Wednesday, May 29, 2013

Bluebonnet macro complete

Finished at last:  Pat, start watching your mailbox!
Nan Henke
Texas Hill Country Art

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Bluer blues

Pat asked for bold blues, so I am making my way around this painting, on the every other petal method, adding more cobalt blue.  I use a black and white photo to decide where to darken things up a bit.  I use my fingers a lot to smear the edges, so that they don't look like brushstrokes.  I am also dotting and smearing in some of the light areas that are too light right now.  Can you tell which petals are done and which are not?
Nan Henke
Texas Hill Country Art
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Friday, May 24, 2013

Crazy end to the day


Watercolor demo update: I started painting outside again, then it started to rain again and I moved everything back inside. Good thing, too, as I noticed a roof leak and was able to have our maintenance man take a look at it. But that does... not get my painting done any faster.... It is the Art Guild closing time now, and I have a meeting to get to in Boerne, so I will wrap up for the day. The first layer is complete on the blues and I added some shadows in the white centers, plus browninsh green on the stems. Next will be more blue on the flowers to make them bolder and to smooth out the light to dark transitions.   After that, I will try to figure out why these photos look vertical when I select them and come out horizontal when I post them.  I hope you don't have a crick in your neck from looking at them!
Nan Henke
Fredericksburg Art Guild,
Facebook: Nan Henke - Texas Hill Country Art
www.TexasHillCountryArt.etsy.com
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Pat asked for strong bright blue flowers, so I chose my favorite, cobalt blue. I paint one section of a floret at a time with a blue wash, then dab off where the blue needs to be a little lighter and drop in more c...olor where it needs to be a little stronger. I try to not paint a section that touches one where I have already painted, but as you can see, I messed up on one of these. I had to be very careful to make sure that one did not flow into the other. Even though they are the same color, the dampness from the newer section can cause a "cauliflower" in the older section that is not quite dry.
Nan Henke
Texas Hill Country Art
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Get that masque off!

OK, the background paint is dry.  So I tore off the wax paper, then went outside on the porch to rub off the masque.   Outside is nice because you can listen to the rain on the tin roof, but also because you don't have to worry about cleaning up all the tiny bits of masque that fly off as you work.  as you can see, the background does not perfectly fit the initial drawing.  That is OK.  Wherever the background ends is now officially where the flower begins. 
Nan Henke
Texas Hill Country Art
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a "Free" (wet on wet) background

I had to bring everything inside, as it is raining steadily now. Yay for the beautiful Texas Hill Country!

Pat, the future owner of this painting, had requested greens with some touches of color for the background.... So I got the whole background so wet that it did not drip, but you could see water glistening all over it, then dropped in some reds and yellows. After they moved around a bit, I started filling in with sap green. Where it seemed like too much green, I added some quinacrodone gold, the color that makes every other color look more interesting! Then I thought that the whole thing was getting too strongly colored, so I dabbed some off with a paper towel. I always like the way random dabbing changes things.
Nan Henke
Texas Hill Country Art
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Wait for it to dry

The edges have all been sealed, now I we wait for it to dry. That sounds like an inside task today. So I will be outside for a little while, painting some small demos for the hoards of people who decided to spend their day on our rainy porch!

Nan Henke
Texas Hill Country Art


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2nd step


2nd step is to prepare for painting the background by protecting the flower areas. For this painting, I am tracing and cutting a piece of wax paper which I will "glue" down to the paper with masquing fluid. It is a lot easier than using masquing fluid (think rubber cement) over the whole thing. Last week I got a blister on my thumb taking off masquing fluid!
Nan Henke
Texas Hill Country Art


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Art Guild watercolor demo update: first step is the drawing. I draw with water color pencils, so that the pencil marks will later be "eaten" by the paint. I fold the photo in 8 sections and draw one section at a time because it is less overwhelming that way. 
Nan Henke
Texas Hill Country Art


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Pat's Bluebonnet



Pat's Bluebonnet: I set up outside on the Fredericksburg Art Guild's front porch, despite the overcast, drippy day.  Today I am the docent on duty and I hope for some marathon painting time in between visitors!
Nan Henke
Texas Hill Country Art
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Tuesday, May 21, 2013

Bluebonnet background thoughts

Here are a couple of tiny watercolor sketches that I did to experiment with backgrounds.  I'm leaning toward the style on the left and Pat says, "I would like (if you think so,... you're the artist!) some color... maybe bits of green or a distant red... ???"
Nan Henke
Texas Hill Country Art
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Bluebonnets very close up

Pat likes the image on my Bluebonnet Close-up greeting card, but wants a painting in a portrait (vertical) format.  This is the photo that she chose for her commissioned watercolor painting.
Nan Henke
Texas Hill Country Art

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