes.
Next was an exercise in using various texturing techniques (salt, frisket, alcohol, sandpaper, etc.). The subject was the window near our kitchen table, with colors changed to make it more interesting.
The last assignment was basically impossible, and that was to copy a master. I chose a painting of a fountain done by John Singer Sargent:
My version did come out better than I expected, but I have to admit two things. First, I couldn't match his colors perfectly in several cases. Second, Sargent's incredible brushwork was totally beyond me. So what took him one or two strokes of the brush took me dozens to arrive at a similar effect.
Note that the colors appear even more off than they really are because of how I made the image (photograph taken of the image in its frame).
Anyway, I signed up for the same class for the fall and am looking forward to another challenging and rewarding time.
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Since these pictures were taken, I added a Buck Diamond grille, a chrome gas cap, a pair of Mazdaspeed license plate frames, and a set of Miata valve stems.
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For additional information about the Mazdaspeed Miata, visit the Mazda web site
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