Iowa Skies

 

I’ve lingered in Iowa longer than intended this month, and I’m missing home, but gosh, these Midwestern skies are so darned pretty. I walked with a friend at Ada Hayden in Ames yesterday. We’d been look at at the lake, then turned around and wow, the clouds and blue sky against the grasses took my breath away. 

Arrested by Oranges

 

Ada Hayden Oranges 
10” x 14” watercolor on Arches 100% cotton cold press paper

I was walking a round a lake in northern Ames, Iowa, feeling badly for my elderly mother, 95, who lives in a nursing home and has developed a rough case of the respiratory flu. I was also feeling homesick for my husband and sons and daughters-in-law and 4 grandkids b/c I’ve been away from where we all live in the San Francisco/East Bay Area x 5 weeks, checking in on Mom while my sibs, who live near her, are out of state. (I thank the gods for her terrific aids and nurses!)

I rounded the bend and was struck by the beauty of the orange-ish prairie grasses and the light-colored trees against the beautiful blue sky. And suddenly all was well.

Second Try

 

11 x 15” watercolor on Arches 100 % cotton cold press

Yeah. I’m getting over my superstition that second versions don’t work as well as first ones. It helps to have a “what if” mentality: what if I use warmer colors for more of the trees in the background? What if that shadow on the barn isn’t so dark? What if I only barely suggest the hay bales on the left? 

Snow Practice

 

No snow yet in Iowa—I’m just practicing from a reference photo supplied by my instructor, Andy Evansen, whose year-long online course is a gift that keeps on giving.  

Learning Curve Boost

 

I’m back in my home state of Iowa for a few weeks, hanging with my elderly mother and looking for beauty to paint. I found it at a nearby winery called Prairie Moon Winery, north of Ames, as the shadows lengthened one afternoon. 

My w/c learning curve is having a considerable boost, IMHO, with a year-long, online course I am taking from Minnesota artist Andy Evansen. What a fine course he has created in collaboration with Tucson Art Academy. I’ve been wanting to find a teacher to apprentice to, and viola—the opportunity for this course appeared rather magically.

For the course, Andy has posted well over 100 video demos and lectures for deep learning, plus he and my classmates are quite responsive with suggestions for paintings, via a private Facebook group. I am so grateful. 

Pink Dahlias

 

Pink Dahlias
5" x 5" gouache
on hot press paper

It's been such a delight to work with gouache all week. It's easier to fit these small paintings into a short time-frame, so it's easier to shift time for other important things, like time with precious grandsons.  

Watercolor takes more prolonged engagement, more focus, and definitely more planning so you don't make mistakes that are hard to correct. With gouache, you can paint over your mistakes much more easily because of its opacity.

That said, I'm also missing the pleasant surprises that can occur when transparent watercolor paints mix with water. 

Very nice to have both gouache and watercolor in my repertoire right now. Who says I have to choose? 

Flower Humility

 

Flower Humility
5 x 7" gouache
on hot press paper

Nature doesn't have to brag, or even humble brag. It just is. Such humility. Such beauty, shared for free.