"Jack" Rabbit (Oil on 300# paper)

Every garden attracts hungry little creatures. This painting was fun to do. I was in the mood to paint hummingbirds and furry creatures. It was just one of those notions at the time. I loved to paint  it because it was fun with its multi-colors.

"Jack" Rabbit

 Petal Tips: Again, this painting was on old 300# watercolor paper. Like I've said before, I use the best paper. It is heavy and if a watercolor doesn't work, I use it for other medias. As long as you have your values right, you can use any color you want.  That was one of the hardest lessons for me. To translate colors into values. What do I mean by that?

Values range from one to ten.  One being white and ten being black. A soft pink might be on the scale of two. That color can show anywhere you want a highlight. In the shadow, you can use any color as long as the value is dark.

For you who play the piano and read music, yellow ochre is the middle C of paint. Anything lighter than yellow ochre is considered on the light side, anything darker is considered on the dark side.

Once I understood that rule, indulging in all colors of paint didn't scare me. I'll paint faces in multi-colors and they work because I understand the rule.

Meanderings~~~~~ I have always been hungry to learn.  I have eaten of many gardens, taking what I could get. Then I made it my own. I too have been prolific. Just like the jack rabbit. I think it was my hunger to learn that has created in me so many styles and interest in painting everything.

I don't think of having a style any more and I might be criticized by that.  Once I tried to figure out what my style was, now I just paint. There is a certain feeling in my work that says it is mine. I think the freedom comes when we forget whose garden we are eating from and we just consume our talent. I switch so much from oils to watercolors to acrylics and they all work so differently with whatever I paint. 

Oh to be free like the rabbit.  

Chili Peppers (WC 3/4 sheet)

It is harvest time for red and green chili peppers. The longer they stay on the vine, the hotter they get.  I took a picture of a scene of chilis in a fruit market.  The newspaper was laid out for a table covering and all different kinds of chilies were put out to sell. 

This painting was a very loose rendering.  I think I worked more on the design than on the actual painting..  The columns of the newspaper were running up and down and the boxes were stacked diagonal. The focal point is right in the middle where the white newspaper hits up against the box of red chilies.

Everything is a picture.  Sometimes it is the lines and some times the colors, but this time it was the different chilies.

Petal Tips: The ink on the  newspaper was written in squiggly lines in black paint, I dropped water onto the black and let it run.  I didn't want the black to be so definite, but just be there indicating a newspaper. 
I muted out the back peppers so they would recede. The main chilies are in the middle and I made them more defined.

Meanderings~~~~~. Some Chilies are hot and some are mild. It's according to every one's taste. Isn't that the way people are.  Some have fiery personalities, they consume and leave ashes as they leave the room.  Some people are mild as oatmeal, and overlooked and forgotten. These are the ones who usually have some substances and stick-to-your-bones kind of nourishment.

The quiet ones are usually misjudged as if they don't care. Artist's want and need strokes and excitement over their work. The hot personality will usually give you that feeling and bite but will leave quickly. 
So we gravitate to the fiery ones. We shouldn't be deceived, the friends that have been constant to me over the years, usually have been the quiet ones, who have come along side and supported me and didn't need to be out there in front waving a red flag. They weren't as needed as the fiery ones.

Thistles among the flowers (WC 1/2 sheet)

I noticed the thistles and I thought, every garden has weeds. It is a given, It is what we contend with. Either they grow in our hearts or around us. It is a part of this fallen creation.

Thistles among the flowers

The purple thistles in the foreground are called "devil weeds". They are beautiful with their purple heads, but they are ruthless. Plant one and you have thousands. 

Petal Tips!  This watercolor was done in a couple of hours.  I look at it now and I think, I should go back into that foreground and enhance the purple thistles.  It would make it much more dramatic. And I will. I learn as much as from what is wrong as what is right. I painted everything around the white flowers, knowing I was saving the white for the subject.  The subject was just there when eveything else was painted. 

The white flowers was just a spot of yellow with a half-moon stroke of burnt sienna to tuck the middle of the flower down into the petals. A stroke of watery gray-blue gave it shadows and they were painted.

Meanderings~~~~~ As I say, I can learn as much as from what is wrong as what is right.  The Lord has exposed my heart to me and I have seen the thistles growing. Some from the past and some from the current.  Some times they are beautiful purple blooms but, let them grow and they will take over.  The same is when we have a bitter heart, unforgiveness or coveteousness.  You name it, anything the devil plants, it will destroy you.  It will choke out the beauty of the true flower which you are. 

