November Challenge

[JennieJo]

Hi everyone. I hope you will join me in the November Water Media challenge!
All levels welcome. First time trying any water mediums? Do not be shy! I am shy, but may even post this month
We all started the very same way.Just start and play around, and see where it leads you!

I I have chosen subjects that can challenge all levels, all photos taken by me in Central Queensland, Australia. And 1 sketch of a 'farm bird'. And, one for Xmas drinks. hope one or more photos inspires you to pop out your art supplies and give it a go. Please use any of these photos from my albums.
Pls post all your work here in this thread during the month.
Pls post what water mediums you used and any other comments you would like to share.
Let’s also be supportive of each other!
It is better to try than not try at all. You may just surprise yourself! I love when that happens.
Have fun. Enjoy. Share if you can.

 

[JennieJo]

Hi everyone. I hope you will join me in the November Water Media challenge!
All levels welcome. First time trying any water mediums? Do not be shy! I am shy, but may even post this month
We all started the very same way.Just start and play around, and see where it leads you!

I I have chosen subjects that can challenge all levels, all photos taken by me in Central Queensland, Australia. And 1 sketch of a 'farm bird'. And, one for Xmas drinks. hope one or more photos inspires you to pop out your art supplies and give it a go. Please use any of these photos from my albums.
Pls post all your work here in this thread during the month.
Pls post what water mediums you used and any other comments you would like to share.
Let’s also be supportive of each other!
It is better to try than not try at all. You may just surprise yourself! I love when that happens.
Have fun. Enjoy. Share if you can.View attachment 44425View attachment 44426View attachment 44427View attachment 44428View attachment 44429View attachment 44430View attachment 44431View attachment 44432View attachment 44433View attachment 44434View attachment 44435View attachment 44436View attachment 44437View attachment 44438View attachment 44439View attachment 44440View attachment 44441View attachment 44442View attachment 44443

An oops. I posted the wrong pic ... boat framed by tree should not have white arc front and central! But it can if you like. Will post the real one when I locate it.

 

[PaintBoss]

Jennie, great variety. It’s so cool seeing different plants, animal life and scenery from a very different country. It’s a real treat seeing Australia. That sunset colour is amazing!
Who is the lady in the picture? Is that you? Thank you so much for hosting. I’m looking forward to seeing everyone’s work.

 

[KreativeK]

Thanks for all the excellent choices!

 

[JennieJo]

Jennie, great variety. It’s so cool seeing different plants, animal life and scenery from a very different country. It’s a real treat seeing Australia. That sunset colour is amazing!
Who is the lady in the picture? Is that you? Thank you so much for hosting. I’m looking forward to seeing everyone’s work.

Thanks Christine. That lady is my 14 year old granddaughter after a holiday painting and photo day with Granny. She really doesn't look like that, yet. But she does look like a much younger me. The sunset is one of the 3 times the end of our road has been bathed in red. Taken with a cheap phone camera.

 

[PaintBoss]

Wow, you sure didn’t need any filters for that sunset. I wondered if it was a daughter or granddaughter-especially pulling off a goofy expression when you want to try and take a picture. That’s just so typical! Ha ha.

 

[Grapes]

JennieJo, great pictures!
I'll be following but I have myself given up with water media. I continue with oils which I enjoy tremendously.

 

[JennieJo]

JennieJo, great pictures!
I'll be following but I have myself given up with water media. I continue with oils which I enjoy tremendously.

I started out my art with watercolours, have been an artist in residence at an arts students retreat but rarely venture there any more. Just a lurker here. So much wonderful art to see.

 

[JennieJo]

Wow, you sure didn’t need any filters for that sunset. I wondered if it was a daughter or granddaughter-especially pulling off a goofy expression when you want to try and take a picture. That’s just so typical! Ha ha.

Absolutely. It was amazing. I missed a similar one earlier this year when I didn't have a camera with me. Yes, she gets it from her father, my son. Family tradition.

 

[Grapes]

I had a free moment tonight and went to look from the storage shelf my gouache color tubes again, even though I had sweared I won't touch them anymore . How does it go "never say never"? ... well, tonight might be my last time with water media . Although, this time I enjoyed painting with them.

The red reference, medium: gouache on sketch book paper, size: 11x7 cm.

