Chimp Sketch of the week #37

Venus

Another Sketch in anticipation of my show with the chimps this May

Chimp Sketch of the Week #34

Anna

Painted in watercolor another sketch for my Show in May in Florida more on that soon

Good Bye To Our Beloved Boardwalk

The news of the Boardwalk in Long Beach being demolished has gotten me very sentimental. Long Beach is a great strong community. They type of home that is always home no matter how far away you might move away from it. Growing up in Long Beach we all have our memories and stories of our beloved boardwalk. I thought I would share some painting I have done of long beach over the years, some horrible some good all painted/sketched with love. The top painting was one I did in grad school when asked to paint something personal. I saw this as a portrait of our wonderful town. Ironically I gave this painting to my sister as a house-warming present the day before Sandy hit.

Temple Israel

http://www.nytimes.com/2013/01/07/nyregion/long-beach-new-york-says-goodbye-to-its-boardwalk.html?_r=0

How I spent my summer

I spent the summer doing Plein Air watercolor studies. As mentioned in a previous post I reloaded my Cottman travel set set to suit my needs and with a moleskin watercolor notebook and water brush I am able to do these studies as conveniently as drawing with a pencil.

I fell in love with the Plein Air Painting ideals this summer and this is something I plan on taking further breaking away from the comfort of the sketchbook and taking to an easel and extended palette and travel to paint in open air. Of course here in NY we are headed into our cold season so this might have to wait until spring.

Below is a sample of some of my favorite studies from the summer.

Cotman Watercolor Reload

So I spent the summer doing watercolors but I needed a quick and easy way to do it.

love my Cotman watercolor travel set, I bought it while studying in Florence, Italy back in the summer of 2000 but as I matured as an artist, not all of the colors in the pallet worked for me anymore. I wanted to use a limited pallet that was more versatile. After much internet research I found a few articles on how to make my own watercolor set out of Altoid containers and pill boxes, but at the end of the day I just could not get rid of my $12 Cotman watercolor set so I decided to reload it.

I removed all of the half pans from the box and ordered empty half pans on-line. I also ordered 8ml tubes of Winsor & Newton watercolor paint. I wrote the name of the color on the side of the half pan for organizational purposes and for easy reloading of the colors.  

 I filled each empty half pan with one-third of a tube using a slightly altered limited but extremely versatile pallet that was introduced to me in graduate school by my professor and great illustrator William Low.

Warm primary’s: Cadmium Red Light, Cobalt Blue, Cadmium Yellow

Cool primary’s: Quinacridone Red, Phthalo Blue, Cadmium Lemon        

Additional paint: Cobalt Violet, Viridian, Burnt Sienna, Yellow Ochre, Payne's Gray and White Gouache. As you can see I simply kept the Burnt Sienna and Yellow Ochre from the original set

I let the paint sit in the half-pans for 48 hours until dry and then placed them into the travel set.

Now using a basic binder clip I can attach the travel set to my Moleskin watercolor sketchbook and with a water brush (synthetic brush with water in the handle) I can now do Plain Air watercolor studies as easily as sketching with a pencil. 

I will post some of my water color studies in the next few weeks. 

Chimp Sketch of the week #10

an old watercolor in my sketchbook