Nine Lovely Butterflies

(clockwise from top left)

1. Gulf Fritillary, Hanging On, 8" X 8," $100

2. Pink Cattleheart, Over the Andes, 5" X 7, " $75

3. Hecale Longwing, 11" X 14," $230

4. Orange Julias, Passion for Flowers, 11" X 14," $230

5. Dark Blue Tiger, 11" X 14," $230

6. Great Yellow Mormons, Sunset Ladies, 11" X 14," $230

Day #5 of 5: Dark Blue Tiger

The Dark Blue Tiger butterfly is found primarily in the Himalayas and Southern India. It migrates to avoid typhoons. Caterpillars feed on stapf, which has blooms eerily shaped like the background plant in my painting. The Dark Blue Tiger has spot that can range from blue to white on a brownish-black to black field. Obviously, the white on brown one that I photographed seems odd to be called a "blue" butterfly, but that's how it goes sometimes!

This butterfly is a female. I know this because males have visible scent glands on the hind wing, which this butterfly lacks. These butterflies are toxic to birds and lizards. In large quantity, they can cause heart attacks!

Day #1 of 5: Dark Blue Tiger

For my second butterfly painting, I've decided to paint the Dark Blue Tiger. "Tiger" seems to be the name of quite a few butterflies! This one bears very little resemblance to the Tiger (Hecale) Longwing that I painted last week.

Rather than paint the butterfly on the one bush, I decided to add some other lovely plants to the composition. Perhaps these plants would never grow in the same environment, but that is the nice thing about art; your imagination can be part of the decision process.

You can see in the drawing below that when I converted the photo to linework, I mistakenly thought the leaf was one of the wings. You will see tomorrow that I took it out completely.

Lian Quan Zhen Workshop

Back in October or November, after moving and getting somewhat settled, I did a little "Googling" to see what art organizations were nearby that I might want to join. One of the first that I found was the Florida Keys Watercolor Society. Most of its meetings and events are in Marathon, which is an hour up the Keys from Key West, but it looked like a good group for me.

I happened to click on the "Workshops" page of their website and saw that they had a workshop in January, I immediately emailed the contact person to see if it was full. Fortunately, they were willing to squeeze me in. I'm so glad that they did.

Before the workshop began, I looked at several of the instructional demonstration videos on YouTube. I watched one with frogs and one with goldfish. I found that he was so much easier to learn from in person. His techniques are the same as in the videos, but he is a very nice and engaging teacher, which doesn't necessarily come across online.

On the first day, we spent a great deal of time on composition. He handed out copy paper with two egrets on it.

He said that we should decide whether we wanted to paint only one, or both. Since I didn't want to fall behind, timewise, I decided that it would be smarter to do only one. His method involves drawing the main elements of your painting onto tracing paper. Then, you can move them around on your paper's surface to decide the best placement. The tracing paper allows you to flip elements if desired. Once your composition is decided, you put transfer paper (graphite) under the tracing paper and draw over the image. I like to use a red pen for this so I can tell what has been transferred and what has not.
We were also instructed to freehand a vague idea of where we wanted the mangroves to be.

Next, Lian had us mask the egrets with removable masking fluid. (Don't laugh, apparently there is a permanent masking fluid out there for sale...not sure what the purpose of that would be.) We were also instructed to splatter a little masking fluid where we intended sunlight to be highlighting the leaves of the mangroves and to mask an elements that were to be in the foreground (closer than the egrets).

Once that was dry, the fun began! He demonstrated his method of paint application and manipulation. He makes three dishes of color in red, yellow and blue and does ALL color mixing ON THE PAPER. I had never done anything like this. He loads his brush and shakes or taps dots of a color where he wants it. Then he does the same with another color. (Each color has a brush dedicated to that color.) Next, he sprays just a little water into the wet paint, letting it combine spontaneously. He uses his finger tips to draw. In this case some of the mangrove roots and trunks were done this way. He also blows the paint around to make random branches and roots. He advocates for leaving some white and light areas of the paper too and warns against getting the paper too wet, which results in muddy areas. I would have liked a little more blending. I felt my mixing stayed a little too bright, but maybe that is just my style. The last thing to do in this step is to mix a dark color (the consistency of clam chowder) and flick that into damp color. Lian says all paintings need black. (His "black" is really Antwerp Blue and Naphthol Red, but it does look very dark.)

