Morning Mist at the Lake

Here is another of the projects for the Watercolor Workshop group I belong to. This month we are painting fog and mist. The photo reference we were using had a big clump of trees in the exact middle. So I spent some time rearranging the elements before I was happy to paint it. It was a challenge to paint the atmosphere of the mist and not be tempted to paint the actual trees and lake.

Woman Sitting By a Tree Stump in the Desert

From time to time I like to show art done by my grandson, Benjamin Wilson Feit. Ben loves to paint and to do collage. But, recently he has been making sculptures out of Sculpy. One day this past week a small package arrived at our house from Ben. Inside was this very creative sculpture along with a note from Ben about the sculpture. The note is above, beside the sculpture. By the way....Ben has a great imagination and takes on characters . From time to time he has been one of the Beatles or various other favorites. Right now, he is signing his name as "Bjorn" in honor of one of the musicians in the group: "ABA".

This Old Boat....Needs Some Repair!

This is a painting in watercolor that I did for the January project for the Watercolor Workshop group I take part in. We all paint from the same photo reference, but are free to change, adapt, compose our painting as we want. This was fun as it dealt with an old boat with peeling paint.

Dutch Shoes

The Watercolor group I belong to has a project each month and the December project was to paint shoes. Several years ago, I bought a pair of Dutch wooden shoes at a yard sale and am fond of them as they reflect my Dutch ancestry. They looked rather plain to just paint them, so I added a touch of spring with the tulips.

Snowy, Snowy Night in Wisconsin

I was having a little fun with the October project for the Watercolor Workshop group I take part in. The theme this month is to paint night scenes. Well, it was just too tempting!
It had to be done! My take on art is to paint, draw, etc. in a serious manner, but to, also, have fun, experiment and play!
So old Vincent Van Gogh and I teamed up to have some fun on this one. It is done in Daniel Smith watercolors on Kilimanjaro watercolor block, 300 lb., 10" x 14". The snowflakes were put on first in masking fluid. Then I put on the watercolor paint. After that was dried, I took off the mask and did a wash of Daniel Smith Interference Blue, iridescent paint over the snowflakes and quite a bit of the color area. It is difficult to see the effects of the iridescent paint in this photo, but it shows up on the original painting. Great fun!

We have a family habit of naming the regulars that live here with us at Tree Henge (our name for our home). We have a squirrel that tries to rule the feeders whose name is "Attila the Hungry" and whole army of chipmunks that do clean-up duty under the bird feeders. These are all named for various brands of vacuum cleaners: Hoover, Electrolux, Orick, and our newest addition, Dustbuster. Here is a sketch I made in August of Hoover on his favorite rock in the sun waiting for his turn under the feeders. This is done in ink and watercolor pencil in my sketch journal.

Detailed Study Drawing Crested Cormorant

Not all of my work has been of the quick sketch nature. Here is graphite study made after the trip to Horicon Marsh. We were so lucky to see several Crested Cormorants and while we were much farther away, I wanted to learn more about them at closer range. Using various guidebooks I have on birds, I did some background reading and study. Then using a photo from a "Paint My Photo" artist's web site, I made this detailed drawing of a Crested Cormorant.