 

[Grapes]

The beach scene, medium: gouache on sketch book paper, size: 10x8 cm.

JennieJo, where is this scene located?
I once spent Christmas on a beach little bit similar to this reference photo so when I was working on this reference my mind went back to that Christmas. It was wonderful feeling and lovely time.

Oh, the long light structure first looked like a bridge to me, and I painted it in the picture. Then I thought it could be a aquaducto (what do they call them these days?) so I painted water coming under the structure. The very last thought was it could be a long house with low roof like a row house as they call them in England.

 

[PaintBoss]

Well, Grapes, I am so glad you persisted. Those two paintings are marvelous. You captured the scenes very well. And oh my goodness you’ve got that lighting of that sunset down perfectly. You didn’t need to do anything extra, you got it -just the way you have it. Of course gouache acts a little bit differently than watercolour and it can be great for some things and frustrating other times. I think you just gotta keep with it or even if you give up on it, then go to watercolor. But you know, the hardest jump is from watercolour to oil and vice versa. You don’t have the playtime with the paint going from oils to watercolours. You have a little bit more of that with the gouache. It’s a matter of getting to know the medium as well as you know oil. Anyways, I love both paintings and I’m really glad you gave it a shot and I’m glad you enjoyed doing them.

 

[Grapes]

Thanks PaintBoss!
Watercolor .. I might not. Gouache has been too big of a fight already. I'm just thinking of a medium to make drawings to a travel sketch book now that I'm going to a cabin for a week I could practice there. I want to practice for a bigger trip which we're planning for later and there l could really use the drawing journal idea. I regret that I haven't done it earlier. Just drawings of small details or interesting subjects and to write a sentence or two to remind what was going on or what kind of things I saw. Little bit like writing a journal but I'm not much of a writer so I thought I could draw something fast and give drawings color because pencil drawings only are boring. To memorize things that way. These gouaches in this November challenge I did quite fast but gouache requires water, brushes, colors. Besides I'm mostly with my Bengal cat so if I'm outside of the house/cabin I need to watch her and possible dangers.

I'm so new to travel journals that I'm actually first time even thinking about it since yesterday. I know there are websites, videos .. there's lots of information but I doubt I'll watch/read those. I did already while back watch some but didn't get any smarter.

I used to paint with oils just about everything inside and outside but some didn't turn out so well because they were larger than a half notebook sheet and painting a good oil painting needs some planning composition wise. So painting process takes longer, set up easel, in the end storage paints, clean surrounding and brushes, carrying wet painting home along with cat . So, oil paintings take time and I don't do that many oil paintings on travels anymore. I do one or two and try to focus pn quality but not dozens anymore of which half and up to a bin.
Only thinking here out loud.

 

[PaintBoss]

Well, you can get the tiniest little package to set up to do watercolour in travel journals. But don’t think of very involved watercolors. I’m thinking of ink pen and then go in and fill with that light wash. It’s very fast. You don’t need any tools at all you don’t need a big set up. And you’re right there are many books and wonderful YouTube videos or Instagram accounts of people who do this all the time.
My point is if you’re always using oil, you will mess up a lot of watercolours or water media at first because they act so differently. But once you get past that you can go from one medium to the next without much issue.
I think those travel journals sound excellent!

 

[Grapes]

PaintBoss, one needs to like watercolor at least a little bit to try it. I'm afraid this is not my case. I have had maybe 5 different watercolor sets in my youth, but recently I threw away most of them, left one curious looking for a model purpose.

I tried this morning to sketch with oils to the sketch book my November cactus which is blooming now, the same sketch book where I've been doing gouache sketches of Finn , the Owl family, red flower, Scottish landscape and these Australian landscapes now, and the paper was acting perfectly with oils (I know oil will go thru when it dries) better than gouache on that sketch book. Big surprise!

So, this morning I tried oils: negative - drying time long. I might try other tool like color pencils. I don't have much ink, I might find some, not sure. What I should do is several tests with different tools and see if any of them work ... or ... just an other idea: carry to the cabin two sketch books and sketch every other day to each one with thin paint so other one has time to dry.

