In Living Color 41 - Wisteria

The idea for this next painting came from a trip I made to the Morse Museum of American Art located in Winter Park, Florida see here, showing the works of Louis Comfort Tiffany.  The idea didn't come right away but some time later when I came across the ticket stub that I had saved from my trip there.  

The ticket was 4.5"X 2" so I started out by scanning it so I could print a larger picture to make the cartoon from. I have started using a different method to create my cartoons than the one I explained in the post from June 4, 2011, Just Black & White 11, which I find more efficient.  I start with a black and white 8X10 photo of the subject I want to paint.  I then use a sharpie pen to out line the areas that will result in the cartoon.  From there I place a sheet of tracing paper over the above piece and trace in pencil the areas I have outlined.  Once this is done I check my work to see that everything is in order then once again go over the pencil outline with a fine tip sharpie making this the final step.  Using this drawing it can be enlarged to any size I want to paint, full sheet, half sheet or quarter sheet, by taking it to our local Staples and letting them do the rest.  I usually take the watercolor paper that I will paint on so we can get the correct measurement and check the enlargement against it.  So far I have only used quarter sheets but the dimensions should work for the others as well.

Stain Glass Cartoon

This was a very tedious cartoon to make but once again I really like doing detail work so even though it took awhile I enjoyed the process.  By the way when I scanned the ticket I hadn't punched the hole in it so I didn't have to guess how to fill in the missing area.

Picture of Ticket

Once the watercolor paper was ready to go I started what I thought would be an easy painting....WRONG....it was much harder than anticipated.  First there is a lot of blending of colors to get the right effect.  Then as I would look at the picture to see what color to add I'd lose my place on the painting and spent a lot of time going back and forth to get the right color in the right place.

Stain Glass - In The Process

Once I finished filling in all the blanks it was time to add the leaded effect which consisted of outlining all the previous work with a thin semi-black color and adding a signature.  Below is the picture of the completed work but I have to add that I didn't do a very good job of taking the picture and I no longer have the painting in order to retake it.  You will notice a shadowing over the bottom left of the painting that shouldn't have been there and the colors in the original are much brighter as you can see in the photo above.

Stained Glass Wisteria- Study
Watercolor
11"X15"

In Living Color 40 - Zinnias

This painting was exciting to do.  I tried several new techniques in achieving the final results.  First was cropping of the original photo to a close up view of the flowers and eliminating unwanted clutter.  Then while in the photo shop program I started playing with the picture to see what it might look like with the various effects that were offered.  I started out using the watercolor effect to see what it could look like once painted then moved onto another effect that gave it the pen & ink look.  Unfortunately I can't remember which effect I used for the second step and should have written it down at the time.  I rather liked the look and decided I would attempt to paint it that way.  I made a print of those results and began from there. 

Original Photo

Cropped and Altered Photos

Watercolor Effect

 

After painting the photo to look like the watercolor effect photo I then moved onto the Pen & Ink effect to finish the painting.

 

Pen & Ink Effect

 



Working the Pen & Ink was the most time consuming part of this painting due to using a small tipped ink pen and achieving the effect with dots and scribbles.  Strange as it may seem this is the most relaxing part for me and I didn't mind doing it at all but was somewhat excited to come to an end and call it finished.

Zinnias
Watercolor
11"X15"

The Word 20

The Lord your God is with you, he is mighty to save.  He will take great delight in you, he will quiet you with his love, he will rejoice over you with singing.

Zephaniah 3:17