Janet Zeh Art Blog - paintings of birds, flowers, seascapes and country landscapes.
The hills of a Caribbean Island frame this colorful sunset. In the distance, a small boat adds a nice touch. Sunsets in watercolor are delightful to paint. You can see the areas where the colors run together making lovely cloud formations. I am especially pleased with the fresh, spontaneous look of this seascape.
I love hearing the song of the Phoebe. It means spring has arrived! Here is one of these little birds sitting in a blossoming crabapple tree.
Painting in the composition: Above is my easel on which I have set a 16"x12" canvas.
I start out with a palette of primary colors - one cool and one warm yellow, one cool and one warm red, and one cool and one warm blue - plus white. I use only these clear colors which contain no black and I don't use black paint in any of my work. This makes for rich and beautiful colors in the final piece. If I need a black hue or any other color, I'll mix it from these six primary colors.
In the picture, you can see that I've painted an outline of the composition using a mix of red and blue, and started testing out some soft colors in the background. I am using as reference a photo that I took of the irises I want to paint (on the right). You can see that I've simplified the composition. I will be changing the colors slightly as well. The next step will be painting the background:
Painting the background: The background colors I tested look like they will work, so I continue to paint them in first. This gives me something against which to guage the colors and values of the flowers and leaves.
Iris Leaves: I used the same mix of blue and yellow for the leaves as I did for the background but with more intense color.
Painting the flowers: I begin at the top and work my way to the bottom. First I paint in the purple colors by mixing blues and reds. The colors of the flowers will also be adjusted as I work.
Finishing the flowers and adjusting the colors: The irises are almost done except for the lowest one. For this, I mix a slightly different color of purple for the upper petals. I like it so much that I will go back to add more of it to the other flowers as well.
Painting the canvas edge: This canvas has a "wrapped" edge meaning the canvas is stapled to the back of the frame. This means the sides, top and bottom edges can be painted, so I carry the image around to the sides. The owner of this painting will have the choice of framing it or displaying it without a frame.
Finishing the last details: Only one stem remains. I've painted some additional petals behind the flowers in this section. They were necessary to keep the flow of the composition in a smooth arc from bottom to top. The last step is to sign the painting:
Signing the painting: The painting is happy and is not telling me to make any more adjustments. It's important to know when to stop so that the piece will be fresh and not overworked.
These sweet scented flowers are as lovely in a painting as they are in the garden. Just the thought of lilacs blooming is a treat! In this painting they can bloom for you year round.
Here is an 11x14 seascape oil painting of Perkins Cove in Ogunquit Maine. If you've ever been to Perkins Cove, you know the power of the surf that can swell and crash onto the rocks there. It is magnificent! In this painting, I've added the rugosa roses that bloom along the shore.
This one is a bit larger that what I've been posting. Here are a couple of white-petaled daffodils from my garden. This painting was done using a double primary palette - meaning a cool and warm of each of the three primary colors. This palette makes for a painting with stunningly fresh and beautiful colors.
Colorful crocus will put you in the mood for spring. My flower beds are still covered with snow, but soon these little beauties will be popping up.
I love lilacs! Any color. I've always wanted a long row of them of various colors. Right now, there are several shrubs in my yard with extra shoots coming up and if I get busy this spring I can dig them up and plant a row. It's a good thing I love them as they are a bit of work to paint with all their tiny blossoms. I hope you can almost smell their fragrance when you look at this painting!
Though it is still February and many of us are engrossed in the winter Olympics watching althetes perform in the snow and ice, I've had about enough of winter. We are expecting more snow on Tuesday. With March in a couple of weeks, though, I'm thinking spring!
A pair of egrets wade in the shallows of a pond. Snowys are distinguishable from other white egrets by the little flip up of feathers on their tail, their black legs and (though you can't see them here) their bright yellow feet!
Surf rolls in majestically while ever-present seagulls dip and soar. The rocky coast of Maine has such incredible surf especially after a storm. You can almost hear it thundering in and feel the ocean breeze in this painting. Pretty rugosa beach roses bloom in the foreground.
This twelfth painting of koi focuses on the beautiful white waterlily which takes center stage. I really enjoy these koi paintings especially painting the water. By wetting the paper and dropping in color, I never really know how it will turn out until the paint is dry.
Going for a walk yesterday, I noticed this robin on a fence rail. Not so long ago, the sight of a robin meant spring was here or would be very soon. But, they increasingly have been staying throughout the winter and I've seen flocks of them in my frozen crabapple tree this year. Well, as long as they can find food, they will have saved themselves a very long and tiring trip. I am beginning to wonder if they will forget how to migrate!
This painting of daffodils is as fresh as a breath of spring. It is one of those that just about painted itself. As one of my artist friends says, "I just grabbed the brush and held on." :)
This white Clematis was painted with my latest process of using only three primary colors and letting the colors blend on the paper to make secondary colors. My latest watercolor floral work focuses on white flowers as they are exceptionally beautiful with this process.
This koi painting takes a different view than my others which were seen from above the pond. In this scene, we go below the water's surface and see the lily pads from underneath with the light filtering down from the surface. As in all my paintings of koi, this is done with a limited palette of three primary colors.
