Caturday

Trying different things and hoping the mojo returns.  Today - cats! 

And something different again

Michele Clamp. Watercolor 11x14

Still blundering around with the brushes awaiting some direction.   Today - planes! 

Something Different - Alligator

Alligator. Michele Clamp. Watercolor 11”x14”

Or maybe a crocodile? I’m unclear as to the difference.

But anyway. Something happened today that doesn’t usually happen to me. I couldn’t think what to paint. Nothing was presenting itself as interesting and I almost gave it up as a bad job. But as I was noodling through some pictures of Marco Island I thought - alligators! They have a lot of those in Florida don’t they? So an alligator (or crocodile?) it was.

I wanted this to be quite subtle and to only suggest the bobbly skin they have. This left the definition in the teeth and eyes. I think he’s rather handsome.

New England Street

New England. Michele Clamp. Watercolor. 12”x18”

This is a mystery scene as I was rooting about on pixabay.com for a New England street scene and this presented itself. This trundled along merrily although I can’t say I enjoyed it and the end result shows a lack of enthusiasm. But this isn’t the time to give up, at least for a while.

Some intermediates:

The drawing and initial washes. Maybe a bit tentative here but the final thing came out fairly punchy so all ended well.

After leaving things overnight I turned to the ipad and doodled a little on the photo. I find this helps identify the big shapes and allows me some practice before committing to paper. Watercolor really doesn’t allow you to do this so this is quite liberating.

Thinking back to my big shapes mantra the ipad doodling made me realize I should keep the big trees on the right dark and also darken up the roof of the tower on the left. Helps keep things together.

New England

Not much to say about this. Going through a bit of a rough patch enthusiasm wise.

Still Life - WetCanvas Wedgewood Tea Set Challenge

Wedgewood tea set. Michele Clamp. Watercolor 8”x10”

They’re coming thick and fast today. This is my stab at the wetcanvas February watercolor challenge. A pretty tricky subject with all those ellipses but came out well.

Here’s the original image

Cadgwith Harbor, Cornwall

Cadgwith Harbor, Cornwall. Michele Clamp. Watercolor 12”x18”

Yesterday I just fancied painting some boats. This is done from a lovely photo by Dottie Best on ‘Paint My Photo’ - https://pmp-art.com/dottie-best/gallery/136333/cadgwith-harbor-cornwall-england .

As always there were struggles but it was fun to do and has a lot of solidity to it.

Value sketch:

And part way through at the end of the day yesterday :

Ostrich

Ostrich. Michele Clamp. Watercolor 14”x11”

I’m trying to keep up with the facebook page Paint Colorful Birds for Fun and this week (week 5) is the ostrich. I tried to keep some life in the darks but keep the white feathers distinct and fluffy. I think it’s pretty much there.

Unbiased Ram

Ram. Michele Clamp. Watercolor 13”x19”

There’s a sporting event on tonight. This is in no way intended to be a prediction.

Flying Snowy Owl

Flying Snowy Owl

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It’s been about a year since I did a snowy owl. I had the chance to do a live demo at Maine Audubon in January 2018 which was great fun. I didn’t really feel that I’d done the subject justice so I wanted to have another go.

I think he came out very well. The blues and grays define the wings and feathers well without getting too dark and the wings and body have a lovely rhythmic shape to them. Phew!