18 may 2014

may has been quite a month so far: extreme weather (hot), lots of travel and some slogging through portrait painting. we have also pursued entering work in some local shows and have done well: L & N have work in the Westmont 'made you look' juried show, P, D & N will be represented in the 'petite landscape' show at the sb tennis club, and P, N & L all made it into the Elverhoj museum show 'santa inés mission mills'. not bad!

we have also become enamored with the small gouaches of thomas paquette that are showing at the Wildling museum: beautiful, tiny jewels of landscape.
so we are trying to see what we can do with this interesting and challenging medium.

here are some efforts from mimi:

started working from a cropped, vintage, postcard image just to get used to the paint and develop some sort of technique.


3"x3"
gouache on mat board

the colors seem too bright and un-natural


3"x2 1/2"
gouache on mat board

next came working from my own photographs, cropping the image to suit a small format. somewhat flat, but challenging to mix more muted color



3"x2 1/2"
monterey wetland preserve

3"x3"
meadow in the sierra

this was done from a photo after painting the scene in oil on site. it actually came out better than the oil.





3"x3"
view from camino cielo

time to try working from life, looking at the real thing. easier to work with natural colors and light.



3"x2 1/2"
backyard poppy

3"x3"
montecito peak