A long time in finishing

"Thoughtful"
14" x 18"
Watercolor on Arches 300# hot press

Not much art happening here since attending the Ted Nuttal workshop, and that's been tough because I am all fired up to do figures. We are in the final preparation stage for our East Coast tandem bike tour. You can read about this pre-tour work in our journal. If you care to keep up with our tour, we update the journal daily, unless wifi or a hotel/library computer is unavailable. In a future post, I will show you my little art supply bag for the trip. I hope to capture local color, landscapes, and people along our route in small sketches or watercolors.

I finally finished a piece I started of granddaughter Jamie towards the end of the workshop. Part of the challenge was correcting errors in my hasty drawing. (Ted emphasized the importance of a very accurate drawing and boy, is he right). I put the lovely Arches 300 pound hot press paper to the test. Using the original Mr. Clean Magic Erase, I was able to relocate almost all the features on Jamie's face. You can check out the before correction piece here. I felt much better about making the change after reading Myrna Wacknov's recent post. Ah, if I could create art like she does!

The source photo goes back to a July visit by my son Jeff's family from their Vermont home. Jamie and her mom were sitting on the cement patio using their laptops amidst the laundry we had hung on the pullout clothesline. Jamie was obviously deep in thought and did not attempt to look like a model in this shot. Because Ted focused mainly on faces, I decided to crop the piece, but sometime I want to do a "Social Networking" piece, and perhaps include the laundry. I think of friend Hallie who would surely give the piece an unusual twist.

I used Ted's approach with multiple layers of very thin transparent color that is not necessarily the expected color. I worked from a black and white copy of the photo, and the colors of Jamie's clothes are different than the original . I included some of Ted's "sloppy dots" in the hair and clothing. I mainly worked on this piece the last two Thursday night gatherings of our South Side Art Club (all 5 of us!). My fellow artists were a great help with their critiques. I almost gave up on the piece, but they encouraged me to push on. I always learn so much when I see something through to the finish. I am debating whether I want to add more alternating layers of transparent warm and cool colors in the background, alla Ted Nuttal.

My next piece, on the dawing board now, is a revisit of Kelly playing the flute with Grandpa Bob. You can see a couple earlier pieces I did here, where you can see a preliminary sketch and my reference phot, and here, where you can see my transparent acrylic. This time I am painting both Kelly and Bob and I consulted with Ted Nuttal on how to crop. He explained that with two people you have be careful they don't separate into two individual pieces. He was pleased that I had overlapping shapes. He suggested cropping Bob's flute on the right, and Kelly's sash on her dress on the left. He made one other suggestion that at this time I don't dare try -- including a part of a dining chair in front. Hallie would surely have thought of it and that never occured to me. One of my fellow artists likes the various rectangular shapes of art on the wall and the patio door, but at this time I don't plan to include them.