Good Morning World!

Two cheery little works ~

Both are 4x6 inch watercolors.

I love the summery colors don't you?          

Whoops!  Forgot to sign the umbrellas. I'll do that now.


K

Two New Watercolors

In a color-thirsty day I tried my hand at a little 7x10 inch abstract of "The Woods."
Would look great framed simply with a 4-inch wide white mat.
This will be posted on my Etsy shop for $25.



This painting is quite a bit more color saturated than my screen shows. The red pot is deeper and the
flowers are a little bit brighter. This painting is on 11x15 inch 140 lb watercolor paper and
would look best framed with a bright white mat. This will be posted on my Etsy shop
for $45.


http://www.etsy.com/shop/DreamrKate

Tomorrow - something different maybe.

Kate



New Here At "The Pound" -

....  and they're all paper trained......!!

I told you that I like to go back and forth between paint and clay. While clay is drying, I'm painting. While paint is drying, and we all know how swell that can be, I clay. Since I have SO much going on in my head I need folks to share with.....so I make my dogs. A couple of years ago it was birds, but they've pretty much all flown the coop. So the dogs entertain me. And they can entertain you too if you are so inclined - they'll be in my Etsy shop here - http://www.etsy.com/shop/DreamrKate.

Anyway - new to the litter -



Meeeeet Spike!
He's a loveable character, always doing the whole-body wag, always ready to run for the stick.
He's a good watch dog too! He's gruff when necessary, loveable puppy slobber
for all the rest of the time. He does have a bit of a tic though - when he
jumps on the bed he likes to stand ON you, not next to you.
Just be forewarned!  





Meet the Bassett Sisters!
They're dainty, they're sweet. They wiggle when they walk,
and giggle when they talk, which they do incessantly. These little girls
and the best puppies. They're soft and don't bite and look
they even had their baby toes done. Everybody wants
a puppy for Christmas - and the girlies are the best
kind - and they're paper trained.



A Couple of New Things

As I've mentioned before, I am ever torn between clay work and painting. I love color (paint) but I really find it soothing to work with my hands smoothing, patting, carving a lump of clay into just something.Sometimes I start out with a plan but that's kind of rare. There are two ways I can look at this - either I'm totally rebellious by nature and just don't want to be told what to do.....and I could see how that might be correct but not terribly flattering; or, that I just want spontaneous design, when I sit down to make a bowl, it might want to turn into a multi-holed lamp, or a small dish might aspire to being a wonderfully appointed circus dog..... which as it turns out ......is just what happened.



Meet Beatrice, she's a real character.
If there's a good party around, she's in heaven,
and she really loves it when it's in her honor.





Meet Alice, she's sort of a dreamy, airy
character, humming and singing to herself all day.




Meet Pete. Pete is quite a guy and quite the looker too with that magnificent
nose and those long eyelashes. He's the Circus grip, a Pete-of-all-trades if
you will. If anyone needs anything fixed, they come to Pete.



Meet Cornelious. He's one of my favorites. He's happy,
friendly and a joy to have around. At the moment he's celebrating
his birthday.



Meet Max. He's a lover of cards. He sort of fancies
himself he "big dealer". I told him that it's not such a great profession
to go into but he didn't listen. He blew to pieces in the
kiln the other day and while I have most of his parts,
one is never quite the same after such a difficult
surgery. *sigh*

Now......painting. I've been working with watercolor for a while and decided to change it up a bit so I switched to oil paints. Not only do you have quite a bit of control but the colors are crazy vibrant as well.

These are both 8x10 oil paintings. They look better in person.

I have not  quite gotten the the cameral thing down.

Thanks for stopping by.

K. Pethoud



Look! Painting!

Just doodling.

New watercolors -

15 x 11, 140 lb. watercolor paper.

15 x 11, 140 lb. watercolor paper.

Almost a month has passed......

New things for Show-and-Tell Folks --


A funny little girl, please meet Princess.....
She's ceramic, about 4 inches tall and 4 inches long.

And she LOVES chasing the ball. In fact, when
she goes to the park she brings home a ball
almost every time.














And.... please meet Bernice.
She's almost 4 inches tall, formed completely by hand and she's a real one-of-a-kind.
She's got a raucous laugh and she's the life of all parties.

More later.

K

A Thought on Other Painting Blogs

Somebody asked me today if I could paint anywhere where would it be?

