Wind Nymph And The Life Preserver, Watercolor

Wind Nymph and the Life Preserver is a watercolor fantasy I painted last week, (12/20-12/25). It is of a Nymph, a mythical creature. It is completely different from anything else I do.

Wind Nymph and the Life Preserver, 11x15 Watercolor by Adron. 

I composed it to create interest and questions by the viewer.
     * Who is she?
     * Is it an illustration from a little known ancient myth?
     * Is it about death?
     * Is the life preserver from someone who perished or was it all that is left of a doomed ship?
     * Is it a shroud she is holding, is it to cover the dead?
     * Is she looking away from the life preserver in remorse, willful denial, or sorrow?
     * Why the dark sky?
I hope this picture engages the imagination of the audience.

I did this watercolor over a few days. The norm is to do large areas of wash laying down broad sweeps of lighter colors and building up details in darker colors. I only halfway followed the standard practice. I used a nervous dabbing brush stroke over and over to build up the sky, sometimes allowing the color to blend together and sometimes letting it dry before adding the next hue. I do not believe in using black paint but this time I made an exception and dabbed it in for drama in the sky immediately overhead; hopefully it gives closeness to the near sky and a sense of distance far away by the horizon.

The sea was dabbed in short horizontal strokes allowing layers to dry before adding a deeper hue. I had problems with the sea being two dimensional so I used clear water at the horizon and a paper towel to lift out some of the hue. The foam was added with acrylic to make it opaque.

I might have done more with the nymph but I wanted her lines clean and the uncluttered areas to be a contrast to the style of the other areas of my painting. I was afraid that I was overworking the project so I left her a little underdone.

I hope you enjoy my painting. Email me if you are interested in it.
Thank You

Adron

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I hope you enjoy my art. 
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Adron


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(c) Adron

Wind Nymph In Charcoal

This is a charcoal study I did to work out the composition and design of a watercolor project. I am contemplating.  In my resource material the pose was so simple yet dramatic, I could not resist doing a sketch of it. I changed the hair and clothing. I liked the lights and the darks caused by the light from the right. I toned down the paper a half shade to bring out the light against the front of the figure. The area behind the figure is so much dead space I felt it needed something so I added the smudging of the wind.

Wind Nymph Study in Charcoal.

Someone looking at it may say I did a bad job on the face, and they would be right, but this is just a study that I hope will lead to a bigger more satisfying project. This has no commercial value, it is just for my own amusement.

(c) Adron

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I hope you enjoy my art. 
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Adron


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Hand Made Print of Daisies Black

This is a handmade print of daisies I did with block print methods.

Hand-made Print, Daisies. limited edition of 18

The design started out as part of an art lesson I was teaching to kids where we were discussing negative space. The white areas create the composition. My study I did for the lesson looked like it would work well as a print. The idea fermented in my mind for a while and so I gave it a try. I think it turned out very well.

I used a foam material instead of the traditional wood or lino block. I am poor and have to make do with what I can find. I drew the image with charcoal on the foam block and then went over it in felt tip marker. I cut out the large white areas with a razor knife and added texture by putting pressure onto the foam with a pencil.

I use water based ink and was not happy with the way it beaded up on the foam. Most of the prints had to be gone over twice to get a satisfactory result; even still some have hazy areas. In retrospect, I think it would have looked nice with a blue or green background, but I didn't want to get into all the mess of registration and matching little marks up.

You can purchase one at my society6 site.

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Thank you for visiting my blog. 
I hope you enjoy my art. 
If you want to see more just choose from the labels or the favorites in the sidebar. 
Adron



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(c) Adron Dozat

The Lark, Handmade Print In Negative Line

The Lark 

limited edition print of 10

The Lark, Limited edition print of 10 

This is a handmade print in negative line. Negative line is the white of the paper showing through the black of the surrounding medium, it is a variation of negative space. 

I did several studies of the bird before I began the print. I am learning to take my time and work out the design with greater care. 

I etched the image in a sheet of foam then rolled the brayer over it with black ink. Foam is easy and cheap to work with but it is also fragile and many times one has an unwanted mark or a crease in the foam-plate. The foam was textured; I didn't realize this at the first and was frustrated with the results. The foam kept rejecting the ink, this made each image to be cloudy some more than others, I found it necessary to roll back the paper and check the image then roll more ink on to darken the picture. It turned out that they are each unique though true to the medium of ink block print. If I was not committed to black I would have done several colors in layers to maximize the effect. 

I printed about 16 of these but rejected 6, I am getting better I used to reject half of the prints. The illustration above is number 10 of the edition. 

The size is about 5x7. This is printed on acid free paper. The paper is eggshell white but the lighting in my work area is not ideal for photography. I will sell these unframed but mounted on foam core for $15.00 framed will be $40.00.

How I Edited to Make a Nice Painting

When I looked at my resource material I was not impressed and almost decided not to paint this picture, but I did a lot of editing and made a nice watercolor landscape.

Rural Landscape with Floral Foreground

My resource materials did not have the flowers or the fencepost in the foreground I added them to give more interest. There were hills in the background but I added the distant mountain. There were many buildings in the resource material that I edited out, I moved the two I chose to give the picture a point of interest. I built up the road from what I had to work with so it would lead the eye into the picture in a pleasing way. I was concerned that the colors were all too cool. I struggled to warm it up a bit by adding warmer colors to the values. The trick with adding warm colors is that I didn't want to mute the red of the barn.

It is on a sheet of 9x11, 140 lb cold press watercolor paper.

I am very happy with the results of this painting and hope you enjoy looking at it.

____________________________

Thank you for visiting my blog. 
I hope you enjoy my art. 
If you want to see more just choose from the labels or the favorites in the sidebar. 
Adron 

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(c) Adron