Frost Magic!

This morning we woke up to a magical world filled with frosty remnants of a freezing fog. I couldn't wait to grab my camera and catch the magic before the sun stole it away. The first photo is a distance shot of the hills behind us with the moon still showing in the sky. Be sure to zoom on all of these for full effect :) The second is a rare shot of the sun itself, just barely risen above the mountains across town, the fog made a perfect filter! The third and fourth photos are of a candlestick pine (sort of like a pinyon) at the back corner of our yard, it looked pure silver from the house. The fifth shot is of a now freezing (instead of burning) bush :D And the best is last...this is the hedge about six feet from our back door. For sure look at this one zoomed (click on photo)...it looks like brush strokes in an actual painting! Hope you enjoyed the view as much as we did!

Sue
http://www.1000markets.com/shops/ninedragons

Castle painting update - blocking in castle (excerpt from 1000 Markets blog)

Although I have lots to still work on in the front areas, I'm really, _really_ happy to be finally blocking in the main castle. At this point I'm keeping all details to an absolute minimum. As I go back there will be less and less detail, as it's easier to add more details later when I can judge how they fit into the whole as far as receding goes. The castle reference I'm using is pretty dark and dreary so I'm deciding my color palette as I go and keeping my values lighter. It is a lot harder to lighten things than to darken them, although anything can be changed once the paint is dry. I can also use some glazing techniques in the finish stages, if I keep it light, as each layer of glaze darkens the painting. As I go back I will start adding cooler blues and violets to the earth colors, as the eye sees warm colors as being closer. When I get to the final stages of the background I will actually bring some of the sky over the rooftops to fade them even further into the background. Another trick for achieving distance in a painting is to use tone gradation rather than hard lines for edges. For a painting to look realist a painter needs to mimic the human eye process. We see things clear and sharp when they are close but at a distance things start to melt into each other. There is also an atmospheric effect that comes into play. Some soft edges are still used in the foreground but this is an illusional trick to get your eye to 'slide' over some areas and focus on the sharper images the artist wants as focal areas. I cannot believe it is already the middle of the month and I really need to get some serious amounts of canvas covered in the next 2 weeks. Once I am done using the paintstiks (oil paint in a stick form) then I will move to the tube paints... they can take up to two weeks to dry this time of year, so I need to have as much worked out as possible so I only need to add glazes and highlights.

Sue
http://www.1000markets.com/shops/ninedragons

Lavender Cottage - Wearable Art Market Featured Artist

This week's Wearable Art Market featured artisan is Lavender Cottage . I always have a hard time choosing which pieces to feature, but this time it was quite easy, as the first feature piece is right at the top of my own wishlist :)

You see, I have a thing for dragonflies. No matter where I've lived, be it Alaska or Florida, there are always these quickly darting flashes of living iridescent color to engage my imagination. So when I saw this Enchanted Dragonfly ring, and Cheryl's suggestion that the size would be suitable for a thumb ring, well, it went right on my Amazon wish list (which I intend to show my husband come birthday time)! 

I recently did a necklace based on water movement, so this piece entitled Water's Edge Pendant was also a cinch. I love how the balls just seem to be floating in a tide pool, and the background setting for this photo is just perfect for this piece. 

These are just two of many wonderful designs on Cheryl's site , so be sure to take a peek and add to your wishlist!

Sue
http://www.1000markets.com/shops/ninedragons

heART supplies (excerpt from 1000 Markets blog)

I was talking with my friend, Lynn of BlueStone of Orcas Island today and she mentioned pulling out her heart supplies. She was speaking of actual hearts for Valentine themes for her jewelry, but I took it as calling her art supplies 'heart supplies' and it really got me thinking.  

I'm not one to get all mushy about Valentine's Day (hey, if I get a card it's a talking hot dog asking me to be theirs lol) but I do believe art is from and of the heart. I think every artisan gets a little heart jolt every time they sit down to go to work and see all their supplies laid out. It does not matter if the supplies are jewels, raw materials or tubes of paint...it's all something to get our hearts racing, for we are about to make a gift of love for someone else.

Thanks for that lovely thought, Lynn!  

I'd also like to thank Jacquie of JLynn Creations for the absolutely lovely feature she did on my shop. I adore beach glass and she's got a lovely selection in her 1000 Markets store, so be sure to drop in and check it out!

Sue
http://www.1000markets.com/shops/ninedragons

Castle painting update (excerpt from 1000 Markets blog)

This morning I shut my puter off and settled down to a 3 hour painting session. Keeping in mind that this is basically an underpainting, I'm really satisfied with today's progress. The roof for the coach house was mostly done yesterday but it seemed to be floating in all that white canvas, so first order of business was to get the correct values painted around it. 

One of the harder things to learn as a painter was how to get the correct values in color. Red, for example, seems bright but it really is a very dark color, especially if it is set next to a light color like yellow. For years I had a hard time with greens...there are a lot of green shades and they lean towards one of the primary colors, either red, blue or yellow. Put the wrong shade in the wrong place and it totally throws off the perspective.

When painting trees you don't really just lay a shape down, you break it into dark, mid and light tones and then go back with a highlight to pick out a few bright spots. If you look at trees in a painting up close, you are just going to see blobs of color with no rhyme or reason, it's not until you stand back that it all melds together. Brighter greens, with more yellows and oranges will come forward, cooler greens with more blue will recede. They get hazier in the distance also. 

The part that I've actually had the most fun with is the coach house roof. Except for the bridge house roof, all the roof tops are a slate gray color. Yet, there is no true gray whatsoever in this roof. A true gray is just a mixture of black and white. But gray can be any color that has been toned down to be a neutral color. You can tone down colors with a complementary color (green with red, violet with yellow, orange with blue) or you can add a slight touch of black to it.

The roof is mostly a grayed blue and mauve, with white added to one of those colors for highlights. It's fun to paint with colors for gray, it seems to be so much more alive than a dead flat gray. 

I'll be doing a lot more to the bridge house later, for now I have the values close enough to paint around it. It needs some detail work (and brick straightening lol) but if I try to do too much now it may be overly detailed and become the focal point instead of the figure on the bike.

I won't get back to this until Tuesday, but plan to carry the painting to the right now. Sorry for all the skewed perspective on this photo but I was trying to grab a picture before the light changed, a storm is heading in :)

Check out the beaded lily to see the series she has started; she asked several artists from The Wearable Art Market to put together something that featured our hands and today she started with mine :) Hope you enjoy it! 

Sue
http://www.1000markets.com/shops/ninedragons