Where would I paint? I know exactly the spot, or two spots actually. One is on the way to another. It's on the high road on the way from Santa Fe to Taos. There are some stands of aspens when you're just starting the downside of the mountain. Aspens that shimmer like gold coins against the green of the hills and the blue of the sky and they're so bright they could almost put your eyes out. And they're hypnotic. I couldn't take my eyes off them.  I couldn't inhale them enough when I was there, and my friends wanted to get back in the car to go find places to shop. But not me, I could have stayed there forever or at least until it got cold.... or rainy... which it did by the time we made it in to the town of Taos. The other place is outside of Taos, I don't know which direction but there were miles and miles of just flat that was divided by a deep and wide gorge or something and the bridge that we stood on shimmied when trucks went over it. That was interesting but not half as interesting as the sky. I fell for the sky there. I wanted to lay in the road and just watch it. It changes every time you blink. The clouds move, the colors change, and I'm pretty sure that if I laid on a roof I could put my hands in them. I could live there and I don't think I'd want to do anything else BUT paint there. You'd have to. The compulsion would be too great.

Kate

Just Because You Can't Hear Me Doesn't Mean I'm Not Talking

I have got lots to show. A couple of them I'm still working on, adding layers of color a little at a time. I LOVE this 300 lb paper! It's just the absolute BEST ever to work on. I can get intense color without worrying about the paper breaking down. I suppose I could break away from flowers but I'm still enthralled by their intensity so maybe later.  I attempted to paint my cat......hmmm......one was close, she does have huge spotlight eyes......the other drawing/painting looks like a cartoony sort of cat........? That's the thing about drawing, one weird or misplaced line and all of a sudden you've gone into some weird twilight zone.

So.... I'm working on clay at the moment, I'll include a couple of those photos. These are my circus dogs and they're still in raw clay form but I like them. And you're going to look at them.

I'm heading to a senior citizens center on Friday to do a class. We'll be working on Van Gogh's "Sunflowers," and so I hope that I'll have some cool photos to share. It's hard to cram Van Gogh into one hour what it took him several years to do but that's evidently the program. We do what we can and pray for divine inspiration and hand control.

Here we go.....and by the way, the orange the watercolor IS actually THAT intense. It's gorgeous! It's 11x15 inches and would look absolutely fabulous with a 4 inch white matt border. Really! This close up photo is much better so you can really tell how it looks.   



Here's our real cat.....




And here's the cartoony cat....



 And here is a portion of an 11 x 15 watercolor of a pot of geraniums.

Followed by the circus dogs.  First meet Bones. Do not ask me where I come up with the names. I just do, and I can't tell you where they come from.... some deep recess in my mind.

Bones came to the circus kind of late. He just wasn't too sure what he wanted to do with his life, but he was one of those guys, those good looking guys who never quite seems to lock into a distinct direction, and he's a schmoozer, always knows what to say, can hold the crowd.....more about him later.



And here we have Cecily - she's a sweety but just a tad fixated on the ball.
We all know someone who's a little O.C.D. about something though,
don't we? She used to chase cars but when Rufus the Ringmaster showed her how delighted humans were with performing acts she quickly changed her gig.



Meet Juan. We call him Juan
Valdez.....it must be his jowls, but
he said he was from the depths of
Columbia and smuggled his way
out of the country by hiding on a barge heavily laden with a huge
coffee bean shipment headed for New York.

 



















So that's all for now! 

Kate

A Painting A Day

Okay, I can't keep track of the days .......... here's two more -

You can barely tell but these are both matted with white mats. Both are 5x7" watercolors on canvas board,
and matted with 2" white mats.......  I've listed them in my Etsy shop for $35.

Day 5 - Yes There's More

Day 5 and 6 -

Just painting. No talking today.
 

Well okay..... only a little bit of talking.

I stay up until way too late every night trying different things and then I wonder why my eyes are so tired the next day. I'm not a late riser either, usually awake by 6:30 or so. Someone told me that your body could actually store up sleep but that makes no sense to me. I don't think that can be accurate. A very sweet friend of mine told me that so I didn't want to argue.  I'm very frustrated right now and I am sure that the painting is my way of trying to control what I can in my life since so many things, work for instance, appears to be out of my control. I don't understand it because I'm quite witty, intelligent and have loads of really good ideas and I'm contentious .... maybe it's just not my time to find work? Or maybe it's just my time to be content in all things, even frustrating things? Maybe this is where my faith is tested and the patient girl wins? Perhaps. My underlying thought is that I must be gracious, handle difficulties with grace and know that things change in a blink of an eye.  Moving on ...

A small 6x9 inch piece. Loved the way the white flower turned out. And the way the back of the one red flower in the top left pleased me. Isn't it funny that white is only perceived white when there's other colors that white is NOT in there? Kind of like life - sometimes the only way you can find out what you DO want is to identify what you DON'T want.

 Nice little sunflowers. 6 x 9 inches.

 These last two pictures are just pieces of a painting I did of spider daisies. I like the whole piece - which you're not seeing right now - but I like the slices almost better. I would like to do these really large......REALLY LARGE like 40 x 60 inches. I think they'd be fantastic in the same colors so maybe some time when it's not so cost prohibitive I'll do just that. In the meantime I'll think of how these too mimic life - maybe as a whole it's good but slices of it are just magnificent.

