Waterfalls ll

3 inches by 6 inches watercolor and gesso on Illustration Board. 30.00


Happy New Year!

updated... Koi slide show

I updated my slide show and added some of my more recent Koi paintings... If you have a minute go to the bottom of this page and answer my survey question about impressionistic Koi or realistic Koi... which do you prefer?..

Friends

Its raining here and when I woke up I could hear it hitting my skylight in my little studio. I couldn’t wait to brew up some gourmet coffee and get right to painting something. I’lll work on my large Koi painting today and try to get it finished. If you haven’t seen it, its on my work in progress weekly painting blog. http://h20color.wordpress.com Its last week's painting.
This painting is a gift and will not be for sale.

Baby Koi, a painting a day

Koi on wood block
Painted one inch sides no need to frame or use glass.
I have to check my records but I think this might be #115 in the Koi series.

Since this Koi was a little on the thin side, I thought he looked like a young Koi just jutting out from his protective older cousin who he usually glides under and around. If you watch Koi you'll always see the little ones saddling up besides the bigger koi for protection.

The farm in the hollow, a painting a day

$100.00 + $6.5 priority mail

The size of this painting is 11 by 15 inches, a watercolor on 100% cotton rag paper.

Of course if you would like a more professional look you could always frame it in a 16 by 20 inch standard size frame with a mat. I sell this size painting framed for $300.00 So you see a little do- it- your- self can save you lots of money.

I’ve never lived in snow country and lots of folks tell me they like the way the cool snow paintings done in blues and greens look, I however have always tried to make my snow paintings a little warmer. Usually I put yellow or orange in the sky and it just seems to make the white of the paper (snow) glow a bit more by contrast.

Winter's Surprise

This winter has been a bit confusing for all of our plants and trees, some keep trying to bloom because it has been so warm. This week is a perfect example it will be very cold, say 42 to 54 degrees for a day or two, then it will be 60-70 degrees. The poor plants keep putting out flowers thinking springs here. Our magnolia tree puts out a few flowers and it almost seemed sad because I knew those flowers would die in a day or so. I thought it would be good to paint one of the Magnolia flowers, even though it was starting to turn brown.

This is a watercolor on paper,11 by 15 framed in a gold metal frame, 16 by 20. inches $100.00 plus $ 6.5 s & H

How to flatten out a warped watercolor painting.

I painted this small postcard size painting for Peace day awhile back but never posted it. It seems appropriate now.

Go to my other blog http://shantimarie.wordpress.com if you want to see my paper press.

Little Ones

$30.00


Three inches by five inches on clayboard. Fixative has been used, no need to frame under glass.

The loner

6 by 6 Acrylic 30.0

This is an acrylic painting on Illustration board, I painted it several days ago but because I have so many paintings held back, I decided not to paint today and place this one up as today’s painting. Its always a bit bitter sweet for me on Christmas eve and I can be a bit melancholy as my mother passed away on Christmas Eve 1989. So here is a small painting of a tree standing tall and alone allowing the setting sun to shine on its leaves as it catches its last rays of warmth.

Perserverance

I call this persevaerance because I can just imagine three fish swimming upstream trying to fight the churning waters...

"Turkois" a koi painting

6′ by 6′ watercolor on gessoed wood panel, with a very light coat of varnish.
SOLD
The great thing about this piece is that is has painted sides.. so… it looks like galley wrap. I love the color turquoise and when I told my husband I was painting a koi in turquoise colored water he said “call it turk kois ” so another play on words but its better then Koi #110. Which by the way is its number in the Koi series.
LESSON

OK.. so here is how you do this. You buy wood cut into 6 by 6 then you gesso the wood with either acrylic gesso or watercolor gesso, both work well.
Put on at least two coats using a sponge roller, a sponge brush or a bristle brush, allowing the gesso to dry between coats. Sand it down a bit if it’s too rough for your liking. I actually try to give it a bit of texture by criss crossing the brush and dancing the brush across the wood . I feel it gives more movement to the water.

Once it’s dry you can paint with acrylic or watercolor. If using watercolor you have to have the paint as thick as creme but not tacky, other wise it will not appear wet. Once dry spray with fixative for watercolor or spray varnish for acrylics. If using varnish for watercolor, brush on with as few strokes as possible as the watercolor will tend to lift with too much back and forth movement of a brush. You can thin the varnish and pour it on, tiping and tilting the painting to get the varnish to coat the painting, then finish up with light brushing.

