Scattered Thoughts . . .

T oday, Kenzie and I had a really nice "art day" and we produced some nice pieces of art.  I need to purchase a few more frames and mat board because I realized today that I don't have any on hand anymore for framing small pieces of artwork.  Actually, I found that we are short on a few art supplies so I'll need to remedy that also before I forget. After spending far too much time searching for and digging out our art supplies, we sorted out what we would need for today and then came up with a plan.  We chose a couple of ideas and decided upon some nice compositions for two pieces of artwork each.   We sketched a few ideas and then did a little practice on some scrap paper before we touched the watercolor paper.  Then we talked about shapes, colors, values, light and shadows for our compositions.  Below are a couple of our initial sketches to help iron out sizes of the basic shapes... The first watercolor piece of art was sort of a memento of our Chris...

I 'm still trying to figure out how to paint with watercolors.  I'm making some progress but I am still needing more practice. Although I am learning and making some headway after the few paintings I did in the past week or two, I am slowly changing my painting supplies too which also causes a need for adjusting technique.  For instance, I purchased a different brand of warercolor paper, different brushes, and a few other supplies.  Each of these changes requires some practice to get used to the new characteristics of the new supplies.  I seem to be learning fairly quickly though. Here is my latest painting from yesterday... I need to start with having a specific plan for each of these paintings.  That is definitely a problem that is making things a bit difficult.  I'm sort of winging each painting with not much of a plan in mind.  Also, I really should be working on just one part of these paintings at a time.  Once I get a handle on each part, th...