Green Hound

Perhaps a color sweet tooth is not the best judge of color during the darkest days of the winter. Sometimes when I paint in December I feel like someone who would put a pound of butter on their mashed potatoes. Yellow and Orange are my particular favorites this season (orange always is - and French Ultramarine).

This painting is about green. And frolic. And sun. And really really green.

Too green? Part of me thinks so, and the rest of me grins crookedly and won't paint over the green. I also like the freshness of this, and I would hate to spoil it.

But what do you think? I might still tinker with it. Watercolor on Arches hot press - 19 x 19 inches. Click the image for a slightly larger view.

It was good to visit this place, regardless of how the painting is or isn't. I felt high up, bathed in sun, and hearing the sea. I got to be there for four or five hours this weekend and Monday evening. I could hear the quiet sounds of the stupid sheep. This time I invited them - I needed them for scale and composition.

A Little Doodling

Over the last few weeks I had painted without plan on a few small pieces of watercolor paper. This was the result of one - and by the time I thought to photograph it I had already decided to pull goldfish out of the background, and started with white charcoal. It gave me a good reason to spend some time browsing the web for photos of goldfish, especially "fancies." Click on images to see them larger.

This is the final result - white charcoal, more watercolor, a little black ink, some prismacolors. It's about 10 x 14. I think the dark one is my favorite.