Watercolor- "Hidden Nest"

I was really in a watercolor mood this weekend -finished a few paintings, and started a few more. I guess that's what happens when I can stop being so consumed by baseball. My favorites, NY Yankees and SF Giants BOTH made it to the playoffs and that means a lot of games to watch. I have been a baseball fan for years, even sat through an earthquake at Candlestick Park during the 1989 World Series. Now that the World Series is over (WOO HOO-Giants!) I have more of my painting time back and my priorities are back in order.

I finished the bird nest painting. When I took the photo, I couldn't wait to paint it. I always have more painting ideas than time to paint them all! I enjoyed this watercolor, and liked it more and more as I got the layers of color on and the darker areas defined. I am not sure it has the depth I wanted, to really make the nest look like it is down into the rose bush. Who knows? I may go back to it after looking at it some more and seeing exactly what I need to add. I am kind of stumped as to what to call this watercolor. Any ideas out there? I never really named my paintings before- but since I started listing them on Etsy and learning about tags, I have started to see the importance of painting titles and descriptions. With gazillions of watercolors online, we need some way to get people to look!

I also started a few more wine cork paintings. I have more than a couple wine corks in jars at home, so my supply of corks to paint is kind of unlimited. I find them very interesting due to the detail and uniqueness of each one. Lots of nooks and crannies, grain lines and wine stains for a detail loving artist like myself to get into. Some of the labels on them are quite creative also. I have painted them small and larger, and using many different mediums. With oils on masonite, I can get the finest detail- but I also love the texture of the watercolor paper. This time, I wanted to do some corks larger than actual size. I drew these on 11X15 cold pressed, rough surface watercolor paper.

Thanks for looking!

Sheryl

Wine Cork Series Watercolors- Finished!

I finished the wine cork watercolors and will soon be listing them on Etsy. I think I might make a set of cards with various wine corks, too. I still need to scan the watercolors to make prints.

These were so much fun to paint- they are simple subjects, but so unique and they have so much detail to add. I love to get caught up painting the small details.

I am painting on 130 lb. rough surface paper this time- I tend to use different papers depending on what I am painting and this time I really wanted the texture to show. I use almost all Windsor & Newton watercolors. For the corks, I started with Raw Sienna and Burnt Umber washes to get the base colors of the corks and used Payne's Gray for shadows. My darkest details are mostly less diluted versions of Burnt Umber and Payne's Gray. The wine stains on the cork ends are a mix of Thalo Red (Alizurin Crimson works also) with Ultramarine Blue to get a nice wine shade of purple. My favorite part of painting these corks ( and most paintings) was adding the final details and tweaking the shadows and highlights. While I do leave my lightest areas when adding washes, I do sometimes go back with white gouache or acrylic to get stronger highlights. At the end, I am also adding in my darkest darks in the shadow areas.

I will show the finished Zinfandel bottle next time-

Thanks for looking!

Sheryl

Starting New Watercolors- Wine Cork Series

I spent a few hours yesterday drawing some wine corks to watercolor. I love to paint them- they have great details and each one is so different and unique. I save all the wine corks that come into our house and we like wine, so that is a lot of corks! They look great in tall jars, but also give me lots of painting ideas. Sometimes, we come across a cork that would be perfect to paint and now I have a small pile that I am wanting to use in watercolors-the last cork set was painted on small canvases in oils. I will post my progress as I work on them. The wine bottle I drew is one I have been wanting to paint for a while. It is perfect with an easel on the label- the wine was very nice also!

Thanks for looking!

Sheryl