Dear Art Friend,
I hope this has been a good summer for you so far! For my Malaysian friends, my friends in the USA are experiencing the weather you have year-round. We’ve had a few days in each of the last couple weeks that were excessively hot, but most has been perfectly wonderful summer weather. Saying that, are you still getting out to walk or drive to lovely spots to enjoy God’s beautiful creation? We have and that’s been the joy of this month.
Since our trip to the Southwest, I have been learning how to paint the desert and rock formations we were awed by on our trip in May. The first painting was a tutorial I followed. Without the original photo reference, I really didn’t understand what was casting the dark shadow on the rock. Perhaps the reference really was that dark, but I had not seen a formation like this, so I was disappointed in the finished picture. I did, however, enjoy learning some of the necessary color mixing.
The second desert picture was much more like the formations I had seen on our trip. The teacher did a good job explaining the method and process of layering colors. I will continue to practice and share some of the gorgeous, awe-inspiring scenes we saw on our visit to the Southwest.
The Barrel Cactus was a tutorial by Paul Clark and was so fun to do! It just made me smile!
The next picture was just plain fun! The teacher had taken just one tube of paint for this. That tube had three different base colors mixed together into a shade of green. The teacher put some on her palate and mixed it with water. She carefully wet the paper and dropped the very watery, pale paint into the water and it settled to a light blue sky. Then she painted a thicker paint mixture in the middle and formed the hills and base color for the trees. Some of it became quite yellow and some a medium green. Then she took very thick paint on her brush for the trees and bushes. I had to try it. Like magic, the colors separated out of the same mixture of base colors. I was surprised that it really did the same thing for me too. It’s not a great picture, but it was magical!
Finally, my Mark Making class assignment was mashing up a pillow 10 times and sketching it with all its folds and lumps. These are just 4 of my attempts. I didn’t like this exercise, but the teacher is convinced it will help me learn to draw what I see and not what I think it should look like. Anyway, since I paid for the course, I will trust there is a good reason to do the exercises. Hopefully you will see the improvement in my work overtime.
May God bless and keep you! May you experience the peace and comfort of time spent with Him. May He make you a blessing to everyone you spend time with.
Blessings!
Diane