Pansy Wednesday... And my cat, and some changes.

 
A couple of pansies for tonight, both of them on Etsy, both 6" x 8" on Ray-Mar canvas panel, both painted relatively quickly in the great outdoors from a live source. I apologize for the crummy photo of the first one:

 

"Purple Pansy" at Etsy

 

"Orange Pansy" at Etsy

 

Over the next couple of days I'm going to close up my Ebay store and move everything over to Etsy. I will still post items on Ebay occasionally, but fees, costs, and general downturn have made Ebay non-cost-effective. I'm also working on some fun stuff aside from the regular painting routine, a small preview of which is visible below, cleverly concealed within a gratuitous cat photo:

Post-fishing-weekend re-org

 

I'm back from a weekend at Lake Fork. I'm doing some major re-organizing behind the scenes here, and will have new work up by the weekend, at my newly purcha$$$ed eBay store. Please forgive dead links in the meantime; I have to shuffle a lot of things around.

 

With Erik Tiemens and Nathan Fowkes in mind, I made plans to try some gouache & watercolor sketching while out and about around the lake. I've never seriously tried the combination before, so it was all new - new environment, new brushes, new moleskine, new paints, new technique.

 

 

One of the views from the dock near the RV park

 

 

Trees in a small park across the causeway, eastern half of the lake

 

I didn't learn until after we got there that Lake Fork is one of the best bass fishing lakes in Texas. I didn't have any luck, and I felt compelled to quickly give up fishing pole for paint and sketchbook, but the lady of the apartment caught two small fish (both too small to eat, lucky for them):

 

 

 

The sunsets out there are lovely, and the abundance of birds was startling. The lake is quite large and gives an impression of emptiness in the photos, but it felt very active and rich in wildlife (especially bugs - all those fish have to eat something). Saturday evening's sunset looked like an ideal Japanese painting, with black horizon, hinomaru-red sun, and wading birds flying across the evening sky. I chose to put the paints down and enjoy it rather than try to capture it in situ, but I may work up something representative later.

Napoleon in Hell - Gouache 6x8

I've been working on painting characters and scenarios in gouache on illustration board. This is my first result, developed from a truly random brush & ink sketch. Between Patrick O'Brian's Aubrey & Maturin series, Peter Padfield's books on Maritime supremacy, and HBO's "John Adams", I've had 18th Century on the brain for a while. Random sketching while meditating on the literal idea of personal demons produced a twisted little figure in a big hat which bore a remarkable resemblance to Napoleon. If he's anywhere, I figure it's someplace cold.

Rough couple of weeks for art

Day job schedule, the sudden death of my ten-year-old Wacom tablet, and general domestic futzery has put a crimp in my posting (odd how "The Holidays" mean people work more instead of less). Today was the first full day I've had free to draw & paint in too long. Not much success to show for it, sadly. 1st image is from a sketchbook thumbnail of a field on my morning commute, seen at sunrise. 2nd image was a quick gouache of the view off my porch when I went outside for a fresh air break.

I have an unhappy backlog in the sketchbook, including work from a business trip to New Orleans last month, which I'm eager to get down on paper.

Gouache Apple

I'm ashamed to admit that I haven't used gouache in far too long. I've gone back into it recently and I decided first to experiment with painting simple things like fruit. It's nice to be able to paint in the real world again (outdoor painting isn't much fun in Texas during the summer!), and this time without the trouble of toxicity and travel-unfriendly equipment.