Judith Freeman Clark, paintings

Sometimes when I review older watercolor sketches, I decide that they'd be improved by some "tweaking."   To help take my mind off an (unseasonable!) April 6 snowstorm, I pulled out of my stash of small paintings this one, of a clump of crocus. It had a somewhat flat, bland quality and I thought adding some deeper tones in the background might help, as well as adding more nuanced color to the blossoms. As a way to bring the latter forward, I dampened some areas on a few of the petals. Then, I dropped in Quinacridone Magenta, and a few spots of Opera pink and let the colors blend by themselves. After adding more color to the petals I deepened the contrast by using more Dioxazine Violet in the central portions of each blossom. After dampening parts of the lower right of the paper, I dropped in a mixture of Sepia and Burnt Umber. While these colors blended, I used a dry-brush technique with Undersea Green and Green Gold in the middle background to...

Step #1 Finishing "Mardi Gras Iris," which I’d shown in my previous post, meant identifying the colors I used when starting the painting several months ago. I'd neglected to keep color notes, so I had to do some paint swatches to be sure I'd get them right. I wanted to stay with mostly transparent, and staining or semi-staining colors.  Holbein's "Opera" -- an almost neon-bright pink that is fairly easy to identify -- was the main color I used in the center iris blossom. Pigments used in manufacturing Opera make it a 'fugitive' color (unstable, and not very permanent), so I wouldn't normally use it in focal-point areas of a painting. But in this painting, I was experimenting with a more vivid palette and wanted to determine how Opera interacts with other pigments. I do know other watercolor artists use this color to good advantage, especially in detail areas. Background runs and blooms After a little experimenting with color swatch...

I usually have a few paintings and sketches going simultaneously, partly to allow damp paintings to dry thoroughly, and partly because I am easily bored if I have only one painting in progress at a time...  Right now, I'm working on two very different paintings • A floral that I'm approaching with a question: "Can this painting be saved?" The tentative title is "Mardi Gras Iris." It measures 11" x 15." • The vertical work below, "Lochside Croft," 11" x 20" is actually the left-hand side of a large, square-format painting. Because it was not working out, I cut it in half. After I did, I sold the right-hand side! I'm hoping this one can be salvaged...  time will tell.

Cardinal, adult male Keeping our bird-feeder filled is a task -- even in summer when berries, seeds, etc., are readily available. The pay-off is that we have a wide variety of feathered visitors stopping by for a snack. Photographing birds is an exercise in patience, but I've been surprised at how many stay within range of my lens long enough for me to capture a few images. The male cardinal in the photo at right was a regular visitor a few summers ago, and although somewhat shy, seemed almost proud of remaining within focus for a few minutes. In my watercolor sketch, I took a few liberties with the setting -- adding some blue sky for contrast -- but tried to capture his leafy hide-away. "Male Cardinal" 6" x 6"  SOLD Goldfinch, adult male (right) with female Tufted Titmouse (left) Goldfinches are smaller and more skittish than cardinals. To capture them in a photo means waiting for just the right moment, with the camera aimed at the bird-feeder. ...