Just got a new paint box! I don’t smoke, but could not resist the incredibly cool art-deco fonts and panther design on the lid. All the way from from Belgium via Etsy.com. Some of you will probably know that it used to hold cigars… very small cigars, evidently.
2013
Approaching Storm
This sketch started around Christmas as an exercise in painting water, and was supposed to be a boulder in a wild running stream. I put down the boulder and the Kyanite (the silvery-gray color) then got bored and moved on.
This week I decided that I was never going to paint the riverbank above the rock, so used the blank top half to practice a cerulean sky. This made the water look like the sea, except it needed a reason to be reflecting all that gray! That led to a storm moving in. A Monthly Challenge on WetCanvas.com, plus a film I’d seen, got me thinking about lighthouses. There was no reason why the boulder couldn’t be a small rocky island, so made a few adjustments, and there we are.
This is just a wee bit brighter IRL, but not much… there’s sort of cool haze to it, as if the light is weak and watery and all but snuffed out by the incoming weather. Funny experience, I was laying in the bottom of the clouds and the line looked more like the top of a mountain, and I actually thought, “Oh, look! A land mass!”
6″ x 9″ Arches 140lb rough, in my sketchbook. Paints mostly WN PB35 Cerulean, DS Bloodstone Genuine and Kyanite Genuine. There’s a touch of DS Sodalite Genuine for the darkest darks, and I can’t promise there isn’t a dash of DS Piemontite in the rocks as well. The scene is entirely made up, although I did check a few lighthouse refs to make sure the details were at least reasonably close to reality.
California Door
Testing Twinrocker rough. (Conclusion? I like it. I really really like it. I may have to start affording it. )
8″ x 10″ from their sample pack, bright white paper. Maimeri Blu PB29 and PR101, and DS PO48.
This is a made-up door, very typical of California cookie-cutter condos (with their mishmash of architectural styles) and blazing summer sun. The iron decoration is from the wall of a nearby apartment building.
Originally posted on WetCanvas.com
15 Color Mint Tin Palette
Here’s the 15 colors from the Mint Tin Palette, and why I picked them. I spent longer choosing these colors than it took to build the actual kit!
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A Mint Tin Palette – Demo
I’ve wanted a mint tin palette for a long time, and finally decided to build one. The thing that tipped me over the edge (besides being unhappy with all my other travel palettes) was opening a pack of gum and finding this plastic carrier inside.
Looks like a mixing area to me! I’m forever dropping mixes at the sides of the palette, because the edges offer a place to wipe the brush and squeeze out more paint for the mix.
Last Light on the Aspens
Apparently my muse wants to go camping! A made-up scene inspired by all the pretty fall photos I’ve been seeing. 6″x9″ on Arches 140lb rough, PB60/PO48 with PO73, PY150, PY129 and a random splash of PG7 in the foliage.
Very pleased with the foreground shrubs, which are somewhat inspired by Roland Lee (a masterful painter of skies as well.)
I might do a larger version.
Originally posted on WetCanvas.com.