Frightfully Fun Friday

"Spirits roam the neighborhoods at night,
Let loose upon the Earth till it be light."
~ Nicholas Gordon

"The Headless Horseman Rides Again" ~ 16" x 20" Watercolor

This image was just accepted into my iStock portfolio.

It's available for download here.

Experts say that everyone needs to have a little fun in their life, 

because without it, we become dull, boring and depressed. 

"People rarely succeed unless they have fun in what they are doing."

~ Dale Carnegie

"Where there is no imagination there is no horror."

~ Arthur Conan Doyle, Sr.

"Hold on, man. We don't go anywhere with

"scary," "spooky," "haunted," or "frightful" in the title."

~  From Scooby-Doo

Have a Fun Friday and a Great Weekend!

Eat, Drink and be Scary,

☻

More Hydrangea Paintings in Watercolor

Here is my second set of hydrangea paintings from my personal challenge on www.SketchingEveryday.com.

Hydrangea Painting #3

5.5 x 7.5" - transparent watercolor on Arches 140lb. C.P., matted to 8 x 10"

Painting #3 was done wet-in wet with minimal pencil guidelines. Here I totally wet both sides of the paper with clean water and used mostly a dry brush with plenty of pigment.

Hydrangea Painting #4 - Step-1

For painting #4, I wet the back of the paper throughly, then wet the background, carefully going around the flower and stem area. Wetting the back allows a longer workable half-wet period and allows the painting to dry flat without taping or stapling it to a board. You can see the nice edges of my painting in these two photos. I crease and tear my sheets to achieve this effect. This gives one the option of various mountings and mattings.

Hydrangea Painting #4 - Step-2

After step one was completely dry, I wet the back of the paper first then wet the leaves with clean water, carefully going up to the edges.

Hydrangea Painting #4

5.5 x 7.5" - transparent watercolor on Arches 140lb. C.P., matted to 8 x 10"

After step-2, and the paper was throughly dry, I dunked the whole sheet in water and let it get real wet. I took it out and placed it on cardboard so it would dry flat as I worked.

I'm thinking I want to go back on #4 and do some calligraphy and detailing like in the painting below. What do you think?

The Spirit of Summer

11 x 15" - transparent watercolor on Arches 140lb. C.P., matted to 16 x 20"

The comments on these challenge paintings have been most appreciated.

Thanks to those of you who took the time to comment or email. You are awesome!

As always, I'd love to hear your feedback.

Which one(s) do you like or dislike and why?

Thanks again for reading and have an inspired week!

Hydrangeas Four Ways

Last week, on www.SketchingEveryday.com, I posted two contour drawings I did of a couple of my favorite flowers, sunflowers and hydrangeas. For a personal challenge, I decided to do four watercolor paintings, from each drawing, in different techniques. Here are my first two hydrangea paintings.

Hydrangea Painting # 1

5.5 x 7.5" - transparent watercolor on Yupo paper, matted to 8 x 10"

Painting #1 is done on Yupo paper. I drew on the paper with black Prismacolor pencil first, then painted wet-into-wet on this nonabsorbent, slippery, synthetic surface.

Hydrangea Painting # 2

5.5 x 7.5" - transparent watercolor on Arches paper, matted to 8 x 10"

Painting #2 is done on 140 lb. Arches cold press watercolor paper. I drew on the paper with black Prismacolor pencil first, wet both sides throughly and then painted wet-into-wet on this very absorbent, slightly textured, natural cotton fiber surface.

More paintings to come!

The comments on the sunflower paintings were very helpful and appreciated.

Thanks to everyone who took the time to comment. You are awesome!

Before I do the next two paintings, I'd love to hear some feedback.

Which one(s) do you like or dislike and why?

Thanks for reading and have a great day!

See the hydrangea line drawing on SketchingEveryday.