Kelly - Paintings 73 - 76

...this painting started as a mild-mannered watercolor. It was minding its own business and was behaving itself too, but it was a little boring, so I took pen & ink to it (outlining and stippling)...and then rubbed charcoal over it! As if that wasn't enough, I then scanned the painting and ran the file through a quick PhotoShop filter to come up with this "tough bird." It was the first time I ever ran a painting through a filter, and I kind of like it. (Since then I've used filters on photos and a set of collaged paintings to create some neat looks. I didn't count them as part of the 100 paintings challenge because they contained some collaged photographs.)

...again, I started with a normal watercolor, but this time while the paint was wet, I sprinkled in salt to create the mottled background...then outlined and stippled with ink...added a course rub with charcoal...and topped it off by running it through a PhotoShop filter. (If you want to try putting charcoal over a painting, use a rough watercolor paper that has a lot of tooth and go lightly.)

...an oil pastel over a quick watercolor painting (this is my favorite--I always love grungy oil pastels with lots of pigment). No practice sketch with this one.

...the first in the series. It started as a 2-minute watercolor, then I just scribbled over the top of it with colored pencil. I was just using this practice painting to figure out the colors of the bird and the patterns in the wings.

Last year at this time I was only on painting 42, so I'm doing much better pacing myself this time around!