For the painting sake, the thistles need to be stronger in the foreground, for the heart's sake, they just need to be pulled out.

Season of Harvest (Veg. WC 16X20)

This time of the year we receive the bounty of harvest. Fall brings summer's fruition. That's the way we grow.  The season we are in, brings the next stage of our lives. We need to walk through each season, just as a garden needs not only the beauty of flowers but the sustenance of vegetables and fruit.

Season of Harvest

Petal Tips! This watercolor went together with such ease.  I love Charles Reid's loose,  counting-each-stroke technique, which  keeps the painting clean and the colors pure.  In order to do this, I loaded the brush full of red and painted the tomatoes, leaving a white space for highlight.

The cauliflower was done with dirty diluted watercolor from the palette.  It takes a lot of water.  Again the egg plant took one or two strokes. I liked the design, It's almost an upside V.  I made vertical strokes coming down in the background, and then I made horizontal strokes in the foreground, laying down the table top.

Meanderings~~~~ A student, Jean Shad,  brought in some vegetables for one of the art classes.  I just had to paint it with her. Other people's ideas feed into us, and hopefully what we are thinking and feeling will enhance how they are looking at life.  I probably would not have thought of vegetables.  But I am so glad that the student had the thought of bringing them.

Walking on Sunflowers (Acrylic)

The Sunflower! That's a fun flower to paint. I've planted hundreds of them. There ae so many varieties. Big black centers, small green, and brown, pointed tips, ragged squared off tips, flat rounded tips, but they are all sunflowers. I have also painted them in array of different mediums, from heavy textured oils, soft washy watercolors and flat hard edged acrylic. All of that and they still remain sunflowers.

Walking on Sunflowers (36X36 Floor Art Acrylic)

When we built a new road on our property, the first thing that came up in the newly turned dirt were sunflowers. They stood large in a golden yellow line as if they were guarding our driveway, always with their heads pointed to the sun..

Petal Tips:
This painting was done on a large loose square canvas which I  painted as floor art. This painting was painted in acrylic and hemmed. This is not usually my style. I do not paint with hard edges, but it was another experiment.  

I sized the canvas with gesso, laid the canvas flat on the table, drew my image on, then painted with acrylics. I painted dark blue behind the orange flower, and also kept the yellow tips light, all  to make the center the focal point. I didn't do anything but paint. This painting is more for the idea that art doesn't have to hang on the wall, it can be floor art too. 

I turned the edges and ironed them down, then glued them so that I had a nice flat hem. I've used the same idea and turned these loose canvases into table runners, place mats, and images under glass. 

This big bold images is definitely a stopper. People will stop and look before they walk on it. 

Meanderings~~~~~ Sunflowers grow wild, they pop up where no one has planted them. How does the seeds of sunflowers find their way into loose soil? The mystery of God's grace. I have found so  much beauty in places I had nothing to do with  and yet the Spirit wooes me to turn and look. How can we not be overwhelmed at God's goodness and beauty. Just in a simple sunflower, we see beauty.


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Bursting Forth (Roses 11X14 WC)

Bursting Forth (Roses 11X14 Watercolor)

I woke up this morning anxiously wanting to get to my garden, just to see what has grown overnight. This little rose painting caught my eye. I love this little watercolor. It was one of those paintings that just happened. I could almost count the strokes. 

Petal Tips! This painting was done wet on wet. That,  meaning I laid clean water down over the paper, I dropped a little yellow in the left upper corner, made some swirls in red paint, leaving the middle one ,white. I added green and blue letting the water fuse the leaf colors together, and while it was wet I threw in some salt.

This whole process was done in wet. While it was drying, I added more strokes in green, added a stronger swirl in red and called it finished.

The salt crystallized and because it was wet at the time, the salt moved the water out as if the flowers were bursting forth. The whole work on this painting was done by the paper, water and paint.  I just gave it a swirl or two.

Meanderings~~~~ This is the way of life.  Sometimes we struggle and struggle in doing something. It never seems to fit. Those times are teaching times and the outcome never seems to be that satisfying but the lessons we learned, are priceless.

Then there are those times we just start something, like this rose painting and it just goes together. I could have never done this rose painting in the confidence that I put it on paper without all those years of struggle. Life is the same way. We need those teaching moments in order to perform magic.

White Petals (Mixed Med 11X15)

I am picking this floral for you today, just so you can see another technique. I am hoping you are learning that art can be anything and any way you want to go, it is an expression o f beauty, and will come in different forms and different mediums. According to your mood and choices.