Golden boy Koi

6 by 6 wood panel painted in watercolor with fixative to aid in the protection. No need to frame. SOLD

I just received some silver and gold watercolor paint as a present and had to try them.. Usually I don't purchase iridescence colors or Pearl colors because its difficult enough to learn all the behaviors of paint... then add in the shiney element and it can get tricky. The gold doesn't actually show up in the photo and here it appears as a mid tone. It's nice but I have to figure out a way to incorporate it into the other colors,

Underwater fun

No sooner was the paint dry on this little ACEO & it was sent off to Colorado to be included as a gift to one of my new collectors

A less traveled road

This is 4 by 6 pastel painting of a road somewhere in the south. The little shack had some rolls of hay stored inside.

I hope you were able to go to my other blog http://shantimarie.wordpress.com and take my studio tour.... if not you can also go to you tube and type in "shantiartist" and see a soundless video which is another version of my tour of my work area.

A studio tour and an ACEO

This was my painting for today. 2.5 by 3.5

I had planned to post pictures of my painting area today but as I was running behind (its 11:56 P M now) I will give you the link to my other blog and you can check it out.

Thanks for stopping by!


http:shantimarie.wordpress.com

Blue Heron of the South

I hate to throw out paintings and after showing someone how to paint this type of background I decided to try to save this painting and painted in the bird and the foreground. Its not the best composition but… it will do. Unfortunately my last painting, a koi…was a bit wet wjen I placed it on the scanner, so those orange spots on this painting are not actually on the painting but on the scanner screen.
Quick lesson…
Here’s how you do this background, you choose a couple of warm colors and a couple of cool colors like blue, purple and burn’t sienna, & sepia then you paint the background in various mid values in a vertical stroke, creating a horizon line, when the paper has lost its shine, pull out some trees and limbs with a pin knife or palette knife.
Last, you will darken some areas, and when all is dry glaze over ( yellow) certain pulled out areas to create lighter and brighter areas that will also create interest and posssibly a secondary focal point.

Upstream Koi

SOLD
I love the way the yellow koi look with the blue water!

Four inches by nine inches.

I spend the afternoon packing up paintings and getting them ready to mail out. I will be makinging a video of my studio so you can see my little painting area. Its compact, but I'm able to do everything I need. prep work, paint, mat, frame, pack and of course store.


Tomorrow I have to take Art my husband to get another Cat scan. He still has a drainage bag connected to his side and it continues to drain blood. I guess the surgeon wants to see why before he takes it out. Its hard to believe its been six months since his accident.

KOI 105

SOLD


This Koi was painted on Gessoed canvas panel in acrylic. It is 6 by 6 and is for sale for $50.00 Since it’s varnished no need to frame under glass.

Koi Ritual

SOLD


7 inches by 11 inches mixed media on paper with a Matt varnish. 50.00

I could not think of anything to paint today and I was pretty busy taking Art to the hospital for his weekly appointment and then taking him to two different cities( in different directions) to get his prescriptions and other medical stuff so I didn’t get home till 2pm. I also had to mail off my paintings which were sold this week and I usually have the mail girl stop by the house and get the packages ( I buy postage thru pay pal or USPS.com) but she came too early and I had to stand in line at the post office. I barely made it at 4:45 and they close at five o clock. The guy says to everyone in line if they aren’t stamped by five o’clock they will have to come back… Everyone and their mother was there and I wanted to say… People, why are you still doing this…you can buy postage on line.

Watchful Koi

4 by 6 $40.00 watercolor on watercolor paper, mounted on illustration board .
mat finish

When you watch koi you will frequently see that they are lurking under water liilies or other water plants. Ocassionally looking up to see whats going on outside their watery world. Koi are like people in that they have personalities… some are shy and some are real hams. This little guy is a bit shy and watchful, thus the name for this painting.

"Koi Harem" ACEO on masonite

2.5 by 3.5 watercolor on masonite with a light coat of fixative.

Snow days revisited

SOLD

6 inches by 9 inches


Above are two paintings..well actually they are the same painting. I painted the mostly blue painting then felt it was too cool so I repainted the painting adding warmer colors. You decide which one you like best.

Sunset Road

This is a 6″ by 6″ watercolor on gessoed wood panel. $40.00 plus 5.5 for shipping.
to paint watercolors on wood:First you paint about three coasts of gesso onto the wood, allow it dry then you paint it with acrylic oils or watercolor. If you use watercolor you cannot use too much water as there isn’t as much absorbancey in the gesso as there is in paper. Finally you varnish it with watercolor fixative or acrylic varnish. It can be hung without glass.
This palette is one I was experimenting with, its a split complimentary more or less.

