Leaves – Sketch

Today’s watercolor is a departure from my recent spate of abstracts. The other day, as I was coming up the walk, something caught my eye. It was the color and arrangement of shapes on the ground. Two leaves were partially entwined. There were some interesting and subtle colors and shadows that I thought I could […]

Earthy Tree

I tried using terra verte again today (see Proto Nebula). It covered so lightly that I had to use the much heavier chromium green for any pigment to appear. I started today’s painting with three main patches of color: an upper and lower patch of red iron oxide, a reddish earth tone that covers the […]

Proto Nebula

I really enjoy science fiction. I watch and re-watch the 20+ year old Star Trek series Voyager and Next Generation. I like the graphic representations of nebulae of deep space. Today’s watercolor, just as yesterday’s, is a mixture of subtle earth tones and cobalt blue. I began with terra verte, a very light, earthy green. […]

Purple and Blue Interrupted

In my experiments, I’ve established that cobalt blue and the earth tone, quinacridone nickel mix very well to form an earthy green. Today I wanted to see how purple interacted. On the left side of the purple field, we see a nice transition to the cobalt blue which, in turn makes a transition to green […]

Another Dream Image

Yesterday’s dream image was one of many images I had during my sleep the other day. Today’s study is a rendition of another image in that series. Here is the story behind it: Background: I attended a well known and respected university, some 30+ years ago. The campus was known for its elm trees until, […]

Dream Images

I started reading Freud’s Interpretation of Dreams recently. I have a particular interest in dreams as I often have vivid ones. For a time I would wake myself up after dreaming and write down as much as I could remember. I would try to understand where they came from. I don’t do that any more, […]

More Earth Tones

My abstracts have been based on earth tones lately (Abstract Forms, Landscape, Action Wall Shadows). I found a wonderful, if unexpected, combination: cobalt blue and quinacridone nickel. Together they create an earthy variegated green/brown. Today it occurred to me that I have been neglecting the secondary colors. I added chromium green to my palette. I thought, “Chromium […]

Landscape

In setting up my latest conflict between saturated and earth-tone colors I inadvertently mixed my cobalt blue with either quinacridone nickel or one of my iron oxides (I used both). Previously I had wet down my paper and stroked on the quinacridone. There are two phases to the bloom of this dirty yellow pigment. The […]

Action Wall Shadows

Earth tones, which I really like, are good to use in contrast with color. In my composition below, the color represents one realm, while the muted colors inhabit the shadow world. This makes me think of the cave painters who where lived in the real world, while their paintings were more or less monochrome, although […]