The Hidden Palette-taboret

Sprouts With Sunflowers Update

I watched a PBS (Public Broadcasting Service) painter creating her magic on paper with watercolor the other day and was mesmerized by the systematic approach with which she attacked her subject.  Each step was calculated with precision and executed with a deftness that only comes from hours, maybe years, of repetition.  Unfortunately, when she was finished her painting, though lovely, lacked spontaneity or originality and was completely void of any mistakes; in short, it looked like a painting that had been created by the numbers.

My painting approach is not that systematic.  In fact, I don’t have much of system at all.  What system I do have can be summed up with the following: “I start with a nice drawing and hope to hell I don’t mess it up with paint.”

That is exactly the case with the current watercolor, “Sprouts With Sunflowers”.  I started out with a nice drawing and now I am hoping that I don’t screw it up with paint.  A few days ago I painted in the background and today I started the under-painting of the flowers, mainly working on the center of the sunflowers.  It is my intention to use the yellow as a base layer and then cover it with a dark color which I will sprinkle with salt.  The hope is that the salt will absorb most of the dark paint leaving the yellow to show through, thus rendering the look of a pre-seeded sunflower center.  Hopefully it will work.  If not, I’ll try something else – systematically, of course.

Gracia This One’s For You.

Sprouts.  This is an oil on canvas I painting a while back.  If you look close you will see that my brushes have sat idle for so long that one of them has sprouted.

“Grumpy In Paradise”

Many years ago I saw a picture of a cat looking forlorn, glum, and grumpy so I decided to put him in a beautiful setting of roses and oranges with a silhouette of Mt. Tamalpais in the background to see if it would cheer him up.  It didn’t.  So for years now he has been sitting on his perch atop an old stone fence being “Grumpy In Paradise”.  Over the years I have come to realize that the painting is (at times) a self-portrait.  I sometimes feel grumpy in paradise.  It is hard to believe that one can be surrounded by beauty and still feel solemn.  Nevertheless, Grumpy (who hangs out on my dining room wall) never fails to make me smile when I look at him.  Two grumpy souls enjoying life in paradise.

Grumpy is now on a tote bag offered through CafePress so you can take him with you when you venture forth in this beautiful world – whether you’re feeling grumpy or not.

Click here: http://tiny.cc/nf4rcw

Sketches for, “Sprouts with Sunflowers”

I love sunflowers – their beauty, their structure, their variety.  I especially love the challenge of painting them.  Trying to find separation and structure in a mass of yellow.  And strangely enough I have also always been enamored with sprouting onions.  There is just something special about seeing the slender green fingers of new growth poking out from the slowly collapsing sphere.  So, when three of our onions sprouted I decided to put them in a painting with a vase of sunflowers.  Here is the initial sketch and the refined sketch for the forthcoming watercolor, “Sprouts with Sunflowers.”

The next step is to transfer the sketch to the watercolor paper and try not to mess things up with paint.

Quick Sketch

Refined Sketch

Quick Sketches for "Bored With The Slave Merchant"

I have this idea of creating an oil painting on canvas of a Pirate Captain sitting in his throne looking completely bored while surrounded by beautiful women as a slave merchant tries to convince him that he needs one more beautiful woman to complete his harem.  I guess it will be a statement that one really can have too much of a good thing.  But these stories seem to go through a metamorphosis process as I go through the progression of designing and then painting them, so it will be interesting to see what the final image, title, and message is.  Here are the first quick sketches for the painting.

The Imagi-Nation

The Imagi-Nation is unlike any other Nation.  It is a mystical, magical place where everyone is welcome and anything and everything is possible.