Child portrait watercolor challenges - little grand daughter of Elaine

Elaine (aka Elainepsq), our host for the 7/8 February WDE (weekend drawing event) at WetCanvas, was so kind to share with us some great black and white photos, accompanying them with a few words from a demo book: "values do all the work, color takes all the credit". We all agreed that this is so true, and myself I undertook a double challenge - to try a child portrait and to make a color painting from the black and white photo! I have experienced child painting a few years ago, and I was kind of discouraged at the time, with so many difficulties - how to get the facial characteristics right, how to get the flesh tone mixes, that softness of the children skin was so difficult at the time, etc. Now, I am glad I did try again, as I am quite happy with this one. Of course, there are a few things I wished they would turn out differently, but I know that next one will be better, and I need to exercise more. So, this is the little grand daughter of Elaine, such a sweet and beautiful child, and I am so grateful to Elaine for sharing this personal photo with us! The painting has a size of approximately 8.5x7 inches, and it is done with W&N and Daniels Smith watercolors on Arches 140 lb CP paper.

White Rock-Rose (Cistus hybridus)

Cistus species are quite common in the Mediterranean area, and especially in our little village in Zakynthos Island, which makes them a bit underestimated - nobody is looking closely to notice their beauty anymore when are so many of them around! Although it is quite cold (for me) this period of the year to work plain air, while taking my walks around the village I always take a few photos of these beautiful and delicate flowers. I already did a small ACEO of a pink rock-rose (the Cistus creticus species), and wanted to further explore contrasts with this white species. The foliage of the bush is dark green with mauve and brown, making the white rock-rose more prominent. This time I did a slightly larger painting, of aproximately 7x5 inches, with W&N and Daniel Smith watercolors on Kilimanjaro 140 lb CP paper.

It happen that I came across with this wonderful website of Bob, The Cistus&Halimium Website, where you can find lots of useful information and details about all the Cistus species! Great job Bob!

Afterlife beauty of roses - rose hips again

And this would be the final painting of this small series of rose hips. It looks to me like these rose hips are fighting for full attention even more than the beautiful roses that are gone long time now and cannot stand the autumn cold winds. Strong and beautiful, making a statement about all ages of the life-cycle having their own beauty. The painting is approximately 7x10 inches, and it is done with my usual palette (W&N and Daniel Smith watercolors) on Waterford 140 lb CP paper.

Rose Hips - 2 more, ACEO size

Being inspired by the rose hips I painted for the previous WDE, I wanted to explore more this subject. I had some my own photos, taken few years ago on a rainy autumn day. These are from a different species, and they have rather round shapes with some very long and curly, dry ends. I liked the shapes, but wanted to change the mood to a sunny day. After making a pencil sketch, I decided I would like to experiment a bit with the colors and composition in two small paintings, ACEO size, to decide how the final painting should go. These are both done with W&N and Daniel Smith watercolors on Waterford 140 lb R paper.

Close view of a Red Tulip - spring mood!

Some quite very long time ago, back in 2004, when we visited Amsterdam, I got back with a selection of tulip bulbs. Of course, it is Netherlands that we are talking about!!! I planted them in small pots on the balcony and got about 50% of them coming out nicely and the beautiful tulips made that Spring colorful! Not sure what went wrong with the rest of them, I suppose the soil and watering were not the proper ones for some of the delicate species. I took some photos back then, and kept them in my reference folder for future use. Actually I have tons of photos taken since I got my first digital camera, an Olympus C-760 UltraZoom with 10x optical zoom, which I loved because I could get fantastic close up and make every little wildflower look so special! This painting is based on one of those old photos of my tulips from the Amsterdam bulbs, of which I was very proud at the time. It is an watercolor painting (Daniel Smith and W&N watercolors) on Waterford 140 lb CP paper, and I hope it brings a bit of spring color and feeling to your heart! Enjoy!

Rose Hips - Autumns Reds

Rose hips are always very attractive to me, due to their colorful brilliance, ranging from yellows to vibrant reds and down to brownish colors when are starting to dry and only the outer skin of the fruit remains. A few leaves in autumn colors, a lovely blue sky or the green textures of the branches make the picture perfect. This is what I felt when I saw a beautiful photo posted in the WDE by our host previous weekend, DLT (thank you for the beautiful reference photo!). I only selected a small crop of the photo, and changed a bit the composition to get the diagonal layout, trying to keep the feeling of sunshine on the hips. I painted this one with W&N and Daniel Smith watercolors on a small piece of 7x5 inches of Kilimanjaro 140 lb CP paper.

Tropical fish ACEOs

Some small size (ACEO) fish "portraits", to exercise more on the underwater wildlife. Enjoy your swimming experience with these tropical fishes! (W&N and American Journey watercolors on Waterford 140 lb R paper, 3.5x2.5 inches)
 

 

Sea Turtle - underwater fun!

I had such fun while painting the previous sea turtle, and when I saw this picture posted by Christine in the WDE (the photo was shared in the RIL by PattyC - thank you so much!) I knew I had to have another go to underwater fun! I wanted to do a different environment this time, and have some feeling of deep water in the bottom part of the painting, keeping the turtle in a less deep area and the soft sunlight filtrated by water. The painting is done with W&N and Daniel Smith watercolors on Arches 140 lb CP (cold pressed) paper. The size of the painting is approximately 14x10 inches. I hope you enjoy it!

Pink Rock-Rose - winter flowers, happy bees

These beautiful pink rock-roses (Cistus creticus) are very common in the Mediterran area, and they make honey bees very happy during winter - a valuable resource to maintain the hives without artificially feeding them! The mountain around Kampi village (Zakynthos Island, Greece) are covered by this wild plant and its close family (like Cistus monspeliensis, the white rock-rose). This is only a very small painting, ACEO size (3.5x2.5 inches), and it is done with W&N watercolors on Waterford 140 lb R(ough) paper.