Working on Demo Piece

I've been working on a demonstration for my Watercolor Artist Magazine article for the past couple days. The painting is going well, but I hope the photos come out okay. I had to use the grown-up settings on my camera. I have a nice Canon camera, but I usually just use the "mountains" or "flowers" or "man running" settings, and let the camera figure out the f-stops and aperture. I get surprisingly good photos this way. Here's another new lily painting from the past couple weeks. (This isn't the demo piece). I've been getting pretty productive with my festival season looming ahead. Next weekend I have an art festival in Palo Alto, Labor Day weekend (Sept 5,6,7) I have the Kings Mountain Art Fair in Woodside, CA; and the weekend of Sept. 12-13, I will be at the Capitola Art & Wine Festival. If I'm lucky maybe I'll lose 5 or 10 lbs. from the stress!

Julie & Julia at the Movies

I went to see the "Julie & Julia" movie two nights ago. It was wonderful. It makes me want to be a dedicated blogger. And a better cook. I am a good cook. I have a Julia Child's cookbook. But cooking really good, inspired meals cuts into one's painting time...

I had good news yesterday. My paintings will be in the April issue of Watercolor Artist Magazine which comes out in February. I feel safe in saying this because there is an actual date assigned! A good friend of mine (you know who you are) waited until the magazine was practically on the stands before she told anyone, but I cannot keep a secret when it's about me and it's good news!

Here's an orchid painting I finished about two weeks ago.

Plumeria Painting

This is a 40"x 18" piece of 300lb paper. I've already torn it using a sharp ruler so it has deckled edges & I can paint right up to the edges. I've been doing this so that I can float the finished piece in the frame. Sometimes, I've torn the paper after the painting is finished, but I'm always worried that I'll tear the finished painting!

I'm doing an underpainting of the shadows using a grey made of cobalt blue, permanent rose & aureolin, as well as cobalt blue + winsor violet. I've added a little mixture of aureolin + bright rose (Holbein) in some of the shadows where there is reflected light in my reference photo.

Facebook Page

I set up a Facebook page today. I finally gave in. Now that everyone's switching to Twitter I'm finally getting on the bandwagon. Here's the link: http://www.facebook.com/pages/Kathleen-Alexander-Watercolors/110830963052

I really have no idea how to use Facebook yet. 

I've been doing lot's of painting lately, just not very much photography while I'm at it.  I'm about to start a new one today so I'll make a point of taking photos and putting them on here.

 I'm working at Viewpoints Gallery in Los Altos on Friday. We have a new show up. It's artwork by Terri Hill and Carol Mead-- all inspired by the Santa Cruz Beach Boardwalk. The reception is Saturday, August 8, 2-5pm. Please come by! Some of my new paintings are there as well.

Thanks

Thank you to those of you who have been following my painting blog and sending the nice comments. If anyone has any good book-on-tape recommendations I would love to hear them. I listen to books on CD while I paint, and it makes the time fly by. For anyone who hasn't tried it, it allows you  to be much more productive than when you have the TV on. 

Here's some of my recommendations:

Janet Evanovich  (Stephanie Plum stories)

David Baldacci (Camel Club series, & anything else)

Jonathan Stroud (Bartimaeus Trilogy)

Orson Scott Card (Ender series)

Elizabeth Gilbert (Eat Pray Love)

Here's a picture of my messy little studio. 

Heliconia Painting Finished!

Here's the finished painting. The new reds I used (mentioned in previous post) are fantastic. I  will be adding them to my palette, and replacing some of the reds I've been using.

I started another heliconia painting yesterday. It's cold and drizzly here in Pacifica, CA, so I will be painting all day in my nice cozy studio. When the weather is like this I don't have to feel guilty for  staying indoors all day! Maybe you can see why I'm so attracted to these tropical scenes-- I can pretend it's 80 degrees outside and I'm on vacation, having a mai tai.

Heliconia Painting In Progress

I was awarded the entire set of Daniel Smith watercolor paints at the Northwest Watercolor Society exhibition this past spring. I have just been enjoying looking at all the tubes of paint since then, but decided to try some of the reds for this painting. WOW! These reds are fantastic. I'm using Perylene Violet for the darkest reds, Pyrrol Crimson for the middle value red, and Permanent Red (Holbein-- oops) for the lightest value red. The Permanent Red is great too. My reference photo is down in the "Inspiration" posting on this blog. You can see that I left out some of the stalks which ran right through the middle of the flowers. I love this stage of a painting-- everything seems to be coming together and you can see the end in sight. Only problem is you have to start with a big white sheet of paper again as soon as you're done!