White Petals (Mixed Med 11X15)

I save my old watercolor paper for these kinds of mix mediums. Old, in the sense, they start out as a watercolor, and with possibly too much labor, too much dark, too, too, too. Anything can take a watercolor over the edge. I use 300# paper, it's heavy like a board.  I never feel intimidated in using expensive paper because I know if I cross over the line, I can always add another medium. I would rather work freely than cautious. I've painted enough to know when to stop, but there is that moment when you love a certain color more than anything and you can't stop yourself. Then you look back, and scream, "Oh No. I should have stopped."

Petal Tips! Again this is an impressionist rendering. It is considered a mixed medium. This has almost a scraping effect, like I used sandpaper instead of a hard white bristle brush. I applied the white acrylic to the tips of the flower, one tip at a time.  I pulled it down to the center. I added color at the center of the floral and then pulled it up to meet the tip. Each one was done the same way. I added polymar medium for a frosting-like consistency. The petals were random. I wanted the feeling of the flower spreading loosely.  One flower with green around it would have killed the flow. Extra petals could belong to this one or to another one beneath it.  So did I have any flower in mind? No. I was going with the shapes that were already there and followed through.

Meanderings~~~~~  Some of us have re-invented ourselves many times, each time pulling from what we were born with, what has been given to us and the detours we have taken. Those times when we loved something more than good sense and we couldn't stop ourselves.  We are more beautiful than when we started. We actually are becoming what God has intended us to be.  

If you look at the weathered skin, the lines in our faces, and the sagging bodies, you would say, "No! That's not true." But if you could see the  heart, you would know what I was talking about. Life has scratched away at some of us until the rough sandpaper has smoothed us out.  Those places in our personalities that were jaded and rough are now smooth. The bitterness has turned sweet. We have been redeemed from ourselves. Praise God.

Little is much (Mixed Med - Lily 6" X 8")

Good Morning

I woke up excited as to which flower I would pick for you today. I am staying with the impressionism. I love the colors  and the movement.This is another small painting 6" X 8", but it carries bigness. Some of the classic pictures we have grown accustomed to, such as Van Gogh's or Rembrandt, carry strength and power, and we are shocked they are so small.

Little is Much (Mixed Med - Lily  6" X 8")

They loom so big in our minds and I have assumed they must be big.Isn't that the way of true worshippers of God. Once you get to know them, you are surprised their lives are so simple;  they are so big in the spiritual world before God, but usually their lives are hidden away, without any fanfare. They must stay small in the eyes of the world in order that they can stay pure before God.

Petal Tips! This lily goes outside the borders. I believe when you do this, the subject becomes big even on a small piece of paper. This was also a from a used piece of 300# paper cut up into small pieces. I saw partially an image of an open flower, then I began to carve out petals.

On the value side it is a one to nine. It is dark in the left bottom corner showing a shadow and the middle of the flower is highlighted with white acrylic. This gives it the three dimension. Also, when I add white acrylic, it becomes too chalky, so after it dries I put a magenta or Alizarian Crimson diluted watercolor wash over it. This cuts some of the white.

When I teach, I emphasise always, "save the whites", and span the value as dark as you can go. What I mean by this, think of the darkest dark as ten and the lightest light as one. Usually when a student brings me something they have done, many times it is flat and they do not know how to make it pop. Most often it is because they stay in the middle of values. They will paint it all between four and six.

Meanderings~~~~Once in life I wanted it all and I thought if I worked hard enough I could have it all. Today, I only want ALL that the Lord wants me to have. What a difference in my life.  Once I was straining my tether, running through life grabbing and getting everything I could get. I missed life in the process and it brought heartache to my family.

Now my life is so satisfying and fulfilled but I keep it very simple. I want time to worship, paint and write and enjoy my family. It means cutting out time spent running to town, and spinning my wheels. 

So this flower, is big with very little around it, just enough to support its existence. 

Impression of beauty (Mixed Med - Impressionist)

I picked you a flower today from my garden of impressionism. Impressionism does not look at form but liquid, not structure but feeling.

Years ago I had a friend who had a dark brown birthmark on the whole side of her face. Maxine was witty, clever, fun and she was a wonderful friend. I introduced Maxine to another friend. This friend said, "I was appalled, you should have told me about the birthmark, I couldn't help but stare. I made a fool of myself. You should have told me."

I just remembered my reaction, "I forgot she had it."

