Pug Eyes Signed!

OK, here is Pug Eyes after pressing and signing it.

I need to practice a lot more on signing my name with a paintbrush lol

Hope you like the finished painting :)

Daniel Smith Extra Fine Watercolors - My Palette

My Palette
I have chosen a very limited Daniel Smith Extra Fine Watercolors palette to start with.

I chose a yellow that is neither warm or cool in hue
if you add red to it, you can warm it up or add blue and cool it down. -

1) Azo Yello = PY151 - Midrange between warm and cool

My Primary Red is
2) Quinacridone Rose = PV19 - Cool red
This is a great red for my limited palette because you can mix with yellow and make oranges and you can mix with blues and make gorgeous purples.

I have two blues in my palette
3) Phthalo Blue (Greenshade) - PB15:3 -  Cool Staining blue

4) Ultramarine Blue - PB29 - Warm Blue - more towards the purple hue because it has a titch of red in it.
with a little yellow you can cool this blue down.  You can even mix it with my next color to create a cool blue.

5) Phtahlo Green - PG7 - cool green
Janeblundellart says, "if you're going to have only one green in your palette, make it Phthalo Green BS".
It mixes well with my Quin Rose for making shadows.
Makes a vivid green when mixed with my yellow and if I mix it with either of my blues I have a lovely hue of turquoise.

6) Pyrrole Orange - PO73 - warm redorange
It's lightfast, heavily staining, semitransparent and is a very intense redish orange pigment.

7) Burnt Umber - PBr7 -
8) Burnt Sienna - PBr7 -
9) Raw Sienna -  PBr7 -

It is easy to mix 7 & 8 instead of buy them.

For example you can mix Burnt Sienna by using yellow, red and then adding Ultramarine Blue to it You then have a nice warm brown that can be made to look like Burnt Sienna by varying the amount of each pigment.

I could easily also make Burnt Umber by mixing my Ultramarine Blue and Burnt Sienna together.

So they really didn't need to be bought as a ready made but it's much simpler to have them as a single pigment choice and to have it already mixed.

Mixing Phthalo Blue with Burnt Sienna is great for getting the cool blues and greys that alot of animals have in their fur.

So there you have my Daniel Smith Extra Fine Watercolor palette

Stay tuned for my Winsor and Newton halfpan palette :)

You see, I couldn't decide if I should get tube or pan.
I've heard all the pros and cons on both but I've had no experience with pans/halfpans to be able to make a educated choice so I bought both.
Since it's watercolors, neither of them will go to waste and I'll have double the amount of fun learning my watercolor paints :)

Thanks for stopping by!

Professional Watercolors

I'm so excited! My Daniel Smith (DS) Extra Fine Watercolors are here!!!
As I mentioned when I was doing the PugsEyes, I decided I needed to move to professional watercolors and give the student grade ones to my granddaughters to play with.

The best way to learn new watercolors is to paint with them, mix them and just play!
That is exactly what I've been doing today.


I've been learning how they mix, their different intensities and I've put together a color chart showing mixing two colors together. I have 9 of the Daniel Smith paints right now for my limited palette.
There is NO comparison to the student watercolors I've been playing with up until now. 

Daniel Smith Extra Fine Watercolors are as their name states, Extra Fine!
The vibrancy and the way they mix together is fantastic!
I'd heard and read a lot about the different professional watercolors and DS had some pretty high reviews most of the time and I can sure see why!

I just LOVE LOVE LOVE the vibrancy of the pigment.
Here's the charts I've put together so far.

The way to read these is each two color mix is a 3 x 5 = 15 squares
In the first row of 5 they are the pure pigments with minimal water.
The first square is the first pigment and the last square in the first row of 5 is the other pigment I'm mixing to create the pair/combo
The 2nd square in the first row is mostly the first square pigment with a titch of the other pigment added.
The 3rd square in the first row is a mix of 1/2 & 1/2 (same amount of each)
the 4th square in the first row is mostly the 5th square pure pigment with a titch of the first square pigment mixed.

The first row of 5 is all pure pigment just enough water to paint , (dark tone) 
the middle row is one part water one part paint and (middle tone) 
the last row is two part water, one part paint. (light tone)

So, for the very first 3 x 5 group I am mixing
my yellow with my red
First square is pure yellow, 5th square is pure red, 2nd square is all yellow with a touch of red, 3rd square is 1/2 yellow 1/2 red, 4th square is all red with a touch of yellow. (no extra water)
The middle row of squares is the above explanation with a dip in the water (one part water, one part paint)
The final row of squares is the above sentence after painting and blotting on paper towel, then dip in the water (basically 2 parts water, one part paint)

Hopefully, that explanation is understandable!

 Next up, palette I chose and why.

PugsEye - Final except for Signature

Well, here it is, except for the signature.

Finished the "Pug Eyes" as far as I'm taking it.
The photo I was loosely working from was a reference supplied for a 2014 wetcanvas Art challenge.
I don't know who the photographer was but it was a very cropped shot.
Here's the finished painting after pressing the paper flat.
The second image is showing my painting cropped in the same manner as the reference photo was cropped.

There are many things wrong with this piece but overall I'm very happy with it :) :)

I learned a lot while doing this piece and I'm looking forward to doing more watercolor paintings in the near future.

Scoping out images that might work right now so stay tuned

Craftsy Class - WIP 2

I also worked a little more on my Cat for the Craftsy class.

Fun, fun!

Hope you like it so far!

Thanks for stopping by for a look :)

Pugs Eyes Update WIP 2

Well, I wasn't going to finish this since it was just a practice piece but popular opinion says to.  So, I'm finishing it for my fans :)

Here's where I'm at now.

Hope you still like what I'm doing to with it.

Craftsy Class - 1

Hi!
I'm also taking a Craftsy class and I guess I should post the work I've done so far in there.
It's called Pet Portraits in Colored Pencil and it's with Gemma Gylling.
We are doing these portraits on Suede Mat Board.
I haven't used this surface before but I'm finding it will hold a lot of layers and it's allowing me to create the realist image I seem to strive for.

My board is supposed to be grey but when I bought the suede mat board from Gemma, she didn't have grey so I got the tan.

First thing I had to do is transfer the provided image onto the Suede Mat board.
I did that using graphite transfer paper.
Next I created the Eyes to match the reference image.

I'm having fun taking this class but I'm definitely working slowly on this one.

So, without further delay.......here's the Cat.

Thanks for stopping by!
Hope you like it so far :)

4th Watercolor Practice Piece Pug Eyes

This was just a little practice piece that I started back in 2014 (Pug Eyes) and finally took it as far as I'm going to go with it.

It actually made me realize I really need to ditch the student grade Academy WaterColor paints and get artist grade watercolor paints.

Thanks for stopping by.
Hope you like what I've done with it!

Wave WIP5

I've been very bad about updating my blog.
Here is a little more work done on Wave

Hope you like it!

Thanks for stopping by :)