Sold One!!!!!

Oh happy day!!! I just sold a painting at the online gallery who represents me!
It's a 12" x 16" oil, and right now it's being shown at one of our local restaurants!
Will have to go and get it and ship it off! YAYYYYYYYYYYYYYYY!

This is the one!

Cecilia

Exploring Painting Florals in Watercolor

I think it's time to write some more. I'm still exploring florals in watercolor. I think I may be only beginning to get the hang of it.
Here I will post some of the recent ones. This is a quarter sheet of Arches 140 cp. I discovered a remarkable tool yesterday with this one. It's the lowly Q-tip, store brand. Really helps lift out those smaller light areas, and when it's got some paint on it, throw it away and get a new one!

With florals, it's all about luminosity I believe.

I've begun a new one today, and I think that my shadows look muddy, I will continue to work on it and hope I have not already ruined it!

Cia

Theories on color from a mind full of it

Hello all, I'm going to bore you with all this expounding on color that I'm about to do! There is a picture that I've done as a project for a watercolor group that I belong to. When I first did it, I hated it so much. It was not colorful, only having about 3 colors to it, and it was dead to me. I almost threw it out.

Then, last night, I got started on it, and it went where it wanted to go.
Now I find myself sort of defending it among my fellow groupies, but that's ok!
Here's what I wrote so far about this.

I had to work on this project a little more. I was way over there into it
tonight. Here's what I did. I took a little inspiration from Gina, and
from my daughter, who said, "Why are your backgrounds so dark?"
And my granddaughter who said "Why don't you ever put some colors back there?"
But more than that, it took on it's own look. I did not look at the photo again.
That's something I often do, when I get to a certain point, I put away the photo,
then let the painting be what it wants to be.
Here it is. I could have taken a better picture outside in the sun, but that was
not available to me tonight! I'm going to take another pic tomorrow if the sun shines.

(Then somebody wrote they thought it was overworked.) My reply:
Artmaker wrote: Well, if you saw it in real life I think you would like it. This photo does nothing for
it having been taken inside way after dark! Anyway, I felt very uneasy with it.
But after I worked on it, I began to like it. The leaves came toward me, the blue
receded, I was able to make some highlights where the sun hits the leaves, (Although I'm
still not satisfied with that) and toned down the light value on that post, Cheryl said it
was a post because she has seen lots of grapevines and they put them there as a
support for the vines. I did that to make the highlights on the leaves show up better.
There is actually some depth in this one, whereas the dark background (which was
hard to get rid of) was flat to me and dead. So that was my rationale,
and now I like it very much! So there's no accounting for taste, right? I will try to
get a picture outdoors so you can see the thing right.
Cia

and more:
p.s. I think that I have this wierd vision problem when it comes to my paintings,
where I want to see something, and I have to get that out of it or I'm unhappy and
uncomfortable. It's something about the relationship of colors. I love to see
violet, blue and yellow and gold and green in a painting, for some reason, no painting
seems right without that. There was almost a monotone about the first version,
and it was making me feel sick, does that make any sense to y'all? And there must
be some touches of orange in there too. After I lifted out that awful dark background
and put in some cobalt and some permanent magenta and let it run together, I felt
better, the stone on my heart began to lift. Then I began to approach my visual joy.
I began to see that relationship that my heart longs for. I know, I know, I'm getting
wierd on y'all. So I'm sad that nobody likes it but me and my daughter.
Cia

In response to that person who didn't like the changes I wrote additionally,

Oh I didn't! I knew in my heart and soul that it was my vision! I was a little bit
disappointed because you didn't see it too, but you know, to each his own vision!
Ha Ha...

There is more to my lengthy prose about this topic. I majored in music in college,
I wanted to be a choir director. So I took two years of music theory, (forgot it all
but still retain the feelings) and you know how you feel when a chord is unresolved?
Well, then when it resolves on the next chord, you feel satisfied, less uneasy, complete.

That's how I define the way I feel when I get the right balance, the right harmony,
etc. I don't really care about what other people think that much when it comes to that;
now if somebody says, your composition is off, your drawing sucks, your values are not
right, you don't have your light source clearly defined (and that is something I've been guilty of,
as well as the other things) then I will take another look and go right in and try to do something about that. But when
it comes to colors, I have my vision, and it has to be there, or I'm very, very unhappy.
Some people say something about the edges. Now I may need to think about that, because
I don't see any problem with those, I'm not looking at that as much as I am color, and depth.
I want the subject to come forward, the background to recede, and the values to be correct.
Perhaps in some future lifetime I will worry about edges. LOL

However, I still feel there is something else that this painting needs. I have to figure it out though,
if I don't, then I will call this a lesson well learned, and leave it at that. At least I feel like I
rescued this one out of the trash can! Ha Ha...