Impression of beauty 4"X5"

I think this is the way of impressionist art, we are not looking at the form, but the feeling. That feeling of beauty of how it affects us.   

This little painting carries so much feeling. I don't know if it is the movement or the color, but I love it.

Petal Tips! This started out as an old watercolor on 300# paper, I cut the paper up into small shapes. I looked at the original painting and looked for something I could build on. I saved the rose on the right side and took white acrylic and started making curved lines up the side.  I needed to do something that would pull the flower into the painting, so I made strokes as big as the flowers, It works. The flower actually leans into the curved lines and fills the space.

I needed to bring in some dark just to keep it from looking flat. The dark in the left hand corner adds another dimension, like there is a background behind it.

Meanderings~~~~What can we learn from this painting? It started out on a used piece of paper, but there was an impression of a flower that remained. It was off-centered, small and of little consequences. But anything in the Master Artist's  hands can flourish. The Master knows exactly how to build the painting around the lone flower.  He knows how to draw it back into society, (the other things around it). Nothing is lost in the Master's hands and nothing is lost in our hands if we have the mind of Christ. We can find beauty in ashes. .  

Simple Things Speak Loudly

Which flower should I pick today? They are all so beautiful.  Isn't that the way it is? We look at our children and see how different they are but each one has a fragrence about them, a simple beauty, an uniqueness, and we want to pick them all.



SimpleThings Speak Loudly (WC)

 So I am going to pick this simply boutique and put them in this funky picture.

Petal Tips! This is a pure watercolor, nothing added, not even pencil marks. I saved the whites where I knew I would be putting the pitcher and white flowers. I just let the water, paint and paper do the work. The looseness makes it a true watercolor.

The white flowers were made by the color around them. They just happened as I added color for the other flowers and green foalige.

I put clean water on the pot after the background dried, then I dropped in shadows and colors to reflect the things around them. The charm with this, is not the perfection but the washy look of a watercolor.

Meanderings~~~~ Why are we so uptight with life? This painting just proves that letting life go and walking in the liquid flow of the Spirit, we will have unexpectant surprises. The thing I am learning these days, is that to be flexible to God's call, we must forget form and become liquid.

I understand we need a certain amount of form to bring order, there is a balance. God Bless You 

Crystal Clear

Somethings are crystal clear; the way a garden grows, the way an artist' expresses one's self and the way friendships ought to be. In this garden  of social networking, I wonder what it is all about, how much I want to give to the computer and what will come from all of this. So I don't go there, so far into outer space. I just continue logging  my art, making sense of what I have done through my life of painting, how I can help someone else accomplish their dreams and bring better and a higher expression of life to them.

So in my garden I have planted seeds of friendship, talent and lots of Bible studying. Friendships are my mirror, talent is my expression and Bible study is my Life. Hopefully I am balanced with just the right plants to attract and nourish others.

Crystal Clear (Oil 16 X 20)

Petal Tips:  This oil painting started with a thin layer of paint to make the design. If I know I am going to do a palette knife painting, I always get rid of the white canvas. You can spend a lot of time scraping the knife to cover all the white  nibs of a canvas.  I needed to figure out where to place the flowers and the light. Once I painted in the design, then I began building up paint with a knife. I wanted to make sure I had a light source and where the light would hit. I wanted to bring it out in the crystal vase. Crystal is  multi-facet , with a lot of light, also the reflection of the big poppies it is holding and inside of the vase. 

Meanderings~~~~ Is this not the way we are which is crystal clear? So show what we reflect from others, where our light source is coming from and what is planted on the inside.   All of this shows a beautiful bouquet as a witness of God's faithfulness.

Playful Moment

This morning my computer was acting up and I thought my little exercize of sending out a mini art lesson was over. Each day brings a new situation and new beauty. That's how it is in this garden we walk in. Flowers seem to bloom overnight. We do not know the preparation it takes to bring about the bloom for us to enjoy.
We just enjoy them.

Playful Moment (Mixed Medium 11X14)

Petal Tips: The iris is a fun subject to paint. The trick is to keep it loose and ragged. This is also a mixed medium. In this excerize I will show you two different mediums, each is successful for what I was doing, and each has its own nature. This one appears opaque. I used the white acrylic to bring out the light on the petals. I worked watercolors and acrylic to get this result. You can mix two different mediums of paint as long as they are both water base, or others like oil.

Iris in Bloom (Watercolor 11X14)

The watercolor was done wet on wet, eEvery bit was done down to the centers. Same flower but such a different feeling. This one seems transparent to me. It's got a light feeling where the other oe seems heavier.

