Paintings 121 & 122 Spider Mums

These two watercolor paintings, 5 x 7", of spider mums are sample paintings for my CUMC class. The technique is called wax resist. On our trip to Yosemite, I saw a print of a floral watercolor painting with wax resist. Evelyn used to do wax resist every once in a while. It's such a fun, I feel I am back in elementary school.

Painting 120 McNee Ranch

McNee Ranch, oil on canvas board, 12 x 16", is from a photo that Kim took of the open space that was just given over to Golden Gate National Recreation Area. This area has been a favorite spot for locals to walk their dogs off leash for decades and reaches from Pacifica to the hill behind our house. In the first of February, a dog walker was told by a GGNRA park ranger to leash his dog, which he did, but the incident blew up, and the ranger tasered him. It was big news around here.

Painting 119 Bamboo

Bamboo, watercolor on handmade rice paper with bamboo leaves, 12 x 8" is a sample painting for my CUMC class on Sunday. The paper, which I bought from Duane last year, is from Evelyn Wright's estate. I believe that the paper was hand carried by Duane from Japan.

The idea of the bamboo painting is to keep things simple, to say much with as few brush strokes as possible, to allow the negative space to speak.

The red mark is from my chop which says "Mary Kay" in Chinese. My chop was carved by an old gentleman in the Kee Fung Ng Gallery on the corner of Grant and Clay Streets in San Francisco. In December, I sent my friends down to get chops carved and found out that the old gentleman had passed away and no one else was carving. So sad. It makes my chop even more special now.

Painting 118 Pigeon Pt. Lighthouse (oil)

Pigeon Point Lighthouse, oil on canvas board, 12 x 9" is the same painting that I did in watercolor, but I switched to oils. I like the windows in the lighthouse, the water splashing, and the mustard in the loose foreground.

Paintings 116 and 117, Pigeon Point Lighthouse & "A Good Crop"

I'm prepping for my Sunday church class in which we'll be painting lighthouses. This time of year, the mustard is in bloom and covers entire fields so I wanted to put those Bumblebee Yellow blossoms in the foreground. I couldn't decide on the size of the lighthouse, but chose to make the lighthouse about 3" tall and then traced and cut out 22 copies of the stencil on contact paper for the students before I painted Pigeon Pt. Lighthouse (watercolor, 7.5 x 11").

I thought the above painting was decent and my beginning students could do a nice job with it, but when I tossed a smaller mat over it and cropped it, I got this:

Viola! Same painting, cropped, but a much better composition.

I painted it again with a vertical format, Pigeon Pt. Lighthouse (watercolor, 11 x 7.5") with a 4.5" lighthouse and the keeper's quarters in front. I find this format much better and like the salt action in the foreground. Now I am off to trace and cut out 22 copies of the 4.5" stencil for the class. My take home lesson is to do the sample paintings before I cut out the stencils for the whole class.

A note on stencils:

To make my stencils, I take photos of the subject, print the image on photo paper and cut out the object, in this case the lighthouse and keeper's quarters. With a ultra fine Sharpie, I trace the stencil onto clear contact paper and cut out the shape, trying to cut inside the sharpie marks. I stick the contact paper to the watercolor paper in place for a balanced composition and paint the background over the top.

Paintings 113, 114, and 115 NH Foliage

These two cuties are (below) Concord Road and (right) Chopper's Walk, both oil on canvas, 2.75 x 2.75". I painted from photos that I took when I visited Dee and Fran this last October.
I painted NH Leaf Peeper (above), oil on canvas board, 9 x 12", during the last day of my Senior's art class and touched it up on Friday. I have gotten a lot of mileage out of the photos from that trip.

Painting 112, Surfer's Beach, Low Tide

The tide at Surfer's Beach has been low in the afternoons the last few days. I painted this Surfer's Beach, Low Tide (watercolor, approx 10 x 20") yesterday and touched it up today. I have a mat in this format so I thought that I would see how it looked. I also painted on Arches 300 lb. paper, a paper I don't often use, but I liked the heavy weight of it out in the breeze and the roughness for the wave action.