Painting for a Beekeeper

I painted this for a friend’s mother who’s planning to keep bees this year. Watercolor on Arches CP, 12″ x 17″

I’m experimenting with image processing in case I ever want to produce prints. A big dilemma is the texture of the watercolor paper, which shows up in both photographs and scanned images and makes the final image seem much less clean. The tutorials I read recommended the Smart Blur filter in Photoshop, but I’m still getting the hang of it – especially with a painting like this which has little splatters and lots of texture. This one in particular still seems a little dark… back to the ol’ Photoshop I guess..

 

Ever Heard of Ecoprinting?

…because I hadn’t, until about twenty seconds ago when I stumbled across this blog post. It looks like THE BEST THING EVER.

This image is from that same post linked above from Green Art Scene

Apparently you steam-pressure real leaves onto paper so that their pigment is transferred onto the paper. Here’s Cassandra’s explanation:

OK — here’s how you steam under pressure. Big turkey roaster with a vegetable steamer placed on the bottom, and about an inch of water under that. I wrap the paper in a bundle with the leaves and cinch it tight with string. Place it on top of the vegetable steamer, weight it with three bricks, and let it steam for about two hours. You need good contact between the leaves and the paper.

It may be too late for pretty colored leaves here, but next Autumn this is top priority.

Wine Grapes – An Exercise in Negative Painting

Hmm, title? - watercolor on Fabriano Artistico CP - 18" x 12"

Whenever I experiment with a new technique, it turns into a full-fledged painting. What a style-spaz.

Dreadlocks

"Nude with Dreadlocks" - Watercolor on Fabriano Artistico CP - 12" x 18"

Good muses make good paintings.

Exercise in Washes

"Exercise in Washes" - Watercolor on Fabriano Artistico CP - 9" x 12"

I don’t have much to say about this.. just wanted to post