Meanderings~~~~~~ The scriptures says that it is the Lord who prepares the heart. He has been preparing this garden of mine for years. Even when I thought I was planting and digging and watering, He is really causing it to happen.  I can not give the plant life, I can only plant it where it can grow best. These bulbs are usually planted in the fall and then the snow covers them for five or six months. We can't see what is going on in the dark recesses of the earth, but it is breaking open the bulb and bringing forth life.

Isn't that pretty much the same with our lives. We must be dropped into the ground (death) in order to live.  It is the spirits way of preparing us for Life that comes from above. Then it takes time fighting through the soil of our lives - the dust of the earth, then one day the shoot is seen and we know the rest of the story.  Sometimes I forget what colors of iris bulbs I planted and I don't know until they bloom.

Many of us are just like that, we have to come to a place of maturity before we can really see our beauty, even though every step of the process is beautiful, but we can't see it until it happens.Every painting I painted, every lesson I took and every mess I made in the process were all preparing me for this playful moment.

Just There

Just There (Watercolor 11 X 14)

"Just There" was just there. A friend and I went on a painter's vacation.  We went to Cape Cod, then to Maine and to Monhegan Island.  At the home of a friend in Cape Cod she had freshly cut yellow flowers on her kitchen table. They were just there and needed to be painted.

Petal Tips: I painted two watercolors on this subject;  one vertical and the other horizonal. They were quick studies but they were so delightful in that I saved a lot of white and kept them clean.

I used purple behind the golden flowers which made them pop. It was wet on dry. So I had to keep a wet edge at all times, so that as I placed the yellow on the tips, I could bring raw sience into the middle and bing the colors in the  petal together in one decisive stroke.

I like leaving one edge of the vase to the imagination. I would say that this design is a definite cross  in the way that the stems are executed.  Did I plan that? No, not at all. The weight of the painting is on the left and I felt that if I brought the flower into the corner, it would pull the arrangement back into the painting.

Meanderings~~~~~Isn't that the way it is? Things are just there, and it is with the artistic eye that we take a second look and discover beauty right before our eyes. Photographers, artists or writers, they just happen to be at the right place at the right time and catch that moment in time on paper. I believe there are many right times, right places, the secret is turning aside and looking.  I am reminded of Moses, he turned aside and saw the burning bush. It became holy ground.  

Is that not what artists do when they paint something that is just there, the common becomes sacred. Not that the flowers changed into a spiritual thing, but it is in seeing the beauty that gives the creator glory.   

Upward Pull - Tulips

I thought I would step out of my traditional paintings and bring some of my comtemporary pieces. My art has had several major shifts in style over the years. I am actually known as an impressionist. My art started very detailed and has come into a freedom of expression. As I have become free in the Lord, so my art has taken the same turn. Some of you will love this style and others will feel I have taken steps backwards.

Upward Pull (Mixed Medium)

It has been an upward pull to change how I was viewing art, especially my own art. It takes stepping out of one's comfort zone and experimenting with other styles. In the process of coming into this place, I had an emotional breakdown for an afternoon, a total melt down. Everything I did, I felt I was back at square one and I knew nothing.  I had painted for forty years and I felt like a first grader all over again.

Now it is hard for me to go back to the realistic and traditional way I use to paint. It boxes me in. I want to express the mood, the feeling more than the subject.

Petal Tips! These tulips are called Upward Pull. The light is pulling the plant and insisting that it grows. the vertical strokes are pulling upward, the diaganol strokes are causing tension. This painting is on watercolor paper and acrylic paint is used to develop the design.

Meanderings~~~~~ Anytime we began to feel like the box is too small, it takes a risk to leave the known for the unknown. It is the only way we can continue to grow as people and in our talent. The Light within us is moving us into new areas. Afterwards, we know we can't go back, the box becomes too smal and if we do we deceive ourselves.

A Spring Morning

Good morning to you. The first flower that comes up after a harsh snowy winter in Pagosa Springs, Colorado are the tulips.  When they show their heads, then we feel like spring is not too far away. Even though we have seen snow even in July and we dare not plant anything before June 1st, the tulips are wonderful to see, everything else lies barren around them, but they take courage and bloom anyway.

A Spring Morning (Watercolor 11X14)

Petal Tips! A Spring Morning is a quick study. I sized the paper with gesso and left the brush strokes showing. I did this on purpose to show a sweep of movement which I could have used for light or wind. Since you do not see brush strokes in watercolor unless they are dry brushstrokes, the under painting of gesso serves as part of the movement and even part of the design.