I have to say that when we first watched this method, it looked completely random and like it was merely playtime. What you do not realize until later is that Lian has mastered this method and he knows precisely where to place the lights and darks to develop them into a magnificent end result. I'm sure this gets easier over time.

After the paint dried we removed the masking liquid from the egrets and he showed us how to paint them.

I don't really have a lot of technique tips specific to the egrets, but generally, Lian stresses not to keep anything the same within a painting.

"Change the intensity, change the value, change the shape."

I remember him saying this as he painted the line dividing the beak, specifically. If you look, you will see the line does not go all the way across. He says the viewer will connect it in their mind and that keeping things too similar makes a painting "boring."

After the egrets were done, Lian instructed us on how to do the mangroves.

"Do not paint the roots. Paint AROUND the roots."

"Do not paint the tree branches. Paint AROUND the tree branches."

"Don't paint the rocks. Paint AROUND the rocks." 

This is also where he implores us to "Use what you have. Improvise!"

Above is his almost finished painting. (Before he took masking off the front limb.) I wish that I had words to explain how he used about three brushstrokes to make the entire composition go from an interesting abstracted painting to a painting with defined background, reflection and depth. It was mindblowing!

Above is my painting and it is still incomplete. I'm really happy with it, so far. I need to paint his legs. I need to paint the foreground baby mangrove plant and do the leaves of the mangrove in top left area. I'd like to think that I can make the center area look like more clusters of mangroves off in the distance, but I'm not sure how that will go, lol!

I wish I could have finished it in the workshop, but we moved on to a sea turtle painting, so I can't complain! I love sea turtles!!!

The method for the sea turtle was basically the same as for the egret, except we only masked the lines between the shell plates and on the legs. During the color application, I strategically placed color this time!

Artist Network has a Video of seaturtle method.

By the way, Lian Zhen uses a great big monitor and a camera mounted over the table. The attendees of the workshop have a wonderful (right side up!) view of everything he paints! He can also zoom in and we can see what he is doing better than he can.

Here, he teaches us to paint the sea fans using a method much like the mangrove painting method.

This was my turtle painting the day the workshop ended.

I loved this workshop. The format kept you engaged and on track. If you want to take his class, there is a schedule on his website. He is doing SO MANY workshops; surely, there is one near you. He also has many books (and DVDs), including ones with techniques. I purchased the beautiful one that shows lots of his work, but does not teach you how to do it:

Below, is my finished sea turtle painting. I love it. I cannot wait to use these techniques in future paintings. I've already had requests for more turtles, which will be my pleasure!

Jewelry Additions and Presentation

In the last batch of pendants that I created, I used some dichroic glass. This is glass that has metals added. It gives a foil effect. I didn't think I was fond of it, but all of the my favorite new pendants include it, so apparently I am a fan.

I started making these pendants in January or February. I was having fun, but I didn't have a long-term plan to do an entire line of jewelry. Things have kind of snowballed. I have a lot of pendants these days and in several types. I've added a few new ones to Etsy this week, but I will not be adding the entire inventory until after November 8th, when I am doing a show. If you see a pendant in this post that you can't live without, let me know by commenting or by sending me a message. The line of fused glass pendants range in price from $35-$55 depending on the size and kind of glass used. Let me know if you would like a silver snake chain. The chain isn't anything fancy, but it gives you or the recipient a way to wear the pendant immediately.

                                       

 

I try to photograph the pendants on both a black background and I white background. It is astounding how different they look. The pendant pictured above is a periwinkle color, somewhere in between the two photos, but more like the one on the right. All the wire is silver coated copper wire. For some reason it photographs more gold, even with the daylight bulb lighting.

                                        

 

This pendant isn't for sale. I made it as a gift for the owner of the boutique I have jewelry in in Old Town Alexandria (Virginia). If you live near DC or come for a visit, you should visit Local Colour Old Town. It features artwork and crafts produced exclusively by local artisans and artists. You won't be disappointed!

