"100 SLC Porches, No.73 & No.74"

Between pours at this last weekend's workshop, I managed to work on these two porch paintings.  I worked in the pour method on both of these.  It just seemed to be fitting when I'm at a workshop that focuses on that method.  These were much smaller than what I was working on in the workshop and I did finish both of these off with a bit of puddle painting when I got back to Salt Lake City.

"100 Salt Lake City Porches, No.73"; Poured Watercolor on 9" x 12" Paper.

On both of these porch paintings, I kept to a limited color scheme.  On the blue and yellow, I purposely went muted and understated.  The orange-ish one below, I used different valves of the same color of paint and created the mono-chromatic porch.  I find its fun to play with these limited pallets to create a painting.



"100 Salt Lake City Porches, No.74"; Poured Watercolor on 9" x 12" Paper.

To view the progress (or to purchase one ) of the 100 Salt Lake City Porches, click here.  I welcome any feedback you may have, and thanks for visiting!

A Fun Workshop...

Here's Leslie's wonderful finished project from the workshop.  You'll see my poor excuse near the end of this posting.

Overall, it was a wonderful weekend.  I managed to get in almost 60 very scenic miles on the bike and enjoyed a fun workshop too.  I learned a new approach to poured watercolors in Leslie Redhead's Pouring Luminous Watercolors Workshop.  Leslie was a wonderful patient teacher and it was such a fun group to hang out with at the Pocatello Art Center too. 
Here's some photos from the workshop...


Leslie demonstrating the pouring method; adding yellow watercolor on second pour.



Then, red was added on each side of the yellow.



Leslie then spread watercolor around by tipping the painting.



Then, Leslie poured off the paint.





Now here's examples of my work....

After the first pour.

Almost there....

After the 4th pour.

And then....

Here's what I ended up with.  It still needs some work done to it.

A Weekend Workshop...

I’m off to Pocatello, Idaho this weekend.  Why Pocatello, you might ask?  I’m going to be taking a “Pouring Luminous Watercolors” Workshop at the Pocatello Art Center.  The workshop is taught by a wonderful watercolorist that I have been admiring on-line for awhile.  Her name is Leslie Redhead.  I LOVE her poured watercolors of cityscapes and buildings.  Pictured here is a Chinatown Statue, a poured watercolor that I stole from her site.  (I hope she’ll forgive me.)  It is one of my favorites.  She also has some amazing flowers; especially irises and poppies.  Please click on her name and check out her artwork.  It is definitely worth a visit.  Leslie is based in Vancouver, BC, Canada; and I jumped at the chance when I found out she was holding a workshop so close to Salt Lake City.  It’s about a 3 hour drive and, of course, I’m taking my bike in tow.  I figured I could bike some new territory while I'm there.  I’ve really been excited for this weekend for the last month.  It’s almost like Christmas!  I’ll update you and hopefully share a beautiful piece of watercolor artwork when I get back.   

"100 SLC Porches, No.71 & No.72"

"100 Salt Lake City Porches, No.71"; 8" x10" Oil on Canvas

I remember a few years ago going by this above house and it had been gutted by fire.  I felt so bad for the people who lived there.  When I was an early teenager our house had been gutted by fire, and I hate the thought of anyone having to live through that.  But I'm glad as I went on my bike a couple of weeks ago with camera and saw that they had rebuilt and made improvements too.  I wondered about the unique clumping landscaping.  They are tufts of like long grass spaced in front of the porch area.  Might these bloom later in the season?  Or was it something like those small planter with the neatly trimmed grass that's kind of zen in nature? Hmmmm...


"100 Salt Lake City Porches, No.72"; Watercolor on Yupo.

 I bike by Porch #72 three times a week early in the morning on a regular bike club ride (BCC).  I've been watching the ivy slowly fill up around and on the porch as the bike season has progressed along from Spring into Summer and soon heading into Fall.  I decided about a week ago that the ivy had reached it's zenith of porch covering and I thought it would be fun to do kind of a hidden porch.  This painting I did in the puddle style of water coloring which I always find fun to do on yupo.  I limited the colors to kelly green, indigo blue, light green, dioxazine purple, and a bit of permanent rose.  To view the progress (or to request a purchase) of 100 Salt Lake City Porches, visit this page.  Thank you for visiting and I welcome any feedback you may have.

"100 SLC Porches, No.70"

"100 Salt Lake City Porches, No.70"; Watercolor on 10" x 12" Paper

This porch painting I did as a cross between a wet-to-dry method and a poured watercolor style with a bit of puddle watercolor painting.  So I guess you could say I used no one particular style in a way. :)  I did narrow down the color scheme at least.  I used kelly green, indigo blue, and dioxazine violet.  To view the progress of 100 Salt Lake City Porches (or to purchase) click here.  I welcome any feedback you have have!

"100 SLC Porches, No.69"

"100 Salt Lake City Porches, No.69"; Watercolor on 11" x 14" Yupo.

It was the pretty purple tree of roses of sharon (or at least that's what I thought it was) in the front yard that first drew me.  Then as I looked closer my eyes were drawn in by the window paned areas on each side of the front door.  In this painting, I used the puddle style watercolor painting on yupo. Once a watercolor painting on yupo dries there's a certain glistening softening look that occurs that I just find fascinating.  To view the progress of 100 Salt Lake City Porches (or to request to purchase), please click here.  I welcome any feedback  you may have and thank you for stopping by my blog.

A Shared Story...

I’m always fascinated when I find out a story that’s behind a scene I have painted. This story is ties in with the swing on 100 Salt Lake City Porch painting #61, which is interesting because it was the swing in front that drew me to their porch.

