Your Opinion Matters

Work continues on the Morro Bay Collage, but I need your help. I am playing with two sky colors and would like to know which you prefer -- the light sky or the dark sky?

I want you to know that I value your feedback, and the first three people who provide me with their input will receive a FREE Morro Bay Collage card (once the artwork is completed of course.)

As always, thank you for your continued support!

Deborah

Out of my comfort zone!

I’ve painted long enough to know that I prefer using Schminke’s Phthalo Blue over Winsor Newton’s French Ultramarine or Cobalt Blue, so I don't know what possessed me to start a painting with French Ultramarine Blue! Well, I am definitely now, out of my comfort zone!

Let me back up a bit. First, I am learning that to be an artist in a Morro Bay gallery, I need to be sensitive to the fact that many of the people who visit the gallery are tourists, and they want to take home a reminder of their visit to Morro Bay, or California. Armed with that information, I thought I should paint something Morro Bayish. I’ve enjoyed seeing the brown pelicans enjoying life in the Bay, and so I thought I would paint a pelican on a pier piling, with Morro Rock in the background.

I sketched out the drawing, transferred it to my watercolor paper and thought, hmm, it has been a long time since you’ve painted a sky using French Ultramarine Blue. So I did. I painted a rather dark sky, waited until the sheen was gone from my paper, then grabbed a paper towel, wadded it up and tried to lift out clouds. That is when I remembered that French Ultramarine Blue is a staining color and there would be no clouds in this sky. Well, once I realized what I had done, I had a dark sky, in a color that I don’t love, and the rest of the painting before me.

I tried to ignore the sky and focus on the rest of the painting, but the big, dark, blue sky was like a Grace Jones face on a Grace Slick body (see previous post) and I just kept thinking, “well here is one for the trash can.”

If you know me you know that I am not a quitter, and so I thought,“what else can I do with this

painting?” And so I grabbed the scissors and cut the painting in two, and this was the start of a new experiment – a collage!

I haven’t worked out the details of the college yet – I don’t know if I will simply attach another piece of watercolor paper to the back of the pelican/Morro Rock piece and paint in another sky, or if I’ll get crazy with it, but I will keep you informed of the progress. (Don't worry, I'll work on the water too!)

If you have any ideas for finishing the piece, please contact me.

Oh well, I guess I had better get back to the laboratory…I mean studio!