A rose is a rose #2

This is my second drawing of the rose using latex house paint and a little acrylic paint. I was really unhappy with it initially and began to add more and more layers and eventually using a rubber stamp with house paint to add some texture and additional interest. It is done on 22" x 30" watercolor paper.

I love working with the house paint and have found that brands other than Benjamin Moore work very well. B Moore paints have raised their prices to be very, very expensive compared to other paints. I was lucky to find at my local hardware store some little sample bottles. I have no idea what they were for originally and I had the feeling the store's staff thought it a little weird that I was going to paint pictures with it. I recommend giving it a try with some left-over paint.

A rose is a rose is a rose

Well, I'm going to feel really stupid if this blog shows up twice. I posted but then it didn't show up so I will try again. My painting was created in a workshop taught by Doug Walton, a wonderful teacher. It was done on wet 140# watercolor paper with latex house paint, yeah, really! HOUSE PAINT! and it was done with my fingers, yep, I said FINGERS! It was so much fun and I love the really soft edges that happened.

We worked a lot on composition on index paper before transferring to w/c paper and it paid off. We had critique twice a day during the 3 days and it was so helpful. I loved working this way and will definitely do some more of this. Now to start gathering the paint....he had 80 colors for us to choose from....only takes a little bit. The latex seems to offer an wonderful glow that doesn't seem to happen with watercolors.

Working again in water color and trying some blue underpainting. We have had a model for a session which was great. This was fun to do. I may go back over it with burnt sienna to see what may happen to the lights.

Retablo

Each year Lawndale Center for the Arts in Houston has a fund-raising auction on the Day of the Dead. Artists are given 8" x 10" pieces of tin to create retablos which are donated for the auction. The only rules are that the retablo must include the tin in some way and the wilder the better. This is my retablo for the auction titled "St. George of Immaculate Deception." I used a plastic toy figure of a man that originally was to teach anatomy I suppose. I removed the brain from the head and the organs in the chest cavity and replaced them with dollar bills and streamers saying "Oil money". The paper streamers at the bottom say "WMD". I realize this may offend some but I offer no apologies. It will be interesting to see what happens at the auction.