A New Technique in Watercolors: Rabbit Test and Iris Study

Rabbit Study with Gouache/ watercolor/ 14 x 9.25/

This is the first painting working on a new watercolor application. Using opaque watercolors and gouache, the background is dulled back. This effect is less obvious with the orange but easier to see with the grey brown in this painting.
My purpose in working on this technique is to explore painting a lit flower against a dulled background. My hope is that this will add "glow" to the transparent colors of the flower.

Iris Study with Gouache/ watercolor/ 9.25 x 14/

Here is the first painting using this idea. This allows for an abstracted background and makes the flower really glow...

Day 24: Tiny Rabbit Watercolor Sketch

I am working on a new large watercolor piece and working with a great new class of painters (see below) so I didn't have time to get to work on oil today. However, inspired by yesterday's little dog that "showed up",  I decided to try a rabbit for today's challenge entry. Here are the best parts of this painting:1. the lost edges that allow the rabbit to "be" and "not be" 2. the eye and the trick to eyes is the shadow over the top of the iris that is cast by the upper lid (dark on the top, light on the lower iris and it becomes round and lifelike) and then there is the side-by-side placement of warm and cool colors ....



Here is  a link to the other day 24 entries and travel down to see the wonderful paintings completed by my "beginner" (hardly) oil painting class.

Pretty fabulous! One worked on copying a favorite painting and the other two are from personal photographs. They all make me smile!

Wipe Out Rabbit

Wipe Out Rabbit/ oil on board/ 5x5/ SOLD

I have been struggling with painting quality work. Therefore, I have wiped many boards and ripped many pieces of paper. With spring and light just around the corner, I am hopeful this is behind me (for a while). I find whenever I am working on moving ahead, I am less satisfied with work that might have been acceptable to me in the past.
I have been carefully reading Richard Schmid's Alla Prima II book with my book reading buddy, Maria Bennett Hock. This week the chapter we read had a wonderful painting of rabbits in brown using a wiping away method.  This painting was my inspiration (that and the nibbled tulips in the yard and the reappearance of my back yard rabbit).