Tuesday, May 1, 2012

More Stuff






Not much to say . . . just thought I'd post my progress today.  I started a couple new things, a strawberry study and a pretty bowl of blueberries.  I couldn't resist.  I thought you might like to see the first layers on each.  The blueberry painting (bottom) is on some Arches cold-pressed I had.  I thought it would work well for working layers on layers.  I like to pull out color on the blueberries, so this is going to take some serious planning on my part as the cold-pressed won't work the same as my soft-pressed paper.  However, I was really interested in layering the shadows on the bowl and putting the pattern on top and figured this paper would be good for that.  

The sneaker is almost done -- yes, I'm crazy . . . just a little more obsessive tweaking on the laces and some stitching.  And the strawberry is a study for a larger painting.  I have to go to bed, so I didn't measure these out for you.  I'll get you the dimensions tomorrow.  Have a good night.

6 comments:

  1. Goodmorning Kara:) I hope you had a good nightrest. I love your work I already can see the strawberry is going to be very nice. The shoe I commented before; he's beautiful. And the blueberry's will be georgious!

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    1. Thank you so much Renate. I did have a good sleep -- needed it! :) I'm hoping to finish these up soon.

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  2. You seem to have a lot going on, looking forward to see the end paintings.

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  3. Do you do negative painting on the blueberries or miskit?. I am a beginner and find watercolor fun but challenging. How does a soft press paper differ from cold press/ Thanks.
    love your work.
    Wendy Lost in WI

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    1. Hi Wendy . . . thank you for viewing my blog and for the kind comments. Watercolor is REALLY fun, but it can be very frustrating too. I am currently IN LOVE with Fabriano soft-pressed paper. I think it's somewhere between cold and hot pressed. It doesn't have the "tooth" that a cold-pressed paper has, but it's not as smooth as hot. It's rather velvety. I find it holds the brilliance of the pigment really well and most importantly for me, you can lift color very easily, which is how I paint. With regards to masking or lifting -- I assess my highlights and white and decide based on their shape, color (how "white" do they really need to be?), size and positioning whether or not they need to be masked. If they're pure white, lots of them, small and among very dark areas, I may opt to mask, if they're not pure white and I think they'd look better with the color lifted (you can get pretty white with non-staining pigments on soft-press). If they're large areas and I can paint around them with little work, then I will. I try not to have to mask areas if I don't have to. (Just laziness.) :)

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