A long Winter

Size:6 by 5.5 inches Price is $40.00 plus s&h

This is a watercolor-painting on 300 lb 100%, handmade rag paper. I painted using a few colors I don’t usually use in a winter snow scene. The cerulean blue is one I usually save for summer paintings or ocean paintings. But I like to try different combinations. I also mixed the blue with a bit of red to make the lavenderish roof and background.

I had a friend request this painting. Actually she requested something she won’t like…. so here it is, a landscape without people or animals.

Wet and Wild

This is the special of the week.

$25.00 plus 5.5 for shipping. SOLD

I think my scanner is dirty so I’ll take it apart and clean the glass, its because I put these paintings up right after I finish them & sometimes the paint is still a bit wet.

This is watercolor and gesso on clayboard. It’s varnished and can be hung without glass.

"Koi Circle" a watercolor on wood panel painting

40.0- plus $5.5 shipping
This little koi is painted on wood its also has a fixative (satin) covering the surface to give it some water resistance and may be hung without a frame. The sides are painted as well as the front and is 3/4 of an inch thick. It almost looks like a small gallery wrapped painting. This painting can be turned upside down or on its side as it’s basically a circle. I’ll let the viewer decide which way they like the little fish to be swimming.

This will be the first in a series of painting on these Wood panels and I’lll be painting them and exploring ways to utilize this size and shape as well as this new surface. I purchased 10 panels so you will be seeing this format in the next several weeks.

If you would like to know how this watercolor was created on wood here are the basic steps.
1. Paint 3 coats of gesso on to the wood panel allowing each coat to dry between applications. I did not sand the wood between coats because I like the texture. You may sand it down or rather than using a brush you may use a roller if you prefer a very flat surface. But…you may have to use more coats if you apply it thinly. A roller application is usually thinner
2. Using water color (thickly) or if you wish, acrylic paint… just paint the painting the way you usually would any watercolor. I don’t draw my koi first but usually go fishing for them. I paint the background and pull out the fish from the background. Drawing would work very well if you want to draw your fish on the surface. Gesso will take graphite and many other drawing mediums. The beauty of this surface is you can pull the color back out to the bright white of the gessoed surface, its very forgiving. You can also paint gesso over the painting if you feel its a disaster and start over. How great is that?
After the painting is complete, allow to dry and spray a watercolor fixative over the entire area and then allow to dry again.

Buy Prints of my work at discounted prices!

I have been selling most of my Koi and if you look thru the archives and find one you like this web site will make of print of my art at a reasonable price. The’ll even mat it and frame it for you. I ordered one myself before allowing them to used my copyrighted material and the images are pretty good. I took one small 5 by 7 print to my open studio this week all of the artist there agreed the quality was very good, and two artists thought they were originals. They send me a small fee for each painting. I feel pretty good about this arrangement since I don’t have to purchase a large volumn of prints I may never sell. If you go to their website and the painting you want is not there you just write me and I’ll sent the image to them. Since I have hundreds of images, I had to pick about thirty for the gallery.


Buy my art at Imagekind!

Angels are among us #54

SOLD


Mixed media on paper this is one in a series ( Angels are among us) of paintings including Angels. 8.5 by 11 it started our as an abstract but my brother pointed out there was an image in the upper left hand corner... so I figured it could not be denied.

"Nosey" 103 in the Koi series

SOLD

Luna light

This little aceo is $12.00 plus $1.50 shipping and handling. I painted it last night after getting back from the hospital. 2.5 by 3.5 I think it looks like the ocean when the full moon is making the waves glow… I’ve seen this many times and its beautiful.

Art had a chest tube planted into his lever to drain off the fluid which was not dissipating as anticipated. They drained off more than two liters and it will hopefully come out on Friday.

Today we spent the whole day at the Hospital and poor Art (my husband) underwent a procedure to have a filter removed from his aorta artery but it would not come out so they will leave it in there for the rest of his life. He had to endure a procedure really for nothing. Now he has a hole in his neck where they went in for the procedure and its swollen and red. Poor guy, he is rather despondent over the whole day’s events.

k 9 starry night

5 by 7 30.00 this is actually a little less bright than the photo came out.
SOLD

I have posted early today becaue I have to take Art my husband to the hospital to have some fluid drained from his Liver. Cross your fingers...

