I just can't say enough good about our sweet little town!  Population 1200 - and heart the size of Texas!  Here is the 4th of July parade - so many people participating and so many enjoying watching!  Love it!!!

OK - I'm happier with this one!   I'm using Fabriano Artistico 140 lb paper - I'm thinking I like the Arches Hot Press 140 lb much better - and the very painstaking process of many many layers and lots of water as taught by Susan Harrison Tustain.  It's time to give up the speed and go for the quality.  I have 2 more Indian paintings from the Occoneechee Pow Wow that I will finish using my various old teachings - the next two flower paintings will be much better quality. 

This sweet little girl stole everyone's heart at the Pow Wow.  So dainty and graceful.

Rather a slow start - but I'm happy with the feathers so far and his shirt!  Lots more to go, but another fun one.  This Indian danced with his Soul.  I really enjoyed watching him and all his purposeful moves!  I'm playing with wet on wet, but not as effective on cold press paper as hot press.  Upward and Onward!!! 

Sometimes I feel like I'm coloring in a coloring book when I paint - getting the basic colors down where they belong until it begins to take form.  That's the stage this is at - the next parts are fun when you get to bring it to life - define the shapes within the shapes better, and the greatest part is putting in the face and hands to really make him come to life!  Happy with where it's at so far - and love the background as taught by Laurie Goldstein-Warren!

I think I'm finished with this second Oconneechee Pow Wow dancer.  I like how his face came out - the clothes could have had a little sharper contrast between highlights and darkest areas, but that can only improve as I go forward!  The third Indian dancer is just beginning.  LOTS of fringe on him - and bells - he couldn't sneak up on anyone, that's for sure!  He was very confident, and so serious!!! 

I'm trying to be more careful about creating fabric with at least 3 shades/values and no harsh lines - an ongoing lesson for me.  I'm anxious to do the skintones and start bringing him to life - will focus some more on the fabric first, though! 

With such a large area of white, I wish I would have masked the pure whites and then wet the entire paper and dropped in the primary colors - and then gone for the shading with neutral colors.  Next time!  I loved his costume and his attitude!  Such confidence and such grace.  I hope I captured some of that:

These two pictures were taken at Epcot in Disney World.  I'm not sure what kind of flowers they are, but I really liked them!  I'm doing two at once so I can use the same colors and make more of a "set" - ya never, someone may have a place for 2!  :-)  I'm using Arches 140 lb. hot press paper and Susan Harrison-Tustain's techniques.  Much slower process, but I love how flowers come out! 

Slowly but surely, drop of paint by drop of paint.....doing the backgrounds first so I can really focus on making the flowers spectacular!  That's my theory, anyway!!!

I avoided painting wet on wet my entire watercolor career!  No control where it goes, bleeds where it isn't supposed to, vanishes in thin air!  Well, with Susan's method of priming the paper with water, wait til it no longer shines, prime again and then drop in paint - you do have control - and you can make softer edges, and easily contour shapes.  I like it very much!  Now on the patience side....it's torture to work for so long and have so little to show for it, but in the end it will be worth it!  And I'm loving painting with my old pals Pthalo Blue, Pthalo Green and Alizarin Crimson!  They make such great colors!  For what it's worth, here is today's progress:

This does not look like 6 hours of work, but it is!  Getting closer to working on the actual focal point flowers and hopefully they will come to life!!

There is an old trick....placing red transparency paper over the original source photo and then placing it over your artwork, to see how you are doing on values.  It's amazing!  Ya stare at something for days on end and can't see the forest for the trees, so to speak!  Anyway, I darkened the funky striped things and I think it will make the focal point pop better, once complete.  I played with the first layer of reds - many more to go - and did base coat of yellow on the thingies!  Technical term for the day. 

