Willow

I was in Maryland's Zoo last week and I met newborn baby giraffe. Her name is Willow. She was born 7 weeks ago and she is the first baby giraffe at the facility in more than 20 years. I guess she will have a lot of visitors this spring and summer.
Willow, I wish you happy and healthy life :)

Improving Daffodil Watercolor Painting

This is a picture that we created at AC Moore's watercolor class during 2 hour period. It is good and you can leave it like this but also you can go farther and add some more details. Below I'll show what I've done with it later at home. I hope it will help you to improve your paintings. 

I decided to darken the background and make it richer. You can see that I sketched leaves and a flower bud at the top left corner. With such helpful pencil marks I was ready to start to paint around. I used in turns Phalo blue, yellow ochre and sap green colors.

When the paint dried off I added some more leaves with positive painting this time. I used deep green and darkened it with Phalo blue. 

Next step - shadows.

Here is a finished version. Darker shadows made this picture more three dimensional. To create my gray for the shadow I used a mixture of Ultramarine blue and Burnt Umber. You can also use Paynes gray.

June Flowers in Bloom

It looks like I've painted one picture in cool and one in warm colors. A white Clematis is front lit while a Tiger Lily has a back light. So far I prefer painting white flowers so Clematis is my favorite. With Tiger lily the colors of shadows were tricky and it was very hard to paint the sun shining through the petals.  Well, I tried to do my best.
 

Magnolia

Magnolia trees have large and beautiful flowers. This particular one grows at my neighbor's front-yard. Also flowers have nice smell, unfortunately I can't paint it :)

Interesting fact: Fossilized specimens of plants belonging to the Magnolia family have been found dating to 95 million years ago. They appeared before bees did. The flowers evolved later to encourage pollination by beetles. 
It is so hard to imagine world without flowers and bees, isn't it?

Frosty Birches

I think my little kitty is buying this one.
This simple watercolor sketch was done with two colors only. Ultramarine blue and yellow ocher. 

Keiko the Bunny

I made pencil sketch first to study color value. Then I decided to paint the bunny in watercolors. 

Halloween Night

Complementary colors look very pleasing to human eye. That's why it is good to check out the color wheel before coloring the painting. This one was made with my favorite pair: blue and orange. For blue I used French ultramarine only, for orange part I used regular orange plus yellow ocher, burned umber and burned sienna. Black color was achieved by mixing burned umber and French ultramarine. To preserve white of the paper I masked the candle flame and nearby highlights.
First wash was done in wet in wet technique because it let me create soft edges between colors. The devil like shadow behind the mouse was created this way. With the next steps I gradually went darker and darker with details. The outside of the picture was painted with bold brush strokes softened occasionally with clear water. People naturally look for the light that's why in this composition I created tunnel like filling with the brightest element - the fire in the middle.
On my sketch below you can see that the mouse have different look. My daughter said that the mouse needs to be cute and she redesigned the head for me. My daughter is a cute expert so I decided to trust her. I love you Justyna :)

Morning Light

Hermione and Sparrow

Here is Hermione from Harry Potter with abstracted hair. I started my painting with light sketch and masking fluid. The fluid has to be completely dry before painting so I waited for a while and painted this portrait in my head only. For the first wet wash I carefully put colors next to each other and let them mix on the paper. To do so I used four colors: phthalo blue, yellow ocher, burned umber, burned sienna and little bit of vermilion red. My black was achieved by mixing blue and umber and my white is a preserved color of the paper. The time lapse of this painting process is on YouTube

And here is an abstracted pumpkin and a little sparrow. I was visiting a local farm recently and I saw these vigorous birds everywhere. They are not very beautiful but because of their cheerful character I like them a lot.

Now some of my prints are available on Fine Art America

Lynx

Here is my lynx on the abstract background. Not too many years ago, I would never expect me do the abstract painting and be happy with it. The abstract like this can be created in just a few moments. We can call it beautiful or ugly depending on our mood and time of the day. When I'm looking back at my paintings, I can see that they are rather neat and well planed. I'd like to add more spontaneity to my paintings. I wonder if loosening my style will lead me to something good.

I videotaped the painting process. You can see it on YouTube

Prayer For Safe Travel

God's Angels guard and keep you

All the way that you must travel

Till earth's days are past

When blossoms fade and

Time is fleeting fast

In times of purest joy

Or pain and fear

God's Angels guard

And keep you safe.