Fantasy Blue Heron

SOLD
11 by 15 $100.0 plus 5.5 s & h watercolor on paper (matted)This is not a daily painting but one I started awhile back. I knew I wanted to put a bird into the scene but wasn’t sure what should go into the water.

I’m really influenced by conversations with other people. Like most artists I’ll let things creep into my subconscious they will sit there for awhile but finally I find the images must come out. When I was packing up my paintings for the mail tomorrow, I saw this painting which I had set aside. Sometimes this happens because I’ll start a painting and I just have the right or complete idea to make the painting successful. Then just when I have an idea brewing I’ll pull out one of these “starts” and the image will fit!
Sometimes you just need the right thing to spur on your creativity. Thank you Barbara! I have a good friend, Barbara and she was talking about blue herons and how her bedroom has blue Herons as a theme, I starting seeing Blue Herons everywhere, of course….I do live near a lake. Anyway, this made me want to paint a blue Heron for her as a gift, I painted Lake Wylie blue Heron and sent it to her last week… but for some-reason, that wasn’t enough…I didn’t want this one to be as realistic. I wanted it to be more fantasy. Not knowing what I was to paint tonight… I was looking thru some reference material of Blue herons and came across a pretty good looking bird that I thought I could exaggerate and it would fit right into this fantasy forest painting. I had painted this painting some time back and never put in the bird or whatever, I wasn’t even sure I would put in a bird. I do love the light and the colors on these types of paintings. They aren’t for everyone but the use of exaggerated color is something that I like a lot. My daughter Amy also likes these fantasy paintings too. What do you think?

Bird Watching

When I painted this sunset background I had no idea what the foreground would be. I was thinking of making a silhouette of trees because so often as I drive home I look thru the tall trees at the colors in the sky and I love the way the trees look especially the pines with their pointy shapes and needles. But I also love the hardwoods because they glow with the color of the sun and are usually much warmer. For some reason after I painted this one tree…something said… well now the dogs… so here are the dogs watching the birds at the end of the day.
This whimsical piece is still very beautiful with wonderful golds and lavenders... one of my favorite color combinations.

Angels are among us

This watercolor on gessoed mat board is 5 inches by 5 inches and is for sale for 45.00 plus shipping. $3.5

I did a series a while back using Angels and every now and then I will paint one. This was supposed to be an abstract but the angel kept creeping into thepainting so I had to leave it.

"Koi hide and seek" an ACEO

$13.00 + 1.5 watercolor on paper 2.5 by 3.5

Today was one of those days…. I was so very busy and as luck would have it I also needed to get paintings packaged for shipment. This is a good thing but it’s time consuming, and the record keeping can be tedious. Being an artist is a business too and you have to have records for all your pieces …like where they’re stored or their location in galleries, flat files or in customer’s homes. You have to update these records and sometimes I have to go into town to pick up paintings that sold on the Internet that may be in a gallery. This can be sticky but I usually just substitute one painting for another.
In a perfect world I try to have one day a week to do prep work and organize things but lately, things have been hectic and I’ve let my organization slip a bit.

This little ACEO is one of the paintings I did a couple of days ago when I painted my Koi six pack.

Of course I painted today but I worked on a larger painting and will continue to work on it this week for an upcoming show. All artists have days where they have to do organizational chores or prep work. My studio was in a shambles, piles of mats sitting on top of art books, next to packing materials and a mountains of paintings waiting to be stored. On top of all this my cat was sleeping right in the middle of it all. Leave it to a cat to find a little hidey hole to sleep in in a huge mess.

My husband say I need an intern, like on Seinfeld when Kramer had that intern do his laundry and make appointments for his BS company Kramerica. Wouldn’t it be great if you could just do the art and someone else could do the prep work, and the packaging, and of course clean up the mess afterwards.

A hawk... South Carolina fall

A cooper's Hawk I think... Have I ever mentioned that birds are everywhere I go.. no really...It seems I'm always looking up and there is a big Hawk or A buzzard or crow... But its Ok I like it and today I had my camera.

Sunset Carolina

It was actually nice not to paint a Koi...I painted this landscape


7 by 11 1/8 sheet of watercolor

Koi ACEOs

I woke up at 4 am this morning to finish most of these. Some are painted on Watercolor paper some are on Masonite with Gesso…which tends to make them look like an oil painting or possibly an acrylic. All are standard ACEO size 2.5 by 3.5 I painted them this way ( all at once) so I could have some sort of continuity. Although I have to admit this is very difficult for me and I rather not try to paint them too much alike and allow each little painting to dictate what comes next. I ‘ve had several requests to have them look similar so they can be used in groupings, So…this is my determination: to try to get some painted in the same colors or color family so they coordinate with each other. We’ll see how I do, I hate to say it, but, I have difficulty in following instructions when it comes to my paintings. I’m too used to painting intuitively and can’t seem to remember to follow a plan too well.