Cia

Double Azaleas

Hello again, I found out somebody has visited here and didn't even see my latest azaleas! So I'm putting them up right now! Finished these yesterday!

Cia

This is what I've been doing today..

I don't think this is finished, but here it is anyway. This is my first azalea ever!
Cia

OK, ok, here's the picture, Iris Lights

My New Direction

My New Direction

Hello, it's been awhile. I've come around to believe that I must stop regretting that I quit watercolor and find a new direction.
I think I've done it! This is a watercolor of an iris that I did very loosely and I like it. I call this "Iris Lights II". (First one didn't turn out, and you ain't gonna see it!)
Cia

My Art Activities

My Art Activities

Hello, I'm back.
I am so happy, I sold that painting, "Stained Glass Pansies"! So it seems like maybe I've found some kind of niche. So I'm planning another one. I've looked at hundreds of floral pictures. I realize that it has to be a big, graphic look, with "pieces" that look like "puzzle" pieces. If that makes any sense.

Found several, and I'm about to start on one, it's to be called "Stained Glass Purple Iris"
and I think it qualifies, if I can only get it going. I realize that looking at the picture on my monitor is much better than looking at the photograph. So I plan on putting it on the screen, and I'm going to look at my computer screen as I paint instead of a photo.

Of course, as always, after I'm about half-way through, I will depart from the photo and
then begin to try to make it have the qualities I saw and that I'm attempting to depict.

Stay tuned!

Cia

My Art Activities

Early Morning Ride

I have not been doing much with this blog in a while! But somebody else's blog inspired me to work on this one.
There is one new painting that I feel is worth putting in here... right now, I'm helping my granddaughter with a brand new (3 wks old) baby, and it's amazing how much time that can take.

Here's the newest one. It's on Arches 140 lb cp paper, it's about 22" x 30", and it evolved.
First the picture I had showed a bicycle rider where you see my maiden and horse. I took out the biker and put this in instead. I've never done a horse before either!

It's been awhile... some new work!

Well, it's been about a month since I was messing around in here.

Since then I've been working on other things, like designing a logo for a local
restaurant, menu design for same, and they also have 4 of my paintings hanging there now.

The last watercolor that I did is there, here's what it looks like framed.

Cia

Another Version of the Previous Hollyhocks Painting

This looks different. This painting is a repeat version of the previous scene, but this time I just did what I call direct painting. I didn't use any fancy techniques. Just painted it. I could not believe how much difference it made when I looked at the old one beside the new one.

Also, my eyes ain't what they used to be. I saw lots more in the ref photo this time because I used a magnifying glass and saw things entirely differently.

Hope you like it!

Cia

Latest Watercolor Painting

This is a picture of the last thing I did. Just stopped on it last night. It's a rendition of a photo I took of my hollyhocks, backlit.

Nothing doing today yet

Lots going on, and nothing going on.

I must make myself get some painting done!

Artmaker-Cecilia-Price

Next in the Series - SG Hollyhocks!

Here's the next one!

And this may be my favorite so far! I've discovered a secret weapon in my arsenal of lifting color tools.

And so I said "Let there bnt Light!" And there was.

Artmaker-Cecilia-Price

What I'm going to do today... I hope

Going to start on a new watercolor today. This one will be Stained Glass Hollyhocks.
Everybody loves my iris one on the group I'm in. I bought some framed prints and
trying to get into those things is a major project, but I have at least got two framed.
I broke the glass on one of them though, so have to get new glass.

This time when I do the hollyhocks, before I begin to paint, I'm going to think carefully
about the entire design. I have just been going with it, not planning that much the end
result. I'm going to do it differently this time.

If I have some time, will work on the oil painting too.

Stained Glass Iris Revisited

Well, I've been playing around with this all morning.
I learned some valuable lessons. I'm still not totally happy
with it, but a lot happier. One of the things I learned was
not to leave out the RED. It makes it work.

What do you think of this? I think to leave a comment, go
to the very bottom of the page, and click on the comment
link.

This picture is a little dark for the real thing.

Cia

Today I'm worried about this one.....

I have worked on this one for awhile. Several days, anyway. I'm not at all happy with it yet.
If anybody has any thoughts or ideas, please comment on this and I will take your ideas into consideration.

Here's the picture.

Cia
Artmaker-Cecilia-Price

My first posting!

I just found out about this and saw it as an opportunity for personal and artistic growth.

Lately I've been doing some watercolors, trying to get back into watercolor after
a long time, that are florals that look like stained glass. The first two turned out reasonably well. The first one is the lily, and the pansies are the second one I have done.




Today I'm about to try to correct a watercolor that I messed up last night.





This is so cool!

Artmaker-dot-com
Cecilia Price