It's still April and I have new paintings. Yay!

Still painting in watercolors, when I was doing some research and really started getting interested in the Dutch Tall Ships (pre Columbus). So, naturally, I had to paint some of the images I had seen on the Web. Not in an attempt to copy for sale, but for educational purposes.  

On the other hand, if someone made an offer on a Renoir inspired painting like the one below inspired by Renoir's "Portrait of a Young Woman in Black", I would certainly take it.

This one I call Yesterday's Section. A somewhat dried out section of tangerine on a ceramic tile. Watercolor on hot press Fabriano. 9x12"

I have another but the glass was cracked when it was being framed, so there will be a delay.

The Fourth Rembrandt

Well, Rembrandt is the idol of the month. This is my fourth watercolor version of his selfies. So, I just had to share. The reference photo was clear and didn't have the traditional darkened varnish of the typical "Rembrandt glaze", which was a darkening of the varnish through the years applied to the paintings. I have also included the others.

I actually have applied a Rembrandt glaze to paintings in some areas of some of my oil and acrylic paintings (mixture of varnish and color) to darken and make parts of them recede, and it works very nicely for that.

Rembrandt. Watercolor 11x14" Fabriano cold press. W&N, Talens & Grumbacher colors,Grumbacher, Davinci, W&N, Princeton brushes. The reference doesn't have that traditional Rembrandt glaze, which was just old varnish, so colors were more vibrant, the way he painted. Just have to finish the jewelry 'round the neck.

April 2014

 After Rembrandt's "Portrait of Johannes Wtenbogaert"

After Sargent's watercolor "White Ships"

Having just gotten many tubes of watercolors in the mail I am steadily replacing my less than student grades with artist grade ones and I'm inspired to do more. Love the Fabriano paper as well.

These are just a couple of paintings done this month. I'm leaning on a new theme, Rembrandt and Sargent. One thing that bothers me, not that I want to forge any paintings, is that the images on the web differ dramatically in color and the fact that the museums are cleaning the old varnish off the oil paintings to reveal more dramatic color underneath the discolored varnish layers. Unless you are in the museum looking at the work, you can't really be sure. I can only speculate, knowing their palette and techniques, the right ones to use. 

I was recently reminded that the way we get to be good is by painting the masters. It's true. In the hundreds of works I've done, only less than 20 were done from reference to a master painting or at least, someone well known.