This was a floral painting that was a bit overdone so I drew the trumpet and overpainted much of it for a whole new look. 

Here is a recent painting that started with a colorful wash and salt. It reminded me of coral shapes so I only had to add some of my favorites under sea shapes.  I also added some darker coral shapes by dropping ink and blowing it upward with a straw.  Such a fun piece. 

 

This is an example of an overpaint that I have been experimenting with recently. 

It involves using an older watercolor painting that I no longer value and drawing an image or images over it.  Then using gouache (a water soluble paint that is more opaque than watercolor) paint the negative space around the image.  I finish by adding a few details with watercolor pencils. 

Emma's Roses

I am showing the sequence of stages that this painting took as it developed.  After drawing the main layout from a photo, I masked some highlights in the hair and the main flower.

I applied a very watery golden wash to the entire paper and let it dry.  Then I added some more masking to save some of the yellow background color in her hair.

I began to lay in the main skin tones.







                                                                                                       



The second photo shows laying in  ore mid tones for the dress, hair and flowers.


I was able to remove the masking after this stage as I was finished with large areas and ready to focus on only the details.
















Finally I added the necessary darks to her hair, flowers and foliage and some shadows.

Painted this a while ago, but have been slow posting.  It won "best of show" at the Mayflower senior show this fall.  It was inspired by one of the posters at my favorite Sweet Tomatoes buffet,

I wanted to show photos of the beginning, middle and end stages of a similar painting.  I painted on them each while doing a demonstration for the Sanford Seminole Art Association recently.  Still need to finish two, but think the third is complete.

Just finished this. It's my first painting using a photo from a site called "Paint My Photo" which I've been interested in recently.  The photo is owned by Ainslie G and I wish to credit her here as well as on that site.  What first interested me in her photo was the strong shadows and dark/light contrasts.  I printed her photo in black and white before using it as a source.  As you can see I became more interested in the background textures than contrast and shading.  I do like the result though.