"100 Salt Lake City Porches, No.61"; A Poured Watercolor on 10" x 14" Paper

The story was recently shared to me from the porch owner, a woman who is inspiring. She’s a mother and breast cancer survivor who has started a non-profit yoga classes for cancer survivors called “A Quality Life Community”. The story she shared is called Abigail’s Swing. They ended up putting the swing in the front yard after they built a garage in the place of a swing set. But Abigail still needed some where to swing, and thus, the swing was hung from the tree in the front yard. Here’s the story as written wonderfully by this inspiring woman and Abigail's mom …

Abigail’s Swing

When the world gets too noisy for my daughter, she retreats to her swing or to a rocking chair. She puts everything else on hold, then rocks it into perspective. Or perhaps she prefers to be part of the audience, not a participant. In either case, she has always done this, since the moment she could sit up independently.


Me, I’m a bouncer. I bounce against the backs of couches, love to rock in rocking chairs, and recall, as a child, the transition of outgrowing my swing set as difficult. I loved my swing set and consider my time spent swinging a significant period in my life. Like Abigail, I loved watching my brothers and sister play. I liked being in the audience once in a while, not always interactive. Swinging was my moving meditation.
Abigail can swing for hours at a time. She needs to think, and this is her place.


“I need to take a break, Mom,” she’ll suddenly say to me.

“Okay.”


I would have no idea what was jarring her world, but I understood her need instinctively.


“Have fun. I’ll call you when dinner is ready.”

Moving backward and forward helps her mind open up to imagination, to the clouds, to the sky where her mind takes her body to fly. She loves watching kids play. She loves watching her brother entertain the other kids. She loves being the audience to his performances. Swinging is her moving meditation, too. It’s a peaceful place for her to think. Seeing the good and feeling the peace.


This movement of back and forth has helped her cope with any perceived stress she experienced.

“I lose my mind,” she told me once.


“I feel like a cloud floating in the sky. When I look backward, it feels like I am flying.”


Then we were building a garage, and half of the swing set was in pieces. It doesn’t balance right and she frets.
“I miss being on the swing.”

"100 SLC Porches, No.68"

"100 Salt Lake City Porches, No.68"; Poured Watercolor on 10" x 13" Paper

I was slowly biking along in this neighborhood when out of the corner of my eye I caught this house.  At a quick glance, it kind of looked like feather plumes in front of the upper windows.  When I looked again, my eyes wandered around the front of this house.  The ivy, the flowers, the shrubs, and the large trees that provided shady spots.  All of this amazing almost wild landscape set off with a classic porch, red bricks, and shutters.  I turned my bike around and immediately took pictures!  I used a bit of medium yellow, Kelly green, permanent rose, and phathlo blue in this poured watercolor.  After pouring, I did just a bit of puddle watercolor painting to finish it off.  This was a very fun painting to do.  Please check out the progress of the 100 Salt Lake City Porches (or to purchase), click here.  I welcome any feedback you may have, and thanks for visiting!

"100 SLC Porches, No.67"

"100 Salt Lake City Porches, No.67"; Poured Watercolor on 10" x 14" Paper

I started this poured watercolor with a bit of medium yellow to add a bit of sunny undertone.  Then I mainly worked in light green, kelly green, and a VERY watered down indigo blue.  I finished off with a bit of puddle painting in kelly green and indigo blue. To view the progress of 100 Salt Lake City Porches (or to purchase), click here.  I welcome any feedback you may have.

"100 SLC Porches, No.66"

"100 Salt Lake City Porches, No.66"; Watercolor on 10" X 11" Paper

I used the puddle style of watercolor painting for this.  It seemed appropriate to use this style when there were all kinds of puddles of light and shade over the lawn and front of this house because of large nearby trees.  It was the bright red door that drew me in on this porch, and then my eyes caught the touches of red flowers.  It was a fun porch to paint.  To view the progress of 100 Salt Lake City Porches (or to purchase), click here.  Thank you for stopping by.

"100 SLC Porches, No.65"

"100 Salt Lake City Porches, No.65"; Oil on 12" x 12" wrapped canvas

I had fun with this one.  The original house is a warm yellow ochre but I decided to do it with oranges, reds, yellows and white with just a touch of cerilium blue.  It's a cute cottage style home on eastside of the Salt Lake Valley nestled in a quiet neighborhood.  I also decided to do something interesting and funky with the wrapped canvas edge.  Check this out...

A side view of 100 SLC Porches, No.65

To check out the progress of 100 Salt Lake City Porches, or to purchase... click here.  I welcome any feed back you may have and thank you for stopping by.

"100 SLC Porches, No.64"

"100 Salt Lake City Porches, No.64"; Watercolor on 10" x 14" Paper

I've been eyeing this cute house for awhile now.  It's along the route of a weekly Thursday night bike ride I take.  Each time I pass by, I never have a camera with me and I'm pedalling fast in vain to keep up with the guys leading the pack.  Then a couple of Sunday mornings ago with perfect weather I took my camera with me on my bicycle.  I managed to capture the cutie and scouted out a few more potential porches to paint while I was out.  An amazingly productive morning and I hadn't even had coffee or breakfast yet.  This last weekend has been productive too.  I have porch #65, an oil, almost done.  I hope to finish it tonight, and porch #66 is underway too.  I've got it lightly sketched out in preparation for a watercolor.  To view the progress of (or to purchase) 100 Salt Lake City Porches, click here.  I welcome any feedback you may have and thanks for visiting!