I laid my brush in the wet red paint of the blooms and pulled down the stems so the green and the color of the bloom joins together.  It makes the bloom and the stem one. If not, they will look like suckers on a stick.

Meanderings~~~~~ As artists and poets we usually show our heads before anyone else does. We are definitely the visionaries and usually before others see, we are creating  and bringing it to their attention. And, like the tulip we expose ourselves to the winter breeze. Chilled, alone and shivering we bring attention that the promise of a new thought or idea is in the air.

When spring is in full bloom, the tulip is forgotten, everyone has gone on to enjoy the other flowers until next  spring and a another year. I count on those tulips coming up every year.

He loves me, He loves me, He loves me!!

Daisies grow wild here in the country near and around our home. They thrive when everything else dies for lack of water. This year has been a beautiful year,  it has rained almost every day. Everything is green and in full bloom and the daisies are also enjoying the rains from heaven.

He loves me, He loves me, He loves me! Watercolor (11X14)

Some flowers are quietly beautiful. I believe that is the way the daisy is. It doesn't wave big bellowing blooms of crimson, or demand attention like the iris with its straight stalk, or tower over like the bright yellow sunflower, it just grows and grows beautiful.

Petal Tips! This is a  small watercolor, but it packs a certain zing. When I painted this, this is one that just happened. I drew in the daisies, left the white paper and began dealing with the negative space.  . 
I added a little blue in the whites, just to give the flowers dimension, for instance, I added blue to the right flower under the center and it popped the center. It made it look like it was standing out and casting a shadow.

The centers were yellow naples, raw sienna and dark brown in a half  moon under the center which tucks the petals under the  center.

Meanderings!  The title was adopted from my friend, Betty Lucero who taught on He loves me, He loves me, He loves me. There is never a moment that He doesn't love us. It is not a luck of the draw or a selective few, but He loves all because tha is His nature, and He rains down His love. The rains came this summer and made everything beautiful.  

In the Light (Watercolor - full sheet)

This time of the year, we are beginning to bring in our Geraniums for winter and lining my 20 foot studio window box with them. Come late Spring they go back out, but these are a wonderful excuse to paint flowers in the winter while they are in my studio. Everything else is under four feet of snow, but these keep blooming all year inside. I love painting them and I paint them in every shade of red, pink, orange, and crimson. The flower makes up of a lot of little flowers and are painted as one.

In the Light (Watercolor - full sheet)

Petal Tips! I take my No. 6 brush, make little squiggles in a circle. Then I drop water into them and the paint fuses together. I open up the surrounding area about 1/4 inch  with clean water. Whereever the water is, it creates a boundary and the paints can not go past that.  That process is called  opening a passage, or way of passage. The intent for this is to soften the outside circle and gives it a feeling of sun coming through and having the  roundness with depth.

I have used this painting idea  many times as an art lesson at Wynham Activity Cente, Pagosa Springs, CO where I teach a watercolor class. This will be one of the lessons that will apepar on my Youtube under The Betty Slade Channel and you will be able to download it. I am in the process of developing it. But for today, I am enjoying walking through this garden with you; showing you some of my favorites. I have purposed to pick one flower painting a day and catalogue it onto my Blog. 

Before my art gets away, I made a serious commitment and effort in logging and catagorizing all my paintings and so this is what I am doing and I am including you in this walk through my Garden of Hues

There is a lot of white in the right hand corner.  The reason it works so well, I have brought the one gernamium from the left side of the painting across to the right side.  This painting is heavy on the left, but the flower pulls the weight to the other side.

Blessed are the hands which paint beautiful things.

Meanderings~ ~~  I call this In The Light because of all the light in the background. When we walk with Jesus, every day is a Sonshining Day. Some times we have to peer through the clouds to see the sun, but He has promised the sun to us everyday so whether it hides itself  behind clouds, it is still shining.


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Richness in Bounty (Oil 16X20)

Richness in Bounty (Oil 16 x20)

I have so many paths to take in my garden of hues. Light, flowing watercolors and dark, rich bountiful colors in oils, which way to go? I guess I will take this path.