Later.

K



A Painting A Day - Days 2, 3 and 4

Day 2 -



Day 2 original, 8.5 x 6 inches, below is a close up.

  I've scanned the paintings and adjusted the
color saturation so that these are as close to
the original as possible although there's always
some slight differences in monitors. I like vibrant
colors and I try to stay there.

I've included the whole painting and then one or two close ups of smaller details within the painting.


Day 2 Flowers - Close up of a small section.
8.5 x 6 inches; on 140 lb watercolor paper.


The close- up.








Day 3 - Tree of Life
8.5 x 6 inches, on 140 lb watercolor paper.



Smaller slice of the painting above.

Day Four - Abstract Geraniums
8.5 x 6"

Day Four - Close up 1. And Close up 2.

Day 5 - (Just in case I get behind)







Day 5 - Red Geraniums
7.5 x 11 watercolor on 140 lb paper



Close up version.


That's all for now but I'll be back.

Back to My Original Plan - Day 1

Back to My Original Plan ... A Painting A Day.

Resetting the counter - Today is Day 1

Size is 7.5 x 11 " - watercolor
Nothing Fancy - Just simple watercolor

No talking today. I'm talked out.                 

Well THAT first half of the year went fast .......

It seems like the last several months went by in a blur and I'm not sure what the next half of the year holds for me. I'm sure I have a million thoughts about it but I just don't feel like pondering them today. I do however want to share some of the painting I've been doing. I took a workshop from a friend of mine, Linda Knoll, the other day and she took us through the art of using masking fluid. It's kind of a fun thing - you paint white rubbery liquid onto white watercolor paper and then when it is dry, you paint color over the top of it. The idea is to protect the white bits of paper where your subject hopefully lies. After you feel there is enough color or color that you want on your paper, you wait for it to dry..... always with the drying when you're doing watercolor.......I'm amazed that I'm patient enough...... when all is dry you rub the rubbery stuff off and you're left with white spaces. Sort of a 'negative space' thing.



This is the 8 x 10 piece I worked on at the workshop.



Linda, though she starts her workshop off with "Well, I'm no expert (in watercolor) but I'll share with you some things I know..." knows a lot and it was fun and informative to work and listen and try different things. One of the things we covered was the different kinds of paper - paper is not just paper! No, no, no. Really good watercolor paper is 300 lb paper and I found that I like 'cold press' 300 lb rough watercolor paper. It's also probably the most expensive - pricing in at right around $8-10 a sheet. But it's also the paper that achieves the best results in that it offers uneven surfaces that allow more or less color saturation. I like watercolor in that it has that nice fluid, dreamy kind of feel, but I like my colors fairly saturated and intense which requires repeat layers of color with drying time between each layer. With a lesser grade of paper you can't really do that because the paper just will not hold up - and just when you think you're achieving something good the paper hits it's saturation point and from there on out you're only going to get a muddy looking mess. Really!

Did I say I wasn't going to talk much?  I hope that I wasn't snoring/boring but really, if you've not tried any of these things you really should. It's quite interesting. And for me - it's just one more thing that I cannot control but will make every effort I can to achieve some success.

This is a 5.5 x 7.5" done on 140 lb paper.



Another 5.5 x 7.5" on 140 lb paper.
I love this one!



These several paintings that I'm posting today were done after the workshop last week and are for sale. If interested just email me. They're quite affordable.

One other thing that I'm doing or attempting to do is to offer children's art classes or workshops for the summer. I've got signs out in my area of town so we'll see how that goes.

I've got another little idea up my sleeve, some tiny, self-matted greeting cards......but that's for another day. Soon. 

K



5.5 x 7.5 fun little sunflowers. Also on 140 lb paper.

The fascinating thing about watercolor is
the way the colors flow into each other
in a way you probably don't expect.
5.5 x 7.5" on 140 lb paper.

Today's Update

Completed - I'm not touching it anymore.

These pictures are of the same chair, one of the Adirondack's that we bought a few years ago. It took us months to get them all put together. Then it took me FOREVER to get them primered and start painting. I think they were like the big scary blank canvas, or the blank sheet of paper that face artists or writers. You know, we kind of circle around those things until BAM - something hits and sticks and we're fast and furious at work because we've got a thought.

With all of my frantic brain activity - between our daughter getting married, Rosie the Nut Job dog, me with my backwards de-cluttering and my crazy tutoring schedule that's winding down - I had to do something that would just help me decompress. So on Saturday and Sunday the days were so beautiful that I just had to sit and do something that would be my little 'valium' in the midst of the craziness. And now I feel so much better.

I still have to paint the underneath and then seal it all but I can't wait to get to the next chair. It will be my reward for plowing through 7 boxes when I get back home today after tutoring. Yay!!!

K



Close view



First draft - before the blue.