Sara Mathewson » Floral

Sunflower on Canvas

Sara — Thu, 10 Apr 2008 00:42:09 +0000

I have had this 12″x12″ watercolor canvas sitting around and I thought I would do a tulip painting on it, but when I was looking through my flower photos I came across some sunflowers and one just about jumped out at me. The photo is one I took when we went to the Denver Botanical Gardens. We didn’t actually go in as the cost was too much so I took some pics of the flowers that surrounded the area and this sunflower was one of them.

This past fall some friends of ours in Arivaca got married and they had sunflowers in their garden as the back drop. I decided I would do a painting for them for their wedding present. So, I asked Jenni (the bride) to take some pics of the sunflowers that she liked and she gave me some and I have been looking at them for months and in the end used one of my own. It is the kind of sunflower that is their favorite though, so I think this will be great. All I need to do is spray some fixative on it and it will be finished. I do that outside because of the fumes and let me tell you today it is so windy that it wouldn’t be a good idea to try. I will do it in the morning. It tends to be calmer in the morning and the wind picks up as the day goes on. It is so dry here that there is a ton of dust in the air. It is one of those days that if you were a cowboy you would be wearing that bandana up over your face.

Back to the painting. I had a lot of fun with this. Canvas is so different from paper for the watercolors. It takes some getting used to. I painted the center of the sunflower with really thick paint. that isn’t a typical watercolor technique, but it was fun and I think it works for this painting. The petals have many, many glazes on them. The nice thing about this watercolor canvas is that if something isn’t working, you can wipe it off and start over. On the other hand, it is difficult to apply a glaze over existing paint. It really takes some practice and you have to have a very light touch. In the end, I think it worked. I was a little worried when I was in the middle of it, but today it all fell into place and turned out just how i wanted it too. Don’t you just love it when that happens? So, here is the painting, “Sunflowers on Canvas”

I have to say that it looks way better in person. I’m not happy with this photo at all. Chris really tried to get it to look like it is supposed to, but it didn’t work. So, the center is not as crazy looking in real life. The blue background is a little bit darker, and the petals well, they just look better, fresher. so, use your imagination with this one!

I Just Love Texture

Sara — Sat, 05 Apr 2008 15:16:12 +0000

The other day I started on a new piece. I was looking through some papers I have thinking that I may do a collage. I found a piece of white paper that has a fan like design. I don’t remember the names of these art papers, but this one is fan like and sort of feathery. Lots of holes etc. So, I glued it onto a piece of 300# Arches CP watercolor paper. I then thought I would paint some more tulips. I looked at it some more and decided lilies would be a better flower to paint. Plus, it has been a while since I have painted lilies and I really love to paint them. Especially the Stargazer lilies or varieties like that. So, I took out some photos I had taken years ago of some lilies that I had purchased and drew on the paper in pencil. This paper is very delicate, so I had to be careful when erasing lines to not rip it. I wanted to see how this paper would look with a watercolor. And I thought it would be fun to begin with the background. Well… it was interesting. I’m pretty sure there is no sizing in this paper, so the color spreads quickly. It was near impossible to control which made it kind of fun. I was able to just abandon all thought of control and go for a much looser, abstract of lilies. When I had finished the background and painted the lilies I realized that it wasn’t really working as a watercolor so I decided to get out the acrylics and have a go at it. I had so much fun painting it really thick. I painted the white right out of the tube, mixing on the paper with the pinks. Lots of fun. I re-did the background too after painting the flowers. Still the same colors,(I mixed a rosey gray), and made it very thin so there is still some of the papers texture showing through. The end result is a painting with lots and lots of texture. It is more impressionistic than anything else. This was the first time that I have painted flowers with acrylics and I gotta say I loved it! I’m thinking I may want to try oils at some point too. What I loved about the acrylics was how quickly they dried. Remember I live in Southern New Mexico and it is very dry here). I could see where the fast drying could be a curse though. I did use some extender in parts of it and some water as well. Generally I had enough time to work with it, and it was such a fun and interesting learning experience as to how the paint works and the different brushstrokes to use for the various effects. Overall it was a wonderful, textural experience.

The Elusive Poppy

Sara — Tue, 25 Mar 2008 14:40:02 +0000

Sunday morning found Chris and I in the car heading south to El Paso. Our destination; the Franklin Mountains. We had been told that there was usually a great display of poppies there in the Spring. We missed the little festival that they had the weekend before celebrating the Spring poppies. So we figured there must be some if they had a festival. El Paso is about 45 minutes south of Las Cruces. We had packed the car with my new French easel, a bag full of different media including a box of pastels and my new “artcomber” chair/cart that held the easel. Well we got to the mountain and after turning around because we had missed the exit to the State Park there, we found it and proceeded in. So far we hadn’t seen a single poppy which had me wondering if they were there at all. We pulled up to the pay booth and asked the “Ranger” if there were many wildflowers out yet and he told us a few verbena and some others, but not many. We asked about the poppies and he said that they were on the other side of the mountain. ugh. I forgot to mention that it was a very windy day which would have made painting outside unpleasant at best. The wind would have been directly on us on the other side of the mountain. We decided to turn around and maybe come back on a nice day. So we headed down from the mountain and stopped for lunch at a DQ that was right near the highway. Ah, Easter dinner at DQ, not exactly following tradition but I guess in the scheme of things it was ok. I got to have my lemon-lime mister misty freeze although they did neglect to put extra ice cream on top as I had requested. sigh. So few DQ’s know how to make them right. We then got back on the highway heading north and when we got home we were so tired that we both ended up taking a nap. It was a gray, chilly, windy day and our arthritis and other ailments were making themselves known. So, it ended up being a good day for rest. I have photo’s of poppies, some that I have taken. I want more close-ups though. sigh. If we were still in Arivaca we would be seeing them. Oh well, maybe next year.

A little of this, a little of that…

Sara — Sun, 16 Mar 2008 00:51:47 +0000

Well, it has been so long since I posted a painting that I’ve done, today I have three!

Now, they aren’t brilliant masterpieces by any stretch of the imagination. No, one is downright ugly and one is so-so, and one is ok. hehehe

Here is the ugly one:

What in the world was I thinking with that background? I wasn’t that is the problem. A lesson was learned, never finish a painting when under the influence. So, today I did another one to rectify the situation. These are both about 4″x6″ cards. They are done on 140# watercolor paper.

Ahh, that is better…

The last one is the pastel I have been working on all week. It is done on Wallis sanded paper with a yellow ochre under painting. The size is 9×12″ I did it from a demonstration in the book “Pastel Step by Step By Marla Baggetta. I didn’t follow the directions as closely as I should have. But, here it is:

Still having trouble with cloudy skies. I have to say, it wasn’t explained very well either. I see lots of practice on clouds in the near future! Oh and that spruce blue behind the barn is actually the distant tree line, not the Sea as Chris thought. That would be interesting, “The Barn by the Sea” hehehe. But I can see why he got that impression:) I am so glad this one is done. I can move on. I have gotten tired of having it on my easel day after day. Some days I would just look at it and just couldn’t bring myself to work on it. Other days I would just put a few strokes here and there. This could easily be done in one day. But, because I wasn’t enjoying the process I made it drag on for days. I really don’t enjoy copying from the books. I know I need to learn these things, but I want to do my own paintings. So, we shall see where this all leads. Could be interesting.

Ok, at least I have been doing something in the studio. I really want to try to post something every day. Small paintings and sketches are about all I can do in one day. So, we shall see. Thankfully I am feeling better–yay! And it is warm and sunny here in Las Cruces. Windy too, but you can’t have everything!