A Commission for Arty Cakes!

I was contacted last week about doing a watercolor commission for a lady in England who has her own business called Arty Cakes.

When I do a commission, I work from a photo generally. In this case, she didn't have one with the cake she wanted in the painting, If you can't tell from the drawing, it is a hat with flowers on it. I had to use photoshop elements to create the image to paint from by combining different images she had emailed me.

She makes beautiful cakes, many that are florals. She is really an artist herself with butter cream frosting!

I had to enhance the drawing so all the pencil lines show clearly, but it also makes the background a bit grayed because of doing that. It really isn't gray at all. In my process of doing a commission, I then send the drawing for the client's approval. I also ask for any suggestions if they have any. I find that helps in producing a final painting that the client will be satisfied with.

Once approved, I then paint it. I will post progress of this painting in the next day or so.

Watercolor Studies Continues; The Midnight Bunny

Today I completed another study, this time of a bunny. As I am doing these studies, I am trying out different kinds of paper, graphite pencils and color palettes. The bunny today was painted on 90 lb. Arches Cold Press. It is too thin for my liking, but wasn't too bad to paint on. Because of it's light weight, it absorbs the water like a sponge all the way through. That can result in a unflat painting when you are finished painting. Last night I put weights on the 'Vintage Lady' Painitng which I mentioned in my previous post. It was painted on this same arches 90 lb. paper. I sprayed the back of the painting with water, put a paper towel over it, then a heavy book with 2 three pound exercise weights (gotta use those weights for something!)

This morning I looked at the Vintage Lady painting to see if it was dry. It was and it was pretty flat. not perfectly flat, but reasonably flat and ready to mount in a mat.

Ok, so back to Midnight Bunny. As mentioned I have been trying different graphite pencils to do my sketch for the painting. This time I used a 6B. I liked it, you could get a nice dark if you want. On Vintage Lady I used a HB. Which is very hard. It was a lot lighter lead color and didn't smear much.

If you don't want your lead to show up in your watercolor, the HB is pretty good for that.

On Midnight Bunny, I used the same color palette as I did on "Vintage Lady". Three colors; cobalt blue, rose madder genuine, and azo yellow. Although I used a lot of layers on this painting and it has some darks, it still has some luminousity in places. I guess that's what you get when you use transparent paint, right?

In this painting I lifted color out on the bunny, the grass, and around the moon. A few years ago I took a workshop from Joseph Alleman, and he lifts color out. His work is wonderful and he has the awards to show fpr it. Here's his website: josephalleman.com

Look at Joe's paintings, especially those that have darks in them and see if you can see where he has lifted the paint out. If you are new to watercolor, you may not know what this means. When you put several layers of color on the paper, you can go back after it's dried with a wet brush and lift out spots. I you look at the bottom of my bunny painting, you can see blades of grass that I have lifted out.

I am finding as I am doing these studies, that I have picked up and implement some things from the people I have taken workshops from. I hadn't realized that I had done this till now as I am re-evaluating my painting skills.

I have to admit that as I got into this bunny painting, I wasn't liking the way it was turning out, but committed myself to finishing it. Lifting really saved it. It's not a great painting,but it is ok and was a valuable study. The purpose of doing studies is not only to practice, but to also find what techniques and color palettes I like and don't like. So I am satisfied with what I learned today.

How's your painting coming along?

New Year's Resolution; Improve my Watercolor Skills!

Vintage Lady 10" x 8" Watercolor

I am sitting in my studio, cozy warm, looking out the window. It has been raining on this very grey, overcast Monday morning. I have bread baking in the kitchen anticipating a delicious union of homemade pumpkin soup for lunch. My plan for my art today is painting watercolor studies. I have been watching videos on youtube by fantastic watercolor artists. One of my resolutions for 2015 is to improve my technique and style.                                                                                                                                                                               Over the weekend I watched several videos by Sterling Edwards. He paints very loosely and my mission today is to loosen up my watercolor style. Although I am not trying to  paint exactly like Sterling, there is always something to learn from a really great teacher. Several years ago I took a workshop from Sterling, and although I have notes from then, I felt like I just needed to see him paint again. 

Once you begin watching these demos, you need to be careful or you will find yourself on a  youtube watercolor demo binge! It's the next best thing to taking workshops. I also watched demos from Don Andrews who I took a workshop from. He paints quite loosely as well, and does it so effortlessly!

