IL

IL
Originally uploaded by BYarborough

This barn reminded me of a little town my grandparents used to live in in OR. Not unusual to find a barn here and there in the midst of the town. Clearly showing that the "homesteads" were eventually encompassed with houses as the towns grew. Most people maintained the barns well enough to be used for storage or garages.
The sky, trees and foreground were done with watercolor and then the barn and shadows were done with Derwent's tinted charcoals, which are watersoluble. I drew and filled in the barn with the carcoals, gently blended with a Q-tip and then applied water for further blending. Colors of charcoal used were glowing embers, mountain blue, ocean deep, burnt earth, and dark.

Peggy's Pt in Nova Scotia--Oils on Canvas

Peggy's Pt in Nova Scotia--Oils on Canvas
Originally uploaded by BYarborough

This is for the Virtual Paintout challenge for the month of November. To see how this challenge works, and to view other entries, go to:
http://www.virtualpaintout.blogspot.com/
This is painted with Van Gogh H2oils on a 9 x 12 sheet of Canva-Paper. It's my first try at an ocean (haven't done oceans in watercolor yet either!).

Rabbitbrush on Yupo - Again

Rabbitbrush on Yupo - Again
Originally uploaded by BYarborough

Here's my second attempt at my idea for a collage style painting on Yupo. Wow - this one was a challenge! I decided to use Daniel Smith paints and found out real fast that when I put the masking tape on after letting the background dry (to get my square), it pulled quite a lot of the paint off. I tried scotch tape and it pulled off even more paint. I tried applying the masking tape and only pressing down a very slim edge of the paint, and it STILL pulled off the paint! So after washing this sheet of Yupo in the sink with soapy water THREE times, I free-handed with a brush each of the squares. This method did not give me a crisp line. Lesson learned: do not use DS paints for this technique!!
When Kevin Davidson critiqued my last painting, he pointed out two critical points. One is that I needed three squares, not two. I KNEW this, using odd numbers rather than even, just didn't think of it at the time. The second point was to completely (with Qtips) clean the background off in the areas where I was going to paint the subject so I would get the transparency that IS watercolor. Yupo is bright white, so that was a critical point, especially with the yellows. I'm not giving up on this technique, I just am not using DS paints for it again!!

Rubber Rabbitbrush on Yupo

Rubber Rabbitbrush on Yupo
Originally uploaded by BYarborough

I had an idea to do watercolor on Yupo in a collage style. After talking about this with Kevin Davidson, he suggested using masking tape. It was a terrific technique and one I'll do again. I'm not REAL happy with this because it's not like I had envisioned. But I WILL try again!!
I painted the bg green/yellow and let it dry completely, I masked off the the first square, wiped it clean with a sponge and then painted the bushes and sand. After that was dry, I masked and cleaned off the square for the close-up of the blossom. One major thing I should've done is to paint each of the two squares bg colors on BEFORE I removed the tape (it was a bit hard to keep the lines straight). I didn't want to leave the tape on too long because I was concerned it would remove some paint that I didn't want removed. I think a few more minutes would've been fine.
I'm very allergic to these bushes and they bloom in Sept - Oct where I live! They make the desert colorful, but NAIL my sinuses and my voice! They sometimes give me laryngitis!

Desert Sunset

Desert Sunset
Originally uploaded by BYarborough

This was done in a workshop taught by Claudette Garcia at the Pasadena Art Expo. This is the landscape as it was done in the workshop and I still need to add a bit of orange to the white light coming through the tree trunks and also add some very small bare branchlets to the tree. A terrific workshop!! This is 16 x 20 stretched canvas using Holbein Duos (Watersoluble Oils).

Fall Creek - WMO on Yupo

Fall Creek - WMO on Yupo
Originally uploaded by BYarborough

Another Fall painting using the water miscible oils on Yupo. I tried doing the "water" on this with the George James' Yupo watercolor technique of smoothing with a sponge roller. It took several tries and I'm still not 100% happy with it. Watering down the oils works very similar to watercolor, so I'm eager to try some other watercolor techniques with it, I just don't want to get too overboard or I might as well work with watercolors on the Yupo! A fun painting and probably the last I'll have time to work on for a couple of weeks.

Yea, it's FALL! - WMO on Yupo

Yea, it's FALL! - WMO on Yupo
Originally uploaded by BYarborough

Every Spring I think it's my favorite time of year, and then every Fall I think the same thing. I guess I like "seasons" and am so thankful I live where we have them. How boring it must be to live where there is no temperature or scenery changes. This is water miscible oils (I'm still using the Van Gogh H2Oils and LOVE them!) and it is painted on 9 x 12 sheet of Yupo. The reference photo is from WetCanvas - they have over 800 Fall Landscape photos in their library!
I fell off on my goal to art journalize every other day in September, but I'm not going to beat myself up for failing. I've decided I'm just not the type to consistently do art in a journal. Although, having said that, I'll be one of the first to sign up when Cathy (Kate) Johnson offers her online class on art journaling!! I've been working on this Fall scene for several days as some steps required the previous layers had dried.