D is for Dark

Dark Street

It rained yesterday, and rained and rained. The extra long day, and the stay indoors weather allowed me lots of time to play.

Last week I had my Senior artists create Trick or Treat Street Scenes. We drew simple houses along a street, colored heavily with oil pastel, added a big moon in the sky and went over all with black watercolor paint. The results were terrific.

By Holly

Rain

One of the pieces (by Holly)  was so lovely it inspired me to revisit this project for myself (and my Monday kid classes.)
Dark Street was my result. I think the watercolor I used was too intense - it soaked the paper, but I do think I succeeded in creating a night scene. There is much I like about this image, and there was more time to play, so I  continued to work with it  - this time in Photoshop.

The second variation is called Rain. I just added some texture to the background and rebalanced the color and light. I love the things that can happen with digital tools.

Making art was a wonderful way to enjoy my dark and rainy day.

Art Every Day: U is for Umbrellas

Day 21

Umbrellas have absolutely nothing to do with this post, but I needed something to call it. I had a lot of ideas - like up and I'd paint clouds, or upside down (I like that idea) or ultramarine blue and paint gorgeous Nepalese poppies. But this is what appeared today - I don't know what kind of flowers they are, only they are small and I drew them big, on black paper with pastels.

There we go, U is for Upsizing.

Art Every Day: L is for Light

Day 12
Its dark outside. This is true for most of the time in this season. How lucky I am to be able to generate light with my color pencils.

Simply looking at this sunflower warmed me up. Painting the glowing yellows and hot reads against the dark background was not only a chance to explore the structure of the flower, but it was a lesson in painting light.

To do this one, I set it out as an exercise in seeing and drawing only the shapes of the colors I saw. In the process, I blended layer upon layer of colors to build to the combination of light against dark. Its almost bright enough to let me ignore this dreary day.

Art Every Day: G is for Garden

Day 7
I've mentioned that I love to photograph flowers. I do this where ever I go. Fortunately, in my neighborhood of big yards and burgeoning gardens, I don't have to go far to find something to beautiful.

Though our garden is usually full of vegetables, and our trees hang with fruit (and gorgeous spring blossoms), I often prefer to visit the Master Gardener up the street when seeking inspiration. Monet would have been happy in S's garden.

This drawing is from a photo I took there years ago. I don't know what kind of flower this is, but I love dark flowers, especially, as in this case, when they grow among crowds of white clematis.

I have drawn this flower before, always struggling to get the details out of the lush dark petals. This time I used color pencil on vellum. This seems to me to be a really good combination of paper and media, the vellum does a good job of holding and showing the color and texture I use to apply it.