Petal Tips! This oil painting is executed differently than my others. I started with a gessoed board, added black acrylic with a brush. I kept the black background smooth, I didn't want it to compete with the subject and yet it became a part of the subject.  I wanted the black to play off of as I took the palette knife and began to carve into the black, roses and other flowers. Each stroke with the knife was precisely laid in heavy paint, lifting it in texture. Even the strokes on the leaves make the circle of design. I love this one. The red/pinkish rose in the center and the spot on the vase is the lightest in value, which makes everything else recede into the dark background..

Meanderings~~~~~~ I am reminded of Genesis 1 when everything was dark and void and as if God took his finger and swirled it around the universe and carved into terre (earth)the colors of beauty.  We know He didn't need to do anything but to speak, and his Words of Life brought heaven's harmony to earth. Then He said, It is good! Then the Fall of His creation brought darkness again. The Light of the World came and all of darkness and all creation receded in the presence of God. I could go on and on, but I just know it is a beautiful world when we walk in the Light.

Gentle Giants

We will escape from the Butterfly Garden and come back and walk among the poppies. Poppies are large, fragile and last for a couple of weeks around the lst of July. They usually bloom just in time for the 4th of July, anyway that is what happens next to my studio.

Gentle Giants (Watercolor 1/2 sheet)

Petal Tips! This painting in watercolor is done in a wet on wet technique and I added course salt to the background and flowers. The trick to to the looseness of the flowers blending into the background  is all done wet on wet. This means I apply clear water first, then I drop in paint, and I let it crawl around. This is when those happy accidents happen. Colors fuse together and things happen that you didn't expect and probably can't get again. They say when the paint is still alive make it do the work. That is what is so exciting with watercolors, the paper and paint create the image, they paint the painting, we are just by-standers.

In this posting I am showing an oil painting I did of poppies on a cupboard door. I love to paint in oils, they are rich and beautiful, but they are opague and they stand still where ever you apply them. The brush stroke is the tool to create motion to cause the poppies to move as if the wind is moving them.

Moving in Joy

People ask me all the time what I like best to work in, and I always say both. I love the looseness of the watercolors, but I also love the rich, lucious colors and brush strokes of the oils. I'm just hooked for life when it comes to painting.

I will soon be releasing a CD on youtube with a watercolor workshop showing you exactly how to create this beautiful painting of poppies.

Meanderings~~~~~ It is the treasure within the pot that shows God's glory.  This pot is part of a water pitcher and bowl set that belonged to my grandmother. It was made around 1900 when theses pots were used for washing.  Today, I use it for decoration and placing cut flowers in. It is a keepsake, flowers come and go in their season, but the pot continues to serve as a vessel to honor what God has created.

Isn't that what we are all about. We have been made  in God's image and we hold the true treasure in our vessel, the beauty of God.

Joyfull painting

Free to Be

Welcome to my butterfly garden. Several places I have visited over the years have had a certain area made just for butterflies and are called "Butterfly Gardens". The plants and the habitation are perfect for them. They skirt around from one plant to another, taking beauty and color whereever they land. They do not know they are beautiful, they are just being free. Can we learn that lesson from them? I hope so.

Free To Be - Watercolor 22 X 30

Petal Tips! This butterfly painting is a watercolor on 300# paper. I purposed to make the wings transparent and glowing. Nothing is added, just watercolor on paper. No tricks. The following paintings in my butterfly garden  have a different feeling because they are rendered differently.  This painting began as wet on wet, meaning I wet the paper with clear water and dropped in some color.  I made sure I kept the white paper in the center. This first step became my underpainting. After it dried, I carved in the shape of a butterfly. I wet the top of the butterfly's wing and put in some ultramarine. The red was splattered. I took a toothbrush and flipped some red for the feeling of flowers and texture. I left the space  behind the butterly's head light so that it should draw the eye to that place. I just wanted the chaotic feeling of foliage in the background. I added some random strokes to the foliage.

This butterfly is on only a quarter sheet, but it conveys what I was looking for. This was an old watercolor, so I didn't have anything to lose. I placed a scrap from an old plastic doily table cloth on to the surface of the paper and I sprayed gold metalic paint onto the paper, making designs on the butterfly wing. I used a permenant  black marker to make a line or two, to differentiate the butterfly from the background since the color of the two are similar.

The white behind the butterfly's head was from the original white gesso I used to cover some of the old watercolor painting. If you simply take watered down watercolor paint and drag it over the white, it glazes it to a soft white and disguises the underneath gesso.

Flight in metalic (mixed media)

This painting is done with the same process as the above one. I use to think that I couldn't compromise the painting with spray paint, gesso or accrylic, but who says? We should be free to take flights in metalic paint or however we want to create. There are the purists and they will continue to stay purists, but for me, the sky is the limit when it comes to creating.