 

[PaintBoss]

Yeah, if you don’t like the medium at all, then I guess you should just avoid it. I sure don’t want to push you to do something you don’t want to do! Lol I hated it for years after coming away from oils. Which I couldn’t handle the smell of anymore, but I loved working with oils! Switching to watercolour was an exercise in frustration. For a long time.
The well-known Canadian painter Emily Carr was so poor, while oil painting in the woods in British Columbia, she would paint her oils on paper. The only problem was they just didn’t last, which was a shame.
I think I found what you needed. This comes in different different sizes. You don’t need to gesso it.

 

[Grapes]

Switching to watercolour was an exercise in frustration. For a long time.

So you've experienced that!!

PaintBoss, I'm using Frederix oil painting paper Olio Tela which is the best in the market, I believe. It's sooo good to paint oil sketches. I only use it to some quick sketches which are composition practices or studies for larger paintings. Mostly I use Belgian Linen for oil paintings, even for plein air.

Emily Carr's oil paintings (pleinairs ?) are ruined because of painting on paper?? How come Levitan's oil painting sketches are still in good condition? Also, I know some Finnish artists from 1800 who painted on a sheet of paper and I've seen they are fine! I've seen them in a museum.

But I should talk about water media here and not oils.
Sorry, JennieJo, for me bringing up other mediums talk here.

 

[PaintBoss]

Oh yeah I experienced that. So many ruined watercolour attempts. It is completely opposite to the way you work in oil so I was constantly running up against that. Watercolour takes a bit more planning- you can’t play with it as much. You’ve got to protect your white space. Once you realize how you can work with watercolor, there’s actually a lot of creativity and things you can do. But just mucking around until you make magic does not work for watercolour like it does for oil.
I had read because Emily used low quality materials painting oil on paper instead on canvases when money was tight, that it really affected the longevity of her work. Although I see that there’s quite a few pieces that have survived, some have been restored from the discoloration. I’m surprised so many have lasted this long.
This is quoted from the Art Canada Institute.
“From 1932 on, Carr had begun to replace her watercolours on paper with a more expressive substitute that retained the chromatic and textural range of oil on canvas while using less-expensive means, as she did in works such as Sunshine and Tumult, 1938–39. She worked on paper and used gasoline to thin her oil paints, which resulted in a viscosity and density that still retained the ease of watercolour during her excursions. Initially she used these materials only for sketches for larger canvases, but by 1936 she was making finished works in these media. With this new technique she was able to demonstrate the powerful expressionistic forces she sought more directly.”
Gasoline!!
She also did a lot of watercolour. If you don’t know her work, you should see it. She was an amazing lady and she did incredible writing that she’s very well known for as well. She was an eccentric for her time and very independent. She originally came from an upper class, but rejected that kind of life. She lived at times out in the the mighty forest of British Columbia and witnessed the lives of the first nations tribes before they were changed. Near the end of the life, she could see all the clearcutting and the destruction of their way of life. And this is reflected in the decay of the totem pools that you see in some of her work. Her paintings are incredibly powerful. She wasexploring the idea of spirituality in art and in nature.

 

[JennieJo]

The beach scene, medium: gouache on sketch book paper, size: 10x8 cm.
View attachment 44478
JennieJo, where is this scene located?
I once spent Christmas on a beach little bit similar to this reference photo so when I was working on this reference my mind went back to that Christmas. It was wonderful feeling and lovely time.

Oh, the long light structure first looked like a bridge to me, and I painted it in the picture. Then I thought it could be a aquaducto (what do they call them these days?) so I painted water coming under the structure. The very last thought was it could be a long house with low roof like a row house as they call them in England.

So nice. It is in Central Queensland, in a spot between Gladstone and Tannum Sands. It is a bridge.

 

[JennieJo]

Well, you can get the tiniest little package to set up to do watercolour in travel journals. But don’t think of very involved watercolors. I’m thinking of ink pen and then go in and fill with that light wash. It’s very fast. You don’t need any tools at all you don’t need a big set up. And you’re right there are many books and wonderful YouTube videos or Instagram accounts of people who do this all the time.
My point is if you’re always using oil, you will mess up a lot of watercolours or water media at first because they act so differently. But once you get past that you can go from one medium to the next without much issue.
I think those travel journals sound excellent!

It was difficult going from watercolour to acrylic, especially when I wanted it thick and messy. Mind flips can be challenging.