Watercolor Landscape #27 - Dora Sislian Themelis

Pushing through some resistance lately, but coming away with this latest watercolor landscape while I decide where to go next.

#27 Three Pink Daisies ©2012 Dora Sislian Themelis
18x24 Watercolor, Arches cold press paper

#12 Cups and Saucers -Cheri

Trying my loose painting not loose enough yet, still wanted to do details. Although the flower is the really loose.

Painting #54 Daisy Tuesday

I received these daisies on Mother's Day from the restaurant where we ate breakfast.  They are still fresh in my vase so I just had to paint them.

Love those daisies.


I want to get back to landscapes but those flowers just keep getting in the way. :)

Kelly - Painting #30 - Ladybird, and Painting #31 - Five-minute Sketches of a European Robin

Painting 30, Ladybird on a Daisy

Hmmm....this doesn't look like a bird to me, but I'm accounting it as one! In England, Ladybugs are called "Ladybirds," ....sooo semantically....she sort of counts as one of my 100 bird paintings!

Painting 31, Sketches of a European Robin

These are very quick sketches. The first robin took three minutes, 20 seconds (I've put the times next to the sketch). This was an assignment from Laure Ferlita's Imaginary Trip to England. No pencils...no lines...just water brushes. Again I'm surprised at how quickly I could obtain a likeness (seems like a lot more time compared to the 20-second Eastern Kingbird!). We were allowed to spend up to five minutes per sketch, but 3 minutes, 45 seconds was the most time I put into a bird. I used the entire five minutes for the nest, which was really fun to paint!

Painting #25 Daisy Bee

I have painted this daisy before but the background was blue and there was no bee.  This time i wanted to try a different background, add the bee and have a line of light with a disappearing petal.

The background color was yellow ochre and yellow using wet-in-wet and while it didn't pop the daisy I like the softer look.  It isn't quite what I had in mind but it works.

Putting a bee on a flower head is always fun.

Here I am one-quarter of the way to 100 and I have really stepped out of my comfort zone, tried new things and have really taken the time to really 'look' at what I am doing.  I am doing more thumbnails also and find that very helpful.

Painting #20 - Daisy In Gouache

As in my usual MO, I started painting this daisy in watercolor on hot press paper and discovered I do not like hot press paper at all.  Watercolor just doesn't blend the way I want it to.  (The more I learn the fussier I am getting. lol)

Then I decided to try it with gouache on black paper.  I have discovered Larry Seiler who does a lot of painting in watercolor and gouache.  He recently used gouache  on black paper so after the hot press disaster I decided to try gouache on black paper also.

I keep trying new things and this exercise was great for illustrating tones and is really helping me achieve that with watercolor.