Flutter of Wings

This painting is probably my favorite of all the butterfly paintings I have done. It is so loose, it moves in and out and around and about. It is like the flutter of wings without seeing the object. I want you to see the design.  It is more about the design than the subject.These butterfly paintings would be considered impressionist. I added the white oil paints at the end to to bring a definite design. I thought the white line gave it another dimension. There is a lot of the watercolor underpainting  showing among the wings.  This one is very clean. Sometimes everything goes right, every stroke on the paper counts.


Meanderings~~~~~ I wrote an article about caged artists who play it safe. You can see my most recent articles on my writer's  blog http://bettyslade.blogspot.com/ Learn to be free to be, the world needs to see your art from a higher place.
 
Artists are Made to Fly!

Artists are made to fly, to soar with new ideas and create in realms that are beyond them. But what if your wings are clipped and your heart is pumping and you are going nowhere? I have been there. I remember a time by my own making and by circumstance I couldn’t control, I felt like a caged bird and thought when the door flies open I’m out of here. Being grounded just brings more frustration, confusion and harsh self-judgment.

In a book by Brenda Ueland called If You Want to Write, she quotes from a letter that Van Gogh wrote to his brother. I understand if an artist continues to grow he must become honest with himself and his work. It seems that he must go backwards before he can go forward.

Impassioned with grief and pain, Van Gogh writes, “There are two kinds of idleness that form a great contrast. There is the man who is idle from laziness and from lack of character, from the baseness of his nature. You may if you like take me for such a one…”

“But there is the other idle man, who is idle in spite of himself, who is inwardly consumed by a great longing for action, who does nothing because he seems to be imprisoned in some cage, because he does not possess what he needs to make him productive, because the fatality of circumstances brings him to that point, such a man does not always know what he could do, but he feels by instinct: yet I am good for something, my life has an aim after all, I know that I might be quite a different man! You may take me for such a one.”

“A caged bird in spring knows quite well that he might serve some end; he feels quite well that there is something for him to do, but he cannot do it. What is it? He does not remember quite well. Then he has some vague ideas and says to himself: ‘The others make their nests and lay their eggs and bring up their little ones,’ and then he knocks his head against the bars of the cage. But the cage stands there and the bird is maddened by anguish.’”

“Look at the lazy animal,’ says another bird that passes by, ‘he seems to be living at his ease.’ Yes, the prisoner lives, his health is good, he is more or less gay when the sun shines. But then comes the season of migration. Attacks of melancholia, - ‘but he has got everything he wants,’ say the children that tend him in his cage. He looks at the overcast sky and he inwardly rebels against his fate. ‘I am caged, I am caged, and you tell me I do not want anything, fools! You think I have everything I need. Oh, I beseech you, liberty, to be a bird like others birds!’…But I should be very glad if it were possible for you to see in me something else than an idle man of the worst type.”

Van Gogh’s life seemed to remain in a state of dilemma. I heard years ago that a dilemma is nothing more than a new place for new understanding for a new horizon. It is a higher place where we haven’t been before. It could be that we are flapping our wings like little sparrows, flying too close to earth and do not know there is more out there.

A couple of years ago, as Van Gogh states, there was a place that I inwardly rebelled and I knew there was a higher place I needed to go with my art. I decided with my oils to change from traditional to impressionist and contemporary. I took a risk and began trying different things.

With my own frustration and self-judgment, I crashed. It felt that I had digressed, and I didn’t know how to regain my footing. It took time experimenting with new unfamiliar ideas and finally I pushed through and I discovered a new and edgy style. Of course, my family and friends thought that I had lost it and wished that I would go back to my old safe way of painting. Safe meaning that everything is identifiable and not far out.

For me it would be asking me to climb back into the cage. I had seen some new horizons in my work and I couldn’t go back. I learned that when we make a change, it is not popular. We have come to a new horizon by persevering, but others haven’t and can not understand.

I’m not telling anything out of school, yes, all artists have been there if they have tried to go higher. And yes, they feel they have digressed and can easily go back into the cage and many do. But, oh me, when you have soared with the eagles and you are looking from a new vantage point, you want everyone to come up and see what you see.

Final Brushstroke! Being grounded is necessary. It is a place to get new wind under your wings and re-think how your art is affecting you. It will affect others with the same intensity or lack there of as it affects you. Take assurance, the artist in you will see new horizons if you refuse to play it safe.