My new cards came in! I ordered them so that I have the option to attach pendants to them if I do not include a chain. Since I am new at this jewelry thing, I want to see what works best for display, transport, etc. These cards are approximately four inches square. These are among the larger pendants that I have made. The majority of them are closer to two inches tall, but the two here on the cards are closer to two and a half.

For my fellow Auburn fans, I did a few orange and blue pendants too. I think I will make some more and add "AU" charms to some of them.

Avian Blues

California Jay

Watercolor

4" X 6"

This was a really beautiful bird. The photo that I got of him was unimpressive. I'm not sure that I did him justice. I think the problem is that when your paper size is 4" X 6," you don't have room to paint the feathers in a convincing way. Here's a detail; it comes across a bit better.

I guess that I can't be pleased with all my results. This one is only okay. I had fun painting it. The next bird that I paint is going to be on a LARGE piece of paper.

Cornflower Blues

Something Blue

Watercolor

4" X 6"

$50

Click Here to Purchase

In early June, I began to notice these blue flowers blooming in the medians. I wanted to take photos of them, but with all of the end of year school activities and such, I kept putting it off. The linger I waited, the more I admired the color. It was the exact shade of my childhood "cornflower blue" Crayola blue crayon. Which, incidentally, always disappointed me when I put it to paper. The lovely color barely showed up.

When we pulled out of town for a road trip at the end of June, I thought to myself that I had likely missed my chance at photographing them. I was certain that they would be finished blooming when we returned home weeks later.

Imagine my surprise when I found them as pretty as ever upon my return! I think I took the photos the same day.

It turns out that they are the flower of the Chicory plant. It likes to grow on the roadsides because it loves sunshine and heat. Apparently, the deer love to eat the leaves in the Fall. I sure hope they don't eat it out of the medians.

"Hidden" Paintings

This morning, one of the trending stories online was about "Pablo Picasso hidden portrait found beneath famous painting 'The Blue Room'". I clicked over to read the accompanying article and I began to think about what Picasso would think about the ability of art conservators to "find" these painted over canvases...Would he be mad that a portrait he did not care to keep is now being revealed?

Artists paint over some of their paintings. Some artists use a single canvas MANY times before ending up with a painting that they deem good enough to exhibit or sell. We may not be Picasso, but would we want these paintings revealed to the public? I tend to think we would not.

The act of painting over a painting can be a bit sad, but is often cathartic as well. It gives you a clean slate to begin again. The thought that the first painting is "still there" is quite a strange concept to think about. I paint over a canvas on occasion. In my case, I often do this because I hate to waste anything or throw away anything that could be reused or repurposed. Will my thoughts on this subject change this practice? Perhaps stretching new canvas on the old stretchers will be a more desirable method in the future.

What are your thoughts on uncovering paintings that an artist has deliberately covered up? Fascinating? Invasion of privacy? Cost of fame?

Day 28 - Thirty Paintings in Thirty Days

Perfect June Day

Alcohol Ink on Yupo

5" X 7"

$40 SOLD

This started out as a very simple landscape and I was concentrating on the clouds. Is it a lake? Is it a meadow? Both? You decide. I do like the sky and I like the way the clouds are casting shadows on the ground/water.

Day 27 - Thirty Paintings in Thirty Days

Crossing The Reef

Alcohol Inks on Yupo

5" X 7"

$40 SOLD

Yesterday, I felt like doing some simple imaginary landscapes. This one made me think of being out on a ship or boat and looking at the horizon. It is always so beautiful and serene, especially when the depth varies and you get different colors of the water, as in this painting.

Day 12 - Thirty Paintings in Thirty Days

It is almost 10pm and I am just now writing the post about my "Painting of the Day." I never thought the most difficult day to find painting time would be on the weekend, but that is exactly true around here. I am not a morning person and though I got up earlier than usual, a sketch was all I got done before leaving for church:

So, fast forward through a Beth Moore video lesson, a great worship service, lunch with son while daughter at youth choir, explain chores, drop off kids, art meeting, cook dinner... Then, paint! Better late than never.

Birdhouse in My Soul

4" X 6"

$40

Click here to purchase