Learning Twitter 10" x 8" Watercolor.

I have attached a couple of watercolor studies that I have done the last few days. The first one, Learning Twitter was done in the way I usually paint. The second one was done after I watched the Sterling Edwards and Don Andrews video demos. It is definately a lot more looser.On the first one, I did try to do a loose background, but failed with the subject matter.  I think the second painting was more successful, but I still have a long way to go. By the way, on the second painting I used a limited palette of 3 colors; Rose Madder, Cobalt Blue and Azu Yellow.
I am trying to find a palette that I like working with too. That's another goal!

I am going to keep painting, and it's time to do another one. I will keep you posted. You can bet I will be watching more demos on youtube!

What to do? I have an artist's brain.

I have so many things I want to accomplish and I get sidetracked. I am supposed to be writing my blog and what do I do? I get looking at other artist's work online. There is so much wonderful art out there in cyber space.

So I thought... That is enough, Catherine, write your blog and stop looking at all that art!

I have a lot to do for my new years resolutions. Here are some of them:

Carry around a sketch book and USE IT.

Paint a watercolor a day.

Learn about how to become an illustrator.

That's just a few.

Oh oh...My daughter just text me and has tempted me to go to lunch with her.... I should be working! I always value time with my kids so it's very easy to say yes. But I will take my sketch book with me and get some sketches done. That's killing two birds with one stone, right?

The image above is a crop of a painting I did called "Follow Your Inspiration".

I guess I shouldn't feel too bad about looking at other artist's work, and let's see how can I categorize going to lunch... how about... It's all very inspiring!
What do you do to get inspired?

New Year, New Ideas!

A new year is always refreshing, it seems to be a start over for many of us. Although today is probably not much different than most days. It's just how we think about it.

This Christmas I made many gifts for my family. One of them was a portrait of my son. He loves the Green Bay Packers and has since high school. So it seemed appropriate to reflect that in this painting of him.

It is done in watercolor on Arches hot press paper. It's not very big, an 10" x 8" painting. I often use my kids as models in my paintings and Brock has been known to complain that I have never used him. So it was time to paint him!

Today being the first day of the new year, I have been planning what I would like to accomplish this year. I paint a lot in acrylic, but I thought I would like to improve my watercolor techniques for 2015. I belong to the Utah Watercolor Society, and it is a wonderful organization with many talented painters. I hope to benefit this year by participating more in the paint-outs and workshops they hold.

If you would like to join us, here is the link to the website;

www.utahwatercolor.org

The meetings are the first Tuesday of each month and they are held at the Sons of the Utah Pioneer Building. Here's the address:

Sons of the Utah Pioneers Hall, 3301 E. Loiuse Ave (2920 S.) Salt Lake City, UT, 84109

I also am planning on writing on my blog more often and sharing my artistic process.Comments welcome!

One more thing I would like to say on this fresh new day in 2015... I am full of gratitude for my life, and my family. I am so thankful to be an artist and through my talent am able to show appreciation for the beauty of this earth. May we all be blessed with a happy and prosperous New Year!

An Art Card ACEO Commission

Last week I received a commission for an miniature portrait. I have been painting very small lately 3.5" x 2.5 known as collectible ACEO's (art card editions originals). The commission was from a man who wanted a portrait of his wife, and wrote to me the following:

"I am a family historian and have a lot of pictures and paintings of ancestors around and my wife always teasingly asks why I don't have any of her, so I thought this would be a fun birthday surprise for her!"

He sent me a photo for reference and I painted her from it. He also sent me an antique watercolor of a lady from around two centuries ago when miniatures were popular and asked if I could do is wife's mini portrait similar to it. The vintage portrait was in an oval frame so I suggested that I paint his wife's portrait on a larger piece of paper than the traditional art card size. The image I painted is still 3.5" x 2.5" but I painted it in watercolor on a 7" x 5" 140 lb. Arches hot press watercolor paper. That way if he wished to frame it with an oval mat he has plenty of paper.

News! I will be teaching art card painting classes.

Classes: Starting later in July I will be teaching Art Card classes at Local Colors of Utah gallery in Salt Lake City. Art cards are a fun affordable way to collect art, or you can trade them with your friends! The art card originally was created by artists to trade among themselves. Later an artist started the ACEO movement on ebay and artists were creating art cards to sell.

For more info comment below.

