Imagekind Gallery ArtApplied

"Indian Corn - 08/2005"

The story of "Indian Corn - 08/2005"

It was a day in early summer and I was scratching my head about what to set up for Summer and Fall projects when my wife suggested that I actually paint something Fall-like.

So I'm sitting there still scratching my head because I didn't have any good references of Fall items in this day and age where we progress from the Fourth of July straight into Christmas.

As chance might have it I had some Indian corn in the shed from the past season that I had meant to feed to the chickens. I remembered the old rustic wood storage shed and the sawmill that was on my parents property.

Once upon a time people used Indian corn as a decoration and it didn't look tacky. Much like having a popcorn and cranberry garland on a real tree at Christmas, rather than plastic and aluminum.

So "Indian Corn -08/2005" is dedicated to a time that was better in some ways lest we forget the joy of creating our own festive ornamentation from the items we have at hand.

"A Trio of Cacti-0309"

“A Trio of Cacti-0309” has a bit of a story with it. During the spring and fall I teach the Introduction to Watercolor class through the local Xtra Education program. One of the projects this last year was to paint a cactus from a very rough value sketch. Though it was rather rough like the sketch I very much liked the look of the painting. I only spent about an hour, maybe ninety minutes on the in class exercise. For the "nice" version I decided to use 3 different overlapped specimens of cacti. Once sketched all of the cactus areas were covered with masking fluid in order to create the background. The background was created using a pure water in damp paint technique. This requires some timing on the artists part, but with practice some amazing results can be achieved. A friend of mine at http://MoonStarrCreations.imagekind.com/ uses this technique to great advantage. Cactus values were added using Chinese ink then painted with watercolors. Spines were built up with a thin white gouache tinted with ochre. The entire painting represents approximately 8 hours of work, not counting drying time.

"TheSeaofHalo - 08/2007"

"The Sea of Halo - 08/2007" is one of several paintings that I did while trying different techniques on Yupo.

Yupo is a new substrate for watercolor painting. Originally used in Japan as a sign making material, Yupo is a plastic rather than a paper or canvas. Watercolor paints float on the surface rather than being absorbed as occurs with paper, thus the colors are very vibrant and bright.

With Yupo you can literally wash the painting right off of the substrate, which can be a handy thing if the painting you are working on just isn't turning out the way you would like. Once cleaned and dry, Yupo can be painted on again.

In composing this painting I first laid down a layer of yellow. Washes are a bit tricky with Yupo as the surface beads water. Once dry I started establishing the horizon and atmospheric elements. With Yupo each time you touch the painting with a wet brush you pick up, blow out, blend or move the paint that has previously been put down. Compositional planning is a must.

I was able to create a wide range of reds, oranges, and browns by allowing the pigment on my brush to blend with the underlying yellow wash in creating the wind blown sea.

Also unlike paper, you can paint very quickly on Yupo. The paints dry quickly and a hair dryer can be used to great benifit, unlike under certain conditions with paper/clayboard/canvas. While a painting on paper may require 10 to 80 hours to complete due to numerous washes and detail work, Yupo allows me to create a painting in minutes to hours. Thus Yupo allowed me to capture some of my emotions in the painting as I was painting.

All in all I am very happy with this painting.

If you would like a very bright art print to give a little pop to your office or den "The Sea of Halo - 08/2007" is the print for you.

"Bamboo-0802B"

This is the B version of “Bamboo-0802”. I have a friend that had a need for a specific size and proportion print and frame to cover a breaker box that was in a highly visible area breaking the effect of other decor. “Bamboo-0802” was digitally re-proportioned to fit my friend’s needs. Thus this is not a direct print of an original. However, the re-proportioning of the bamboo does seem somewhat nicer than the original proportions. Perhaps one day I will paint this painting again, but with a longer vertical proportion.

"Organic - 08/2005"

The story of "Organic - 08/2005"

"Organic - 08/2005", hmmm, where to start.

