Art Spirals

Amazing what a little "pond bacteria" bottled from the pet store will do to a pond without filtration. YAY! we had the fish, the good water levels from testing, the plants, but it was still murky. Now we can see the bottom -- found lots of interesting things there, a dead lizard with its tail gone...he got a proper burial...homework paper that had blown in, and two tiny new fish (maybe eggs were on new plants?) and a water snail. Unfortunately I took pics at noon, so the water lettuce plants, a nice green, are washed out with the glare. love the reflection! Bertrick, our five inch koi, seemed startled by the whir of the camera mechanism, but here he is. His buddy, Fishy, a shebunkin goldfish, is near him, but elusive to capture on camera. And last, a beautiful tiger lily beside the pond.

quick leaf sketches:

From Daily Drawing...

From Daily Drawing...

And pinecones, I keep plugging away at pinecones, trying not to get lost in the symmetry and design... it's tough!

From Daily Drawing...

A succulent in bloom on my patio. I have real trouble scanning pencil sketches, wonder what the key is to it?

From Daily Drawing...

And this last one is my little joke...no, we don't have polar bears here in El Paso! but it was a photo on a book at the book fair and there was a lull in the activities...

From Daily Drawing...

Some flower studies I've squeezed in lately. Life is getting busier, I'm out of my daily sketching and attempt at daily painting routine, but here's what I worked on today and yesterday.

A drop dead beautiful iris in my garden, sidelit by the afternoon sun. it was plein aire painting, the shadows kept shifting, and I feel like I"m just daubing paint without really understanding where I want to put my medium and dark values to form the shape...but I did take photos before I started, and I'll work on value sketches tomorrow and attempt it from the photo.

From Watercolor 2007

and then the gazania...many attempts at this, I'm half satisfied with this one. I have to get over the compulsion to keep fussing with it to make it look exactly how it is, and that overworks it and looks like yuck.

From Watercolor 2007

Here's a rabbit painted from a wetcanvas image...I'm happy with how he turned out.

And here are flowers in a metal reflective vase, also from last year. I think I got the texture of the vase fairly well.

And three attempts (without drawing first) of a cluster of live oak acorns and leaves:

It's SO useful to try something 2 or 3 or even 4 times to learn more and more, repeat and solidify (if the stars align) what worked well, OR, conversely learn that it might have been a fluke and here's a better way. My favorite of the three is the middle one. I like the modeling of the leaves best in it...like the fluidity of the acorns in the bottom one but too much blue.