We're to the half way mark - yay!!!  Still fine-tuning the flower, but I'm loving how it's coming out!  Another day or two and it will be finished and I will fine-tune and finish the other one.  Already planning what to paint next - why can't I just slow down and be in the moment and appreciate each teeny tiny step...type A personality, perhaps??  :-) Here is today's progress:

I have to say this was really fun to paint - just cuz it's so funky!  I have no idea what kind of flowers they are, just that they were on exhibit at Epcot during their International Flower and Garden Show!  What do you think???

This method still feels like paint by number.  I go back and forth, struggling with the pros and cons....look forward to the day when I get to the point that it all just comes together and I don't think about rules and which teacher I'm painting with - I just paint!  It could happen in my lifetime! 

Well, here are the two Epcot flower paintings completed.  I'm still trying new techniques, and if you don't try something new, you never grow.  These will NOT be the best paintings at the Prizery, but they are still fun and different.  I will give them that!!!

It's coming along....but honestly not the way that I hoped it would be.  Many years ago, I took private art lessons from Leia Thompson-Wood in Martinsburg, WV.  She owned a gallery/art supply shop and had, at that time, a 2 year old little girl.  We would paint while Abby would nap and my favorite part was if she would wake up and play with me!  She'd sit on my lap and help me paint.  But what I learned from her Mommy still holds true, and I'm finding myself leaning towards her methods after trying this dot by dot wet/wet stuff.  Leia would start with the lights and then slowly build up on the outer edges - each time going further towards the outside and softening the edges of each layer.  Serves the same purpose, but some how comes out much more clearer and with more depth. 

Oh I feel so much happier painting this next series!  I'm a big facebook fan and have a lot of fun with it since my real estate days and keeping up with my much younger than me clients.  Now it's an art adventure with artists from all over the world, as well as family and friends.  Our Chamber of Commerce posted a copy of one of my paintings that are proudly hanging in the new addition of our library - out of no where - and said folks could buy my art at The Galleria on the Lake.  She talked about my Life on the Lake series of events from Clarksville area year round and it made me remember how much I enjoyed doing those.  A bit of the historical buildings, and focus on people's expressions having fun. 

Here are the first 2 of my next ventures - sketched, masked and underpainted:

First two have next coat of masking on them before I apply the thick backgrounds of prime colors and then use the automizer to turn the edges black.  #3 is a day behind - and this time I gave the background a head start with blue on top, lifted a cloud, and then primary colors for the trees, people and grass.  Skies come out funky when the primary colors show through them!  And the pinks are pretty dark - may have to hit them with stiff brush before applying the next coat.  All in a day's work! 

Not all things work as planned....

I want a separation here of street, curb, grass and sky.  It's going to take another layer or two of grass, curb and street before I can apply the atomizer to create night scene - and that's ok!!!

I didn't use enough water in the paints to keep them wet enough before blending with big brush - and that's OK!  Most of the background will be sprayed with black atomizer and hopefully still have the same effect I am looking for.

Next round of backgrounds - better, but not there yet:

Much happier with the next round of backgrounds!  On the Native American Woman, my atomizer trick didn't do so well to cover the flaws of the first coat.  So I did some pouring - learned thru Linda Baker a long time ago and don't do it very often!  I wish it stayed as bold and beautiful as it was when it was wet, but it came out much better than previous attempt.  I did come in at the end with atomizer on the corners.  Second coat of atomizer on Santa's sleigh painting covered a lot more - had time to do shadow on the street and the street.  And last but not least, I lifted the grass I painted yesterday, wet the entire painting again and added a little more color to the mid ground of trees/mountains and painted a little fence to divide foreground and mid ground.  Not a lot of detail - just suggestion of them in field with hills and sky - much easier to paint than the photo that had hay stacks, trucks, and way too many people that would have all taken away from these four great Native Americans!   I'm getting excited to remove the masking and paint the peeps - but truly must let the backgrounds dry completely. 

Well, here they are with the masking off.  I'm going to finish them separately at this point.  The Indian Woman will need to have all her bells masked so I can effectively do the shadowing on her dress.  Santa et al are going to be pretty easy to finish - AND I'll have this year's Christmas card done - yay!  I'll begin with the flag ceremony from the Pow Wow.