Iowa

 

Iowa
5" x 7" watercolor 
on Arches 100% cotton hot press paper

Each state has its beauty. Iowa, my home state, has plenty of it in skies, fields, and prairies. 

The Joy of Practicing

Corner of Morton and San Jose
7" x 10" watercolor
on Arches 100% hot press paper

Lately I’ve hit an inspirational doldrum as a painter. Travels, such as my recent trip to Colorado, tend to tickle the Muse; routine can soften her voice, even though I live in a place surrounded by beauty and great weather. 

So this week I took two mornings to drive around our island in search not of subject matter that reaches out and touches me, like travel does, but that at least interests me in terms of light/dark, textural, or color contrasts.

For this painting it was the light/dark contrast of the sun-soaked houses (including that bright white trim of the charcoal-colored house on the right) with the darker trees and the shade they threw on the sides and foreground.

The yellow right-turn sign on the bottom left was the icing on the cake. I left it out of the value study below but decided to keep it in the top painting.

This is not a painting I’ll frame, but painting both the value study below and the full-color painting above did provide me with a couple of hours of transcendent joy as I practiced with lights and darks. And it might make a fun card folded in half to some friend who appreciates my quirky paintings.

 

Value Study to Painting: Kinda/Sorta

Okay, so here's kinda/sorta how those value studies work. On top is a finished painting.

Just below is the initial value/color study. For that, I first used just one color, a fun color called "Moonglow" by Daniel Smith that separates into subtle pinks and blues as it dries, to decide where the mediums and darks would go. (I left the lights white.) 

Then I added a few pops of color here and there, to begin to experiment with what to use for a color palette. 

From there I sketched the composition onto an 10" x 10" format, and painted, trying to stay as loose as possible, and trying not to get caught up in details, especially in the middle ground and back ground. I thought the viewer's eye might first go from tree to tree, but I also thought the diagonal pattern in the foreground might lead the eye to those lighter rocks that go up at an angle just behind the trees. 

It's not a perfect painting, but there's some appeal in it for me, both visually and symbolically. In early August I hiked Colorado foothills northwest of Ft. Collins with two long-time friends. We stood by these trees one day; to me, they represent a deepening sisterhood that transcends time and place. 

Here's the value/color study, below.