Fire... And Ice! (A New Finished Painting, and Some Progress in the Tropics Series)

Life has been a bit hectic this week... With somebody denting the front fender of my little car, I am running between insurance, car repair and police station, so the painting time get significantly shortened, much to my dismay. I did manage to finish another little landscape piece -- yes, it is a winter scene. Regarding what inspired it? Well, well, this may be a fictitious quote but I'm sure every tour guide here mentions it -- "The coldest winter I ever had was a summer in San Francisco", legend has it, by the famous author Mark Twain, go figure. :-P

Before the Spring Thaw, 

Watercolor on Arches 140# Cold Press Paper, 6"h x 9"w, 2012 #42

Sold!

(The truth is, I just love painting snow and fog. There a lots of room to play with wet-in-wet to create atmospheric effects in either of those, like the blurred tree line in this little painting...)

I also manage to squeeze out time to attend a one-day workshop with the wonderful artist Jeannie Vodden again, renewing my memory on her signature "multi-colored" glazing method. I promptly tried it out on the progression of my newest bird-of-paradise painting, and loved it! This method gives a little more control than my usual wet-in-wet technique, although it is much slower. Now I just have to figure out how to incorporate both of them into my normal painting procedures to the best final effect... Digesting a newly-learned technique can be confusing at times, especially if you want it to work with your old techniques instead of working against them. But, it's fun! The background is almost finished. I will put in the flowers tomorrow... That is, if I don't get side-tracked by other on-going projects :-P

Jungle Fire,  Watercolor on Arches 140# Cold Press Paper , 8"h x 10"w, WIP 2

Ok, I promise I will be focused...