Chiloquin wetlands. Today is the last day of August and this is my final work for the "water" theme. I'm trying to get more watery and looser in my painting. The subject photo had a few white pelicans in the water, but I eliminated them because they looked like white specs. The photo was taken while my friend, Gayle, and I were canoeing. We had beached and were walking on some dry ground. The flowers in the foreground are fireweed.

Hawaiian flowers painted from reference photo taken by Joe Philipson. I don't have any idea what kind of flowers these are (neither does Joe!). This is painted on Strathmore Bristol Vellum (I know. . . this paper is designed for dry work like colored pencils, charcoal, pastels) . . . but I wanted to experiment. The plus side is it doesn't stain as deeply as REAL W/C paper which makes it a tad easier to blend or lift the pigments. The plus side is also the negative side. . . it doesn't penetrate into the paper so it just kind of sits on the surface. I think it might work well for dry brushing and possibly W/C pencils. I also think high key might be the best style. I may end up just setting this tablet aside for when I take Cathy Johnson's next online sketching class!

Continuing with the water theme, I painted this from a photo taken by a friend in Hawaii. I used a limited palette of only three pigments -- indigo, cad yellow pale and cad orange. IRL, the sky and water are a bit darker. It felt good to get some painting done again!

I belong to a wonderful online watercolor art group! Each month we choose a theme to paint and "water" is the theme for August. This is proving to be a difficult subject for me. . . and I haven't been disciplined about sketching and painting daily!! I actually painted three from this same subject photo and this is the third attempt!! The subject photo was taken while visiting friends in Chiloquin, OR. They live right on the wetlands of Agency Lake and what glorious views they have!! I have so many wonderful photos from our time there.

I'm struggling to get this blog up and running. . . I seem to have missed a step or two! This post is a test.