Casandra an Michelle, recent watercolor portraits

99% watercolor, but what is the other 1%? 

Shelved Watercolor Portrait

Finished this one yesterday. It's a quickie Payne's Grey (Winsor Newton) portrait study on an 11 by 14 inch sheet of Strathmore acid-free, "Windpower" watercolor paper. Not a very expensive paper, but it works for me. It sits on one of my studio wall display shelves.

The ship left the dock without me!!!

Today I applied for a very cushy job for the state of California.  Job title - State Art Czar. Annual salary - $325 K per year with killer retirement and health benefits. A four week, all-expense-paid vacation to Finland thrown in to sweeten the deal. All I needed to do was pass the watercolor- monochromatic-portraiture-painting test. When I finished this piece, I figured I had the job bagged. I hadn't notice the added color! The subconscious mind is not something to be ignored.

No More Mr. Nice Guy!!!

I just had to paint this self portrait, but is it to sophomoric?

Quickie portrait exercise

About a 45 minute rendering from pencil sketch to watercoloring. I'm playing again with this cheapo, antique watercolor paper. Funny how my painting turned out looking vintage! It could pass for a watercolor painting done anywhere between 1947 (my birth date!) and 1960.

Artist In Training

Play the theme song from the movie "Rocky",  cus I'm in training. Not for a fight of course and not for any sort of competition. I will be one of three prominent watercolor artists who will be doing a one day portrait painting (from a live model) exhibition in Santa Rosa, Calif. this February 6. I need to be in shape, so I am doing a lot of practice studies like the one and in my two previous posts. By the way, the other two artists are Myrna Wacknov and Christopher Schink. Chris is co-owner and editor of Palette Magazine. We three have very different styles, so this should be fun. Check out the "cheap crap" paper I am painting on. One of my workshop students gave me this pad awhile back. I was intrigued with the paper's texture and thought I'd try painting on it. I like it!  Sidebar - when I paint these studies, my goal is a watercolor portrait with energy, color, sketch lines and lots of white paper. If I get somewhat close to a likeness, that's good enough.