Recent Developments

I have just been notified that I have passed the first round of a three round judging process for the World Watercolor Competition under the auspices of the French magazine "The World of Watercolour". I am keeping my fingers crossed on this one. Meanwhile, here are three small 11X14 inch watercolor studies that I have just completed. They were all painted on Arches 140lb. cold press paper. The female subject is my fifth study . . . just can't get enough practice! Oh, and one more thing dear readers . . . HAVE A ROLLICKING GOOD AND PROSPEROUS 2014!

WOW!!!! It has been awhile since I posted!

Not only have I been very busy with my California art workshops but also with my teaching at Sacramento City College. I'm teaching an art history class this semester, and that just eats ups tons of my time. Next semester, I will be back to only art studio classes . . . way better! Meanwhile I have just finished an interview via email and Dropbox with an editor of "Pratique des Art", a French art magazine. I am very honored and excited about this. Both of these portraits plus some more, I hope, will be in the magazine's January, 2014 issue devoted to portrait painting. Pratique des Art discovered my work through my relatively new website. Check my site by clicking here.

Building Armando

I have always liked "unfinished" paintings like the top image. This top image is the start of "Amando". In the second image, I continued to paint in color and eat into my initial "unfinished" look. The third image is now totally painted in and of course no longer has an unfinished look. My final stage will include some jazzy colored conte crayon line work. I shall post the finished watercolor soon. Dear reader - what is your opinion on this painting? Would love to hear from you.

Remembrance

Just completed watercolor of a retired ballerina. Painted on a funky sheet of Strathmore 140 lb. cold press watercolor paper, but it worked!!

Putting on the Face

One of my A+ art students at City College who is not at all embarrassed about putting on some faces. She is one of my fav. models for that attitude! This was watercolored on a half sheet, 140lb., cold press watercolor paper and painted with a verve to match her pose.

Doing Obama

This is my first portrait on a 5 inch by 7 inch dinky winky canvas board. I spent as much time on this as I would have on a 24 by 28 inch canvas! I need more acrylic practice!! Mostly painted with flat brushes with a limited palette of colors.

Watercoloring the king of the African savannah in watercolor

A typical watercolor where you go from light to dark, paying very close attention to keeping your darks and lights in proper balance. In the first photo, you can see how my background was painted in wet-on-wet with no fussy detail. The king is the star of this show and the background is a supporting actor. Yes, I painted in some dark areas in the tree trunk and the lion's rear, but I knew these were areas where I did not have to slowly build up various areas of light, middle, and dark values. The first close up of the head is where I had to build various values from light to dark. In the fifth photo, you can see how I started working on the foreground grass wet-on-dry. The foreground is usually where you want some texture, so . . . background is wet-on-wet and soft looking and the foreground is dry-on-dry, textural, and in sharp focus (along with the lion). In the seventh photo, I painted in my final dark values into the lion's head. Notice how the log in my finished watercolor got lighter. I pulled off paint to lighten it. The log was overwhelming the lion and was not playing a supporting role. In the end, this was a challenging watercolor!