Girl in Pink

Girl in Pink • Watercolor on Unknown 100% Rag Paper

This is another in my series #Playing With Paint. I drew the initial sketch (inspired by a black and white photo in a book). After placing a smaller piece of watercolor paper on my Masonite board, I wet the paper on both sides and began flooding it with color — warm and cool. After mopping up drips, I began the process of lifting paint to find her face. I painted in, lifted out, going back and forth as many times as needed. I scraped out highlights in her hair, emphasized lines in her face and dress with a watercolor pencil.

Color Sketch of a Girl • Painting with colors from The Old Masters' Palette plus Cobalt Blue

Color Sketch of a Girl: painting w colors from The Old Masters' Palette + Blue

Last week while painting I ran rampant with color. Today I limited colors to those employed by the Old Masters: Burnt Sienna, Yellow Ochre, and Payne's Gray. And I added Cobalt Blue.

To start, I did a pre-painting drawing directly on the (dry) watercolor paper. I firmed outlines with a rigger brush using cobalt blue watercolor, then reaffirmed some lines with a Derwent pencil in Dark Indigo.

Because the flip side of my paper featured one of my unsuccessful (very colorful!) paintings, I immersed the sheet in a basin of cold water and placed the paper unpainted side up on a Masonite board. I soaked excess water with a large natural sea sponge, picked up a flat brush, loaded it with Yellow Ochre and launched into placing paint on the wet paper.

Exciting! It's always fun to watch what happens. A brush stroke loaded with a particular color might work — or it might not.

Woman in Scarf

Woman in Scarf | Sketch

Welcome, friends and fellow artists. It's nice to back back — posting on my [this] blog. The image above is the result of my exploring various media on Strathmore sketch paper. I decided it's time to get back into and move out of my comfort zone.

Back into because I like drawing and painting people more than any other subject. Out of because I'm moving away from tools and materials that have become second nature to me and trying others

Woman in Scarf was inspired by a photo (ad) in Vogue Magazine. I pulled out the 18" x 24" sketch pad, picked up a pencil and did a light line drawing [of what I saw]. I traded my pencil for a round brush and painted light to mid-light blue lines — lost and found, thick and thin. I applied a loose, wet wash of Cadmium Yellow Light and hit the wash with Cad Red Light and light green (barely mixed on my palette). I applied wax crayon here and there, then added a little more color.

I appraised it for a day.

As I walked into my studio the following morning, I thought: charcoal. I haven't used charcoal for a long time. Simply feeling it in my hand released a sense of adventure. Using charcoal, I added more line, tone, texture. After that, I picked up a lovely pink crayon and added a little "warm" here and there.

Now I'm on to the next exploration and can't wait to see what happens.

Some may have noticed I took a (rather lengthy) hiatus from posting images on this blog. I explored other options such as creating a Facebook Artist Page (which worked well for awhile); I added a blog component on my website (I didn't use it much). I didn't stop drawing and painting; I just stopped posting. But I'm back.

Thanks for visiting my blog.

Leonardo da Vinci's "Virgin of the Rocks"

Leonardo da Vinci's Virgin of the Rocks

From Leonard on Painting: "Of the ten function of the eye, all appertaining to painting

• Painting embraces all the ten functions of the eye; that is to say, darkness, light, body and colour, shape and location, distance and closeness, motions and rest. My little work will comprise an inter-weaving of these functions, reminding the painter of the rules and methods by which he may imitate with his art all these things — the works by which nature adorns the world."

Facebook faux pas

For those of you who follow my blog, you'll notice an absence of the Facebook icon which linked new postings to my former Facebook Artist-Instructor wall. Yesterday, a Facebook bug disabled sites/walls/pages of thousands of Facebook users. My Artist-Instructor page was one of those sites/walls/pages.

Will it be reinstated?

If you click on the enclosure link, you can read an article about the Facebook glitch on CNN.com.

Ink & Wash

Ink and wash painting. I like to do several color sketches before tackling larger work. I'm excited to work on a half sheet (approximately 15 x 22 inches in size). One friend who had seen this said she sensed an Oriental influence. I think all of us are inspired by the beautiful calligraphy of, and ink and wash paintings done by classic and contemporary Asian artists.

Ink and Wash Demo Paintings

Lundin Demo No. 4 — Three colors plus ink, wax resist, on Arches 140 lb. rough paper

Lundin Demo No. 2 — Painted wet-on-wet, three colors, 

calligraphic marks for trees and leaves

Yesterday marked the last of four classes I taught at the Range Art Center in Hibbing, MN, employing ink and wash/line and wash. The two images above include Demo Paintings No. 4 (yesterday) and No. 2 (second class). Students did amazing things during the class and it will be great fun to see how they use ink and wash, line and wash, calligraphy, in their upcoming paintings.