Sunday, June 12, 2011

Making up for Lost time.

Oh my Word! Has it been 3 months since I posted here on my Blog? I sit here and wonder if any of my wonderful blog friends will forgive my absence!

I have been been online but doing things for another blog which has kept me away from painting. A few months ago I was elected a National Committee member for the Watercolour Society of South Africa. With it came my task of keeping the website, blog and facebook pages updated. This has been a time consuming process but have loved being involved. The website was outdated and needed updating with the new committee members. Our blogs were asleep and have slowly got one running to schedule now with the latest news and happenings.

Last week I decided that I WAS going to paint no matter what, and started this painting "Morning Nap'.

 Morning Nap

I thoroughly loved the subject but I was a bit disappointed with the paper I used. It was a piece of a full sheet of Fabriano 300gsm I cut up. I bought a couple of sheets a while back which I was saving to do a large painting at a later stage. It didn't allow me to be loose and wet as I'd wished and I ended up overworking some parts to get rid of the lines made by the first wash.

I'd love to hear your feelings on using this paper as I don't think I am enjoying it at all!!

I also managed to complete a commission for someone whilst I was busy with the WSSA. Something I am embarrassed to say took a bit longer than intended. But the owner is thrilled!


These are a few sketch studies I did for her. Silly me, I forgot to take pics of the final two I painted for her! Will have to ask her to take some for me!





A few of you might have seen the next painting on my FB page. I played around and had fun with the idea of little goats. This and the painting above were photos I took at a wonderful farm I visited last year in the Swartland near Darling called Lelieblom, English translation - 'lily flower'. This farm is a restaurant farm which is run by a friendly warm lovely lady, Karen and her husband Michael. The oldie worldie shabby chick style old barn is the setting for this wonderful restaurant.

Boerbokkies

Hope to post here again soon and not neglect my painting so much.

Till then....

18 comments:

Cynthia Schelzig said...

Fabulous work,,,just adore goats and this is super take on them. You do lovely watercolors!

Debbie said...

Thank you Cynthia for your kind words. My mind shifts from tight to loose depending on the state of my head.

Pat said...

I know you said you didn't like the paper - but that first painting of goats is fabulous - and one I would be hanging.
Love all the lighthouses too :)
Not so fond of the drippy look - but then, we're all different, and variety is good :)
Great to see you back
love and hugs xxoo

Carol Blackburn said...

I love "Morning Nap", Debbie...and those lighthouses are neat. I think goats are so much fun to watch and paint. Hope you've had a wonderful weekend. I think I need to take a lesson from those goats and take a morning nap. :)

Marie Theron said...

I love the shift from very realistic to very loose, Debbie. You are very versatile in being able to conquer all these techniques! I am off to look at the Watercolour society website now!

Cathy said...

You may have be absent for a while but you largely male up for it with all these paintings!! I love the light in the first one, and I very much like the ones with the light house, but I'm thoroughly disappointed you can't show us the final painting(s?). Hope you will!

Debbie said...

Pat, Thank you for your wonderful feedback, I appreciate all the comments my blogger friends leave. The nice thing about art is that it appeals to a variety of people. The 'drippy one' was a little bit of playing as a cooldown, late one evening. Using the method of my mentor Jean Haines who works primarily in this sort of loose style, which by the way is very hard to master, But I appreciate what you say and thank you Pat
!

Debbie said...

Carol. Thank you for stopping by. I agree, they are great to watch as well as to paint. Such hijinx!!!
Hope you had a good nap.

Debbie said...

Hi Marie, Thanks for your comment, I hope it's a good thing to be versatile! I sometimes wonder if I could ever develop my OWN style?! :)

Debbie said...

Cathy, how silly of me not to have taken any photos!!! Just shows you where my head has been lately!!! I actually painted 2 as I wasn't too sure which angle looked the best, but I tried to incorporate all three sketches into one as a final painting.
Many thanks for your lovely feedback

Sandra Busby said...

Well you may have been absent for a while but you have certainly been busy! I love this post - So much to look at and enjoy!
I don't see anything overworked at all. The goats are gorgeous and I would be very happy to be the recipient of the wonderful commission! :0)

JANE MINTER said...

goats are super ... debbie esp love the one in the rusty oil barrel ..sorry he didn't make it ... re paper i really like Fabriano ..600 is wonderful too ...doesn't look like you had any problems stick with it for a while ...i work on fabriano canson and arches each is so different...which paper have you been using ?

Debbie said...

Hi Sandra, I'm glad to be painting again!!!! Thank you for your lovely comment, I hide the mistakes well!!!!

Thank you Jane, I was told last evening about the sad news! Jane, I usually use Bockingfords or Arches 300gsm! My Fabriano is 300gsm, I find it dries very quickly.....that could be the difficulty I'm having..... I have 3 large sheets to use up, So will stick with it a while! Thanks for your feedback!

James said...

Lovely work here. Interesting story about the Bo Kaap Bargee, how weird? I'm interested to know, do you work from photos or life sketch and memory? I'm always nervous about approaching people to get photos...

Debbie said...

Thank you James for your lovely response here. I normally work from photos if I am unable to sketch from life. I love photography also, so I take a plethary of photos when ever I travel. So I have an abundance of resource material for my painting subjects.

Debbie said...

Thank you James for your lovely response here. I normally work from photos if I am unable to sketch from life. I love photography also, so I take a plethary of photos when ever I travel. So I have an abundance of resource material for my painting subjects.

_Frankb10 said...

Debbie, if you were having trouble with your paper when you painted 'morning Nap', it certainly doesn't show. This is a gorgeous painting - the goats look so lifelike, and that rusty feeding tin is incredibly realistic! Bravo.

Debbie said...

Frank, what a wonderfully encouraging this to say! Thank you. It was the first time I painted on Fabriano and I must say is was very different to the Arches or Bockingfords I normally work on! The pigments run differently, but I'd get used to it eventually if I painted a little more!!! :}