The ACEOs on Masonite are a bit more expensive but they can be framed like an Oil

Koi Secrets

$50.00 8 by 6 watercolor on gessoed paper.

It started to rain here this aftrnoon and I'll have to wear my rubber boots to take the dogs to the woods. It can be muddy at times down by the lake but very nice even in winter.

my system

I thought I would show you how I line up the little ACEOs when painting in a color palette. This way I can be sure they actually will match. I get folks who want to frame them together or in groupings and want the small paintings to work as a cordinated piece. So I lay out all the cards on my painting table... usually six ACEO cards sometimes four. I paint them all at once. But since my style is to allow the paint to dictate to me what happens next I can get off track and the six paintings won't have the same colors. I actually have to remind myself not to change the color until I've used it on all the pieces. Its difficult to go back and to try to mix the exact color again once I've altered it. I think most of these sold on ebay last week.

What is Art ?

This cat is so cute I just had to paint him I think he is saying... Hey! What's for Dinner? 15 by 22 watercolor on paper.. don't you just love Andrew's turquoise? I put it on my palette two years ago and can't stop using it!




http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pDo_vs3Aip4


this utube video is so funny it made me laugh out loud. I've had all of these converstions at one time or another and the voices are perfect!

High croma Leaves...

I started this painting on some Old paper I had in my flat files and immediately noticed it didn’t seem to have any sizing, this magnified the way the colors appeared and also caused the color to sink straight into the paper, at first I thought I would just throw it out but then I figured …paint it and see if I discover something new. One never knows how some inventions or new methods are found. But I’m sure its sometimes an accident. Who knows… maybe I ‘m onto something. For better or worse, I finished the piece and it doesn’t look like anything I have ever painted but its interesting. Very Bright, yet soft some how…

DOGs DOGS DOGS

My friend and I planned a trip to see the dogs at our local rescue and take them some gifts, you know…blankets, tarps, bleach, medicines & all kinds of dog treats. We wanted to thank the folks there for taking care of so many wonderful pets.

Last year my friend’s dog was hit by a car and we were both pretty shook up about it. ( I think I wrote about it… check the archives for the story about Dixie ) A few weeks after the accident, she decided to rescue a dog and we went to our local dog rescue. These are some of the photos I took today.




These Cows are obviously not part of the dog rescue… On the drive out we saw these cows. They were just chewing their cud and I had to take a photo of them. This farm is just down the road from the dogie orphanage.






There were so many dogs, but I just posted a few of the photos of some of the REAL characters.

This white dog had a litter mate who was her twin but the sister was very shy. Just like real twins one introvert one extrovert. both were really sweet dogs. We brought them Cheweeze. They threw them in the air and played with them, I guess their not that hungry.






This little girl was really nice and very quiet but not shy in the least. A real lap dog I would assume.
















I think he was asking for a file for Christmas what do you think?


































I can’t remember this dog’s name but he was trying to get my attention the whole time I was talking with Buster.
























Buster was a super dog but he must have a few bad habits. I looked at his tags and he had seven which means he has moved a lot… He can’t be more than three or four years old. He was someones dog for at least three years but then he was put up for adoption, the tags were from five different cities so they either moved around a lot or he was placed several times or more….For some reason he’s now in this dogie orphanage. I hope next year when I go to visit, he won’t be here…& he will find a forever home..






















Last year…there were two beautiful rottweilers that I fell in love with, Big dogs but very quiet and kind…the caretaker said they were just adopted last month. To think they had to wait almost a year. Well I hope their happy.

Lake Wylie Blue Heron

I put this up today for my daily post... it's a painting from my painting a week blog http:h20color.wordpress.com

Thanksgiving day Walk

This morning we woke up at sunrise to a gentle rain. The leaves were blowing down from the trees and made a wonderful sight.

Here are three pictures of our morning walk. Its still very warm in SC… about 60 degrees F and no need to wear a sweater. The dogs and I walked for several miles in the woods and wore ourselves out! It was a great way to start the day. Missy is the black lab and Glock is the blond lab. The little weinerbeagle is Molly.