Watercolor - My Lake II

Painted this today with my friend Brian.

18" x 12"

I really do love living away from the city. It is inconvenient at times, but everyday, I hear birds singing. I breathe clean, fresh air, wildflowers blanket my yard. I see small clues of the presence of wildlife that have come and gone. My dogs live an untethered existence. We used to have to drive to dog parks, but now they live in their own private one! It makes me happy because I believe I am giving them the best life possible. What could be more satisfying to a dog lover?

Hope you had a fun visit!

watercolor - panda with kids

This was a difficult painting for me. It's large, 18" x 24" which is a task in and of itself, plus a lot of bad luck happened along the way. The sketch of it got peed upon by my incontinent cat. The first attempt at painting it resulted in failure and depression, and at last and alas, I think this is the best I can do. I only see everything that's wrong with it. I don't want to give it another try though, because as E from the Incredibles says, "I don't look back darling, it distracts from the now."
Maybe since you, my visitor, didn't paint this picture, maybe you don't notice everything wrong with it that I see, and maybe you will even like it. I hope so! :) I hope my efforts are worth at least a smile from you?

the process:

I think the painting looks best at step 2. It all went downhill from there :(

the sketch:

I tried a bunch of new things with this painting. Warm background instead of cool, cool foreground instead of warm. The biggest challenge are the large expanses of dark washes. I am starting to hit watercolor's biggest limitation. Its inability to get a very large dark wash in one hit (alla prima). In order to do large washes, you need a lot of water. In order to make the value really dark, you need a lot of pigment. Lots of water to make things flow dilutes the pigments, therefore, you can't get a really dark wash in one hit. And unfortunately, getting the values right in one hit is a style I hate to abandon. It's one of the ways that make watercolors look loose and spontaneous, as opposed to the glazing technique.

Until next post!
Tiffanny

AVAA - Michelle

Decided to give Conte crayons another try. I had big problems with Conte before because of my odd way of gripping a pencil. I would grip it in such a way that I couldn't see what I was drawing - my hand would be in the way, engulfing the little conte stick. Well, I got a pencil holder for it, so now I can see what I was doing. What a difference it makes (obviously)!

less than 30 minutes...

15 minutes

10 minutes

5 minutes

And that's it!

In other news, 9 hours from now I take my citizenship test to become a bonefide American. I can't wait!

Tiffanny

Watercolor - McKinney Falls State Park

18" x 12"

These are the lower falls of McKinney Falls State Park. They are not as dramatic as the upper falls area, but there are more people, which makes it more fun to paint.

Naked Lunch - Chelsea

I wish there was a Naked Lunch session every week. Nothing sharpens you drawing skills like short-duration gesture drawing.
The premise of Naked Lunch is short poses, 7 minutes and less.

7 minutes...

(She was wearing a rubber dino mask and a chef's hat on this pose... I thought I had to say in in case you were thinking... What the?!)

(The model was good at projecting the right attitude that matches the pose)

3 minutes...

(The dino mask, again...)

1 minute...

Looking forward to the next session,
Tiffanny

Watercolor - Two Kids on an Alpaca

I have been trying to paint this picture for a while. I've had the concept in my head for some time now and I've done sketches but haven't taken it to finish until today. I am really disappointed in the way my camera takes this picture. It just doesn't look right! It definitely looks better in real life.

 Here is the painting process:

This is the revised sketch. Originally, the two kids were on the Alpaca together, but my husband felt like there needed to be a foreground. He's SO right, and I'm glad he was around to point that out before I started painting.

The original concept.

Well, I hope you had fun seeing the painting and process.
Until next time!
Tiffanny

Watercolor Sketchbook - McKinney Falls State Park

Spent a day painting at McKinney Falls State Park. These are small, around 5" x 8"
The first painting is my friend Brian, painting away:

Fun day. I love making tiny paintings. I'm more impressed with really large paintings, but tiny paintings are more relaxing to make because they don't take long, and on lookers can't really see what you're doing unless they're really close up, so you can feel like you're in your private world.

Bye now, I'm working on the next painting!

Watercolor Sketchbook - Sargent Study at the MFAH

Went to the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston with some friends today! Specifically to visit the Sargent exhibit there. His paintings are jaw-dropping. No photo of the paintings does it justice. At the gift shop, we marveled at how bad the prints looked after seeing the original. Cameras have such bad color accuracy in the blue range.

Anyway, I was able to do a quick watercolor sketch before a docent came and told me that only crayons are allowed for coloring. I couldn't match the sky color well, its not as dark as I depicted...

Here are quick pen sketches of people admiring the artwork. It also shows a sense of scale of the painting.

I really admire John Singer Sargent's paintings. I hope to see the original paintings again someday.

My husband surprised me with a book of his Sargent's Venetian paintings when we got home! (He sneaked off while I was painting). He bought me that book because it was mostly watercolors, which is what I'm consumed with trying to master now. Sargent really cuts loose with watercolors, because he considered them to be studies. I think it's in the watercolors that you can really see the way he thinks.

Agent Vs Nemesis - Henchmen Sketch

At the beginning of this year, I did a little animation called Agent Vs Nemesis

A Nemesis should have a bunch of trusty henchmen, paid minimum wage, but ready and willing to die for your evil plan. Here are some suckers who joined N.E.M.E.S.I.S.

AVAA - Stephanie

25 minutes...

20 minutes...

15 minutes...

Hope you had fun checking out my figure drawing!
Tiffanny

Watercolor - My Lake

I love country living. Some friends and I painted my lake today. I love living in Texas. The land is so cheap. How can a video game artist like me have land like this otherwise?