Handsome Global Jetsetters

Watercolors have become an important part of my creative life. I continue to learn by doing, by taking classes and by emulating other artists. Today on a Sketchbook Skool posting I saw another student's watercolor that I admired. I decided to try her technique which included layers of color. Today, she posted www.MargaretMcCarthyHunt.com her 301st daily painting. I admire that too.

Here is my first painting which I like, and I used her technique. The male subject told me what to call the sketch, Hansome Global Jetsetters. 

Here is the sketch I did yesterday of the flowering cherry blossom tree across the driveway. I spent about ten minutes on it, had it shaped and the background sketched, when my neighbor pulled up in his truck and blocked my view. I stopped at that point, waved at him and said, f*it.

Though not in a obsessive compulsive way, I too have been painting and sketching daily. I have great faith and conviction that one day I will be able to see growth in my work. Right now, not so much.  I do feel more confident however, as I approach paper, pull out a brush and take my first strokes.


I am going to post a few I've done at Fort Sheridan over the last year. It's not really the most interesting scene, but I've gotten to know it in a way that allows me appreciate it and pay attention to how I render it. 

I would like to get to a more impressionistic style, but, I find myself wanting to realistically observe it. I am working to include other media and bought a couple pens. It's funny, when I start in pen, my watercolors feel sullied, like all I'm doing is coloring in a sketch.

I painted the next two on winter days. The top one was done on a snowy day in January. The temp must have been close to 32 degrees, so not blistery, just wet. The problem wasn't that the paints froze, it was that the snow fell so fast and furious,  that it melted as it hit the pigment, pooled and diluted the paints. I couldn't keep a consistent color.

I liked painting in the winter and though, I don't want it to hurry back, it gave me a new view and appreciation of my scene. There are few things that I have so deliberately looked at so many times. This is a zen sort of exercise. 

The sky is so blue and the lake is bluer in the next one. Fall 2014 turned the grasses brown and swept away most of the leaves. 

Everytime I go out, part of the pleasure is seeing what color the Lake and sky will be. During the summer when there are leaves, I can't see the Lake as I turn the corner into the parking lot but once the trees are bare, I come around the corner and it's like seeing an old friend and I am refreshed immediately.