This is a series of images captured while doing a recent water color, starting with my studio (also know as the island in the kitchen) setup. This painting was done on a half-sheet of Saunders Waterford 140# Rough paper with Winsor & Newton and Daniel Smith artist colors. (Cerulean, French Ultramarine, Raw Sienna, Burnt Sienna, Aureolin, Perm. Alizarin Crimson, and Cadmium Red Medium.
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I have only recently started using mop brushes, and did so as a way to force myslef to loosen up. Actually, if you look back at my most recent paintings you may notice a style break when I received a #8 Raphael Squirrel mop. Great brush, but huge, and not to mention, expensive.
The more tutorials I watched, the more I saw smaller and smaller mops being used. After a lot of research, I thought I wanted Princeton Neptune synthetic squirrel mops in the smaller sizes, but then I stumbled on Cheap Joe's synthetic mops moments before I bought the Neptunes. Good price, the right sizes, great guarantee, and I have long been a fan of Cheap Joe's, so I gave them a whirl. I bought the #0, #2, and #6 all at once for about half of my single Raphael #8. Here is the best part: they are fantastic. They hold a lot of water/paint, and have a little more spring than natural squirrel. They point well and feel good in my hand. The only complaint that I have is I haven't yet mastered controlling the ammount of water in the brush, leading to some puddling. I have recently become quite enamored with the artwork and style of Tim Wilmot. Tim has a looseness in his work that I find inviting, but very difficult to pull off. I pored over all of Tim's videos on his YouTube channel. After watching the below video of his, I was inspired to create the above painting. I have been doing business with Fountain, Parker, Harbarger for many years. However, it was not until last year that I ever visited their office. The first thing you notice once you get inside is that the walls are covered with paintings of their building. Done in all styles and mediums, it is amazing to see the different interpretations of the building. I was inspired by my visit to create a couple of small Line and Wash paintings of the building, of which one is represented above. As with most of my paintings, they simply go on the pile with other finished paintings, likely to never be seen again. However, I showed a copy to the owners of FPH and offered to give both to them if they wanted. They accepted (I assumed to spare my feelings) and framed and hung both on their wall in their conference room amongst, in my opinion, many superior interpretations. In the pictures above, my paintings are the top in each photo.
As it turns out, each year FPH commissions a local artist to paint the building in any style they choose, to be used as their Christmas card cover, and the original is framed and hung in the office. I was notified the other day that FPH intends to use one of my paintings (the one shown at the beginning of this post) as the 2016 Christmas Card cover. I am honored to have been selected. The genesis of this website was not to sell anything. It was instead part of a volunteer effort. You see, I am a member of Rotary International, and my local club participates on a lot of community efforts and activities. At a recent club meeting, I was sort of volunteered to paint a 6' x 4' Christmas Card for the Christmas Card Lane project of the local Arts Council. As part of the entry into Christmas Card Lane, there is a required Artist Bio which asks for, among other things, an artist website. So that I could fill out that box, I created this.
As I have been painting for a while, I will post some things that are obviously older than this post, but I had to start somewhere. This is where. |
AuthorMy art is like a box of chocolates. About 95% of it is filled with something distasteful, but once in a while, I actually paint one that I like. Archives
September 2017
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