Have you ever been on the verge of falling asleep and had a series of flashes of faces and events from your day. Sometimes you might have a flash of something unrelated. That is where “Organic - 08/2005” finds its roots.

I try to keep a pencil and a sketchbook near the bed or in my living room to jot down rough sketches of interesting things or ideas that might arise from my dream state. If you don’t do the sketch right away you will probably loose the image by morning.

During my waking hours the sketches from my thoughts are often driven toward geometric designs, but my dream images tend to be far less harsh more organic in nature.

Truthfully, I don’t know what in my subconscious prompted this image, which actually played out like a little movie for a brief instant. In the frame was my happy group of spiky balls just drifting along in this dark stream with nebulae like formations in the background. Then the dark tendrils entered from the left side to ensnare the little spiky balls. What happened after that, can’t say. That’s when I pulled myself out of light sleep and started sketching before the memory faded.

Fortunately with the sketch I am able to access that memory well enough to create a painting. This kind of painting pretty much paints itself. It requires little pencil sketching on the watercolor paper once you have worked out what is going to happen in the painting and you determine what depth certain elements are in relation to one another.

One nice thing about “Organic - 08/2005” is that you can hang the picture in any direction given that there is no solid frame of reference for up, down, left, or right.

"Mountain Sunset-0309"

"Mountain Sunset-0309" is my third attempt to use watercolor canvas. I have to say that this is perhaps the most challenging of any of the substrates that I have used in painting watercolors. On previous attempts I used taped canvas like watercolor paper and stretched canvas over a frame. This painting was done on watercolor canvas board. Watercolor canvas is stretched and adhered to hard board creating a surface that does not move and wiggle when you try to paint on it. By far this has given me the most control to date. As for the painting the sky makes a great counterpoint to the mountains, rolling hills and lake as sunset approaches. I was quite happy with the atmospheric perspective in this painting. This painting was created over a period of about 9 months and represents roughly 50 man-hours of work, not counting drying time. I have one more piece of watercolor canvas board left. I wonder what I will torture myself with next . . .

"Else Where-0807"

"Else Where-0807" was composed and executed on Yupo, a plastic substrate for watercolor. Yupo takes some getting used to. Since it is a sheet of plastic water tends to bead and in fact the entire painting can be washed away in a sink if the artist doesn't like the way the painting turned out. However, because Yupo is plastic you can also achieve many interesting affects and blendings that you can not with other substrates. You will also have the brightest colors you have ever seen as all of the pigment sits on the surface. But enough of that. "Else Where -0807" was created to see if a sense of depth could be achieved on Yupo. I first worked the brown background with different shades of brown adding a suggested grid in very thin VanDyke brown. This was to create some source of visual reference for my foreground. To create the foreground I simply wet the areas where I wanted the foreground element and removed the paint. Subsequently I painted in the veins and webbing using various lifting techniques to create transparency and curvature. Since a blow dryer can be used with Yupo relatively safely the painting (original size 4"x6") was completed rather quickly, roughly 90 minutes. Yupo is pretty much the fastest substrate I have found with which to use water based mediums and is extremely suitable for abstract works.

"AngelFish - 07/05"

The story of "AngelFish - 07/05"

What can I say, I like brightly colored things. Tropical fish are great subjects.

I am fortunate enough to be able to get my own photo reference images of numerous kinds of tropical fish with the permission of local sources.

I had two beautiful shots of these angelfish one of the black and silver and one of the gold. I adjusted their direction of movement and created a composite sketch of the two fish swimming past each other. The background was created with a few references, but was predominantly free handed.

For my tropical fish I like to use a method that combines traditional Chinese ink watercolor with western watercolor techniques. This creates a unique depth in the picture.

So from a value sketch you create a value painting with primary secondary and tertiary detail. The ink will show through the later added watercolor and even gouache so it makes a good framework for painting. Correct Value is two thirds of the battle in painting.

