SEPTEMBER CHALLENGE PAINTING PROGRESS

It was a great holiday weekend. The weather here in the SF Bay Area was totally glorious. Saturday I went with my husband to the King's Mountain Art Festival which is held on the crest of the mountain in a Redwood Forest. We splurged on an anniversary gift for ourselves and purchased a beautiful hand made display table that has different inlaid woods and some crushed turquoise stones imbedded in the knot holes. Sunday I went with a friend to the famous Sausalito Art Festival. By the time we paid the parking, entrance fee, lunch, gas and bridge toll, we had spent a pretty penny but didn't purchase any art work.

Today I was anxious to get started painting again, being so inspired by all the incredible art work the previous two days. I did three preliminary drawings playing around with different line widths. I started the painting on Yupo in a vertical position on the easel and using a 1" cheap bristle brush from the paint store painted the basic lines with diluted violet Hydrus liquid watercolor. The stiff bristles don't hold lots of paint so I had almost no runs. In fact, I wanted some runs in the background and had a difficult time getting this to happen. The first image (very poor. Sorry!) shows the results. Next I used a 1/2" cheap bristle brush with stronger pigment and went back over the lines. Lastly I used my favorite Lizard's Lick #4 Cheap Joe's brush with Cobalt and drew the fine lines. I forgot to photograph the second step until half way through the third step.

Now I am contemplating where to go from here. I have thought of 3 or 4 options. If I want the line to dominate, I have to consider how the next step will impact the whole. I shall sleep on it.