Pike's Market at the Spring Solstice

One of my most favorite places to spend the day.  The artisans are inspiring, I love the array of fresh vegetables and flowers not to mention the fish markets.  If you weren't aware, the florists give a free daffodil on the Spring Solstice so if you want to take part in some fun, plan a trip to the market on that day.  Only then will you see the building lined with daffodils along the roof.  It's drop dead stunning.  What a way to bring in spring. 

Another piece in my "Famous Places" collection. 

Something fun

I have a funny story on this image. I cut some ATC (artist trading card) size cards from Duralar film to play with them while I was out of town. Curious what the difference would be, I grabbed my set of Lyra Rembrandt Polycolor colored pencils to test techniques, blending, application, etc. I totally forgot when I removed the fugitive colors from the set when I got them years ago, left was a VERY limited range of colors to work with in this brand so when I went to start on this image I realized the purple flower wasn't going to be purple because none of the pencils in that range of color had passed the lightfast tests.  And since I didn't check the set before packing, that's all I had with me to work with. So it's now a red iris.

 

This piece is sold.

 

Rembrandt Polycolors are an oil based pencil so it went on the film different from the wax based pencils. I rather like how they went on but the limited pallet will keep me from using them much, if at all on film in the future. In the end my official opinion is the Caran D'Ache Luminance pencils out performs the Lyra Rembrandt Polycolors. Plus I like having a complete range of colors to work with in the Luminance. The limited pallet thing was challenging because it's almost impossible to blend on the surface of Duralar because it only accepts maybe 3-4 layers of colored pencil. One thing I did learn when the film reaches it's saturation point and won't accept another layer of Polycolor, the film will accept another layer of Luminance OVER the Polycolors. Handy to know for corrections.

Coming up next year

I am excited to announce my artwork will on display at the New Seasons Market in Hillsboro, Oregon next year!  Specific dates to come. 

Exploring

Small portfolio concept. 

Working on Film

I took a two day workshop "The Thrill of Two-Sided Drafting Film" presented by Pam Belcher out of Seattle. I know it sounds like a dry subject but the potential of what it can do really is exciting. This was done on Dura-Lar matt film.

I cut a sheet of film to ATC size so each piece costs me a mere 5 cents to experiment on to learn how many layers I could or couldn't put on it, adding textures, how intense I could make the images, the speed a drawing could be developed, scannability, etc.  The tag marked "F" is just there to tell me which side is the front and another to show which is the back side.  To develop the intensity of color and detail both sides are used.  Each side is different yet similar.  At first I thought working two sides of anything would take longer but amazingly the technique is faster than traditional paper and the colors pop with little effort.  Lots of potential here. 

ATC Template

I've always wondered how many ATC cards I could cut out of an 8-1/2" x 11" piece of watercolor paper.  ATC's, also known as ACEO's are not business card sized but close. 

The answer is 10.  Here is a handy template to help:

https://www.pinterest.com/pin/49187820903743804/

Plein Air Practice

Plein Air is a French word meaning to work from and in nature.  Toward the end of September I decided to take advantage of an opportunity in the early hours of the morning by setting aside one hour to paint along the river.  When the weather is good I walk down to Pixie Park or stop at the Daughters of the American Revolution rose garden which is slightly up the hill, set the alarm on my phone for one hour and paint the vista before me.  The dew point as the sun comes up affects how quickly or how slowly the paint dries so I am often waiting for a section to dry before I can continue on.  So nothing gets to the point of "finished" but that's not the point.  It's the challenge of figuring out how to capture a sunrise which is over as soon as it begins. 

 

 

 

 

Watercolor in a watercolor moleskin journal.  What I'm liking about whatever paper they used to make the journal with, it kind of puckers a bit when it's wet but as it dries it returns to a flat state.  And an interesting observation, each sunrise is unique.  Makes it fun.