Road map coloration was added to "AngelFish - 07/05". This is very pale washes of watercolor to give some indication of what kind of colors are going to be needed in areas of major interest. From here we work the painting in normal western style, back to front and top to bottom. The finishing touches are the addition of small amounts of gouache watercolor to boost or highlight color in certain areas and to add any specialty paints such as metallics.

Metallic watercolor paints were sparsely blended on both angelfish.

"The Wall - 06/05"

The story of "The Wall - 06/05"

“The Wall - 06/05” has an interesting tale behind its creation. This painting is a small work measuring roughly 10’ x 13’ between paper edges. The painting was worked exclusively with traditional watercolors on 300# Cranson 100 watercolor paper rough side up. I never intended to paint this picture the way you now see it. I had thought to paint a grove of leafless trees in silhouette with a lake in the mid ground. Thanks to a fortunate slip of the brush the idea of a lake was sunk and I had to come up with a way to make the painting work or toss it.

Fortunately this was one of those paintings that took on a life of its own and painted itself requiring little more than 3-4 hours to complete. A very fast painting for me.

The moon was masked out. This allowed me to apply two washes wet in wet of paynes' gray and indigo without having to worry about the moon getting in the way. While damp I dropped in dilute wet white to create the misty clouds. I don’t know of another painting where I have done better clouds nor this easily.

The rest of the painting was done in traditional western form top to bottom and back to front. The wall itself I laid out as a band of muted colors and later brushed in the mortar and lines of the wall.

In completion of the painting session I dropped in shadows and lifted pigment where some brighter areas should be. The painting was allowed to dry overnight.

The next day I removed the masking fluid from the moon and very carefully painted with water to draw some of the color from the sky and clouds to bring a cloud across the face of the moon. Some dilute white and the painting was allowed to dry for a second time ready for signing and sealing with UV resistant spray coat.

"Flower Spirit - 04/2005"

The story of "Flower Spirit - 04/2005"

"Flower Spirit 04/2005" was my first painting using watercolor clayboard.

The way clayboard handles and takes the paint is very different than using watercolor paper. The clay is not very absorbent and shifts wet areas of paint to the yellow, but shifts back when dry. This means you have to have a good handle on blending your palette. What you see on the board is not what you will get. This takes a little getting used to but just paint the colors you would normally expect and when the painting is dry everything should look all right.

"Flower Spirit - 04/2005" is inspired by the Texas, Indian Paintbrush. In this case one that came up in my own lawn. Indian Paintbrushes accompany the Texas Bluebonnets as wild flowers burst forth in a wave that moves from south to north in the spring. In a good year you will see nothing but patches of blue and orange as far as the eye can see. Its quite a sight.

I had applied masking fluid before working on the background, then Chinese ink to create a value painting of the flower after removing the mask. Regular watercolor was used to build a color road map on the value painting skeleton. Paint was applied in limited washes or wet on dry with less water than usual. Next I top layered the flower with gouache paint. Gouache is a translucent to opaque form of watercolor with a distinctly higher brightness.

The aura and spirit petals were pretty much an afterthought, but this painting has turned out to be one of my more popular ones. So popular in fact that my wife asked for the original and framed it for her own use.

"Guppy - 1204"

"Bamboo-0802"

This is one of the few of the bamboo pictures that survived Christmas the year I was heavy into bamboo. This is the only bamboo that I painted on watercolor paper. I created an aged paper look with a thin tan wash. When the paper was dry I overpainted with a transitional mix of paynes grey and some green. This painting was created using western brushes and techniques unlike the other originals from this period which used Chinese ink with bamboo brushes and eastern techniques. I hope you enjoy the simplicity and tranquil nature of this print.

"Hanging Basket - 0207"

This hanging flower basket was worked from a photograph that I took at a friends wedding. The original painting is watercolor on watercolor clay board. This is a hard board surface with a layer of special clay that takes watercolor paints. Since most of the paint is on the surface rather than absorbed into the surface, the colors tend to be brighter. I hope you enjoy the bright warm Texas summers like these flowers do.