Kate's Updates: New painting!

Hung Out to Dry, watercolor on paper, 22 x 15

I just finished this painting today, and as usual, I'm not sure what to think of it! But I am very happy that it's done as this subject has been on my mind for a while.

These boots were hanging on an old barn door in a West Marin farm (Gospel Flats). This place was a treasure trove of funky, funny and odd juxtapositions of objects and animals, that every niche seemed to be filled with a would-be painting! What I love was the added touch of weirdness of the small, rusty scythe and the goat bell strewn with spider webs. For that I used the Zoltan Szabo technique of scraping a razor blade over the dry paper to make that spider web pop. I also used lots of dry brushing and toothbrush scraping to get that weathered look in the wood and the boot rubber.
Just a note: these boots were all actually a deep, army green, but I changed the palette a bit just to make it more interesting.

Kate's Updates: New painting!

"Majestic", watercolor on paper, 15 x 22

Another "Tree" painting, this time of a burned pine I saw in Yosemite last summer. Even with its branches bare and bark curled off revealing a charred "skin", I thought the tree beautiful.
The palette is obviously very limited, but I didn't want to interfere with the tree's starkness against the blue.

Sketch of myself by Helen Breger

Portrait in crayon on newsprint by Helen Breger

At 93, Helen Breger is still capturing likenesses wherever she goes, with as little as a child's crayon and newsprint.
We were both recently at her great-granddaughter's fourth birthday and I showed Helen the huge pad of newsprint I was going to give Naomi (the great-granddaughter) and the nifty crayons to go with it when she helped herself to the black and tore a piece from the pad and sketched me right then and there--took all of 15 minutes.
Helen was a noted fashion illustrator for the Chronicle "back in the day" and has never stopped drawing people's likenesses wherever she goes. She was recently in Austria where she had a Birthday party thrown for her, and instead of chatting, she drew every guest there. All of them liked their portraits so much, they kept them.
Helen still teaches, paints, does etchings, monoprints and collographs. She is so supportive and generous with her talents, definitely someone I admire and hope to emulate. She is also coming out with a new book she's illustrated to poems by noted author, Jack Foley. Go Girl!

Kate's Updates: New painting -In-Progress

'Lucky Bobbers"  15 x 22, w/c on paper

Just finished last night! I'm not sure what to think; I think I like it, but it's a bit odd. I had a lot of fun painting it and it definitely gave me the confidence to try more complicated pieces in the very near future.

Kate's Updates: New painting -In-Progress

"Lucky Bobbers" in its latest phase.

As a land-lubber, I wasn't aware that what I was painting and so attracted to, were fishing bobbers--not lures! So, in this phase, I changed the working title to what I think will be more appropriate, if not final. The difficult thing for me here is trying to get the values working in the bobbers as well as making the bramble convincing as I have it climbing into the light. Much of the photo I worked from was not clear in this area! So, I resorted to the tried and true method of "faking it".
The painting as a whole still seems abstract and unclear, but I hope the final product will be intriguing, rather than confusing.