Watercolorists, do you tape down your paper when you paint? What kind of tape do you use? I have some blue painter’s tape, and it takes paper with it when I peel it off.
For the month of July, I will be participating in both the Index-Card-a-Day Challenge and World Watercolor Month. My intention is to make 31 small watercolor paintings on an index-card-sized piece of watercolor paper. We’ll see how many actually happen. I will used either an ICAD prompt or a WWM, whichever tickles my fancy, or something totally random.
Today I chose a mini-challenge for this week from the ICAD prompts: draw a pattern in black & white, which immediately brought zentangle to mind. My zentangle Facebook group, Tangle All Around, is also participating in ICAD, so I checked out some patterns on their page and selected a new one to me, Ramble by Carolyn Dorfman. I decided to add some color to it with water color paints so it would qualify for WWM.
Plein air sketching. I have been wanting to do this for years. Maybe someday soon. Those little clamps look very handy.
Do you like to cross stitch? Here are some free patterns. (Click on the titles under each design.)
Unusual trees. Maybe we could sketch these? (If you do, post them on your blog or social media and leave a link in the comments below.)
The Adoration of the Magi. I’ve always loved this painting. One year I sent out Met Christmas cards with a detail from this painting. I never realized it was painted by Hieronymus Bosch.
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Not for Homer Simpson; and not the ancient Greek Homer who gave us the banes of every high school student, the Iliad and the Odyssey.
The Fog Warning by Winslow Homer. Oil, 1885.
Today we’re talking about the foremost American artist of the nineteenth century, Winslow Homer (1836-1910), especially known for his sea paintings.
Long Branch, New Jersey by Winslow Homer. Oil, 1869. Oh, the light.
He grew up in Cambridge, Massachusetts, painting watercolors with his mother. At age 19, Homer began a two-year apprenticeship to a Boston lithographer, making sheet-music covers and other commercial prints. For the next twenty years, he worked as a freelance illustrator, creating engravings of social gatherings for popular magazines. Meanwhile, he studied at the National Academy of Design, and took lessons in oil painting from Frederic Rondel.
Breezing Up (A Fair Wind) by Winslow Homer. Oil, 1873-76.
Harper’s Weekly commissioned him to go to the front lines of the American Civil War, where he sketched scenes of camp life and battles, and also scenes of the women at home and how the war impacted their lives. Back home again, he painted a series of oil paintings based on his sketches.
The Bridle Path by Winslow Homer. Oil, 1868.
In 1867, he traveled to Paris for a year, where he painted scenes of peasant life. He ignored the Impressionist movement of the time, preferring to hone his own style. Upon his return to the States, his artistic subjects included farm life, children at play, and young adults courting. In 1875, he quit his illustration work, determined to earn his living with his paintings and watercolors.
The Reaper by Winslow Homer. Watercolor, 1878. I love how the daisies pop.
In the late 1870s, Homer moved to Gloucester and became something of a recluse. Living near the shore reignited his love of the sea, which he captured on canvas in all its variations of weather conditions, along with the fisherman who daily braved the waves.
The Gulf Stream, Winslow Homer. Oil, 1899.
Homer spent 1881-82 in Cullercoats, Northumberland, on the British coast. There he painted working men and women, and his style shifted and matured. His palette grew more somber; his scale grew larger.
In 1883, Homer moved to Prout’s Neck, Maine, where he lived in a remodeled carriage house just 75 feet from the Atlantic. There is where he painted his major seascapes. In 1884 and 1885, he wintered in places like Florida, Bermuda, and the Bahamas and painted Caribbean scenes in watercolor for Century Magazine.
Crab Fishing by Winslow Homer. Watercolor, 1883.
Homer painted through the 1890s. It’s clear that he took his own advice that he offered to other painters: “Look at nature, work independently, and solve your own problems.”
A Basket of Clams by Winslow Homer. Watercolor, 1873. Incredibly detailed.
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