If you are in Salt Lake on July 4th, come visit Local Colors at the Sugar House Art Festival. I will have framed art cards in the gallery as well as a sign-up for my classes.  Local Colors is located at 1054 E. 2100 So. Salt Lake City.

If you are interested in an art card commission you can order one from Etsy:
Art Card Commission by Cathy Darling

Or if you are in Salt Lake City, You can order a commission through Local Colors gallery.
Questions?

Wild Ride Horse and Gecko Prints

                               A Wild Ride


One Wednesday afternoon, sunny, not too hot, a horse was wildly galloping down the street. On his back was something green, small, but not too small. I would like to say it was an alien but it wasn't. It was your basic gecko. I think it was a jockey the way it rode that horse. But then I began to wonder when the gecko steered the horse straight at me. Needless to say I was a litte alarmed. Not sure how the gecko felt about it. All I can say is it was a wild ride and I lived to tell about it!


I am now offering prints of my original paintings on Etsy.

Click here for my etsy shop

Very Inspired By John Salminen!

I was very inspired by John Salminen's lecture. I don't want to paint like him,

 but he motivated me to paint the best I can. 

Catherine Darling Hostetter

This past week, I attended the Utah Watercolor Society meeting where the guest artist was John Salminen. If you are not familiar with his work, it is very detailed and he is a fabulous watercolorist. Often times at our meetings, a guest artist will demonstrate by painting a piece. Because of the nature of John's approach to watercolor - often days of drawing first and then days of painting, he lectured on his work instead.

I suppose some people might have been disappointed that he didn't actually paint, but I was not unhappy at all with his presentation. Not one bit! He was very good at explaining some of his techniques and how he came to paint the way he does. It left me feeling very inspired. I love watercolor, but have often ventured into the less transparent medium of acrylic. For subject matter I have focused a lot of my art on the whimsical (as you can see if you've read my blog at all!) However, I love many artist's work and the interpretation of their world, which is a more realistic view than I often portray in my art.

I decided for my next project to paint more realistically and do it in watercolor. The last two months I have been focusing on painting very small - 3.5" x 2.5" art cards. It's been a good exercise, and I will continue to paint them. The lovely thing about John Salminen's work was how he rendered scenes that were realistic, yet very much displayed the beauty of the watercolor medium. He is a very talented man!

Yesterday I painted Mr. Sheep, a sussex sheep. It's not a street scene or detailed like Mr. Salminen's, but it is more realistic and very watercolor-ish. (Is that a word?) It is a start for me. I am not much of a landscape or street scene painter, I enjoy people and animals. So that's where I began. But who knows where this project will take me?

To conclude my last project of painting art cards, I am posting three that I recently finished.

"In the Iris Garden"

I painted these cards in watercolor and 

watercolor pencil and wc markers.

 "Poppy Garden Girls"

"Waiting For a Party"

For the next couple of months, I will be posting my "Inspired by John Salminen" watercolor project, and I hope you will come back and comment. If you would like to know more about John Salminen here is a link to his website: John Salminen

It will be interesting to me to see how this project will influence how I paint. Life is about learning and changing, improving and enjoying! 

Another Small Painting

Painting art cards is a challenge. The 3.5" x 2.5" canvas makes it difficult to get the detail you are able to get with larger painting surfaces. I have been trying different mediums so see what gives me the detail I would like to have. Yesterday I tried pen and ink and watercolor. Still not satisfied with the results.

 As I paint these art cards, I've been drawing from my head without reference. I think the artist is the biggest critic of their artwork. That's me for sure! I find I am not satisfied not only with the way I am painting but I am not happy with just painting what I see in my head. I am going to keep going with my experimentation with art cards until I am satisfied with what I produce. Anyone want to join me painting art cards? It's a great exercise that I think will benefit my larger pieces.

"Planting Seeds of Faith", pen/ink and watercolor.

My critique is that it is too cartoony for my taste :-) I like it for what it is however,

and it was fun to try. 

Painting Small

The last week of March and throughout this month I was away from home for a little over three weeks. Because of different restrictions I packed up the smallest amount of art supplies I could. This has led me to working on a series of art cards (mentioned in my previous posts).

Painting small or perhaps 'miniature' is a better description - brings a whole lot of new challenges. The main challenge for me is what medium best expresses what I want to accomplish? I have tried pure watercolor, acrylic, acrylic with colored pencil. Today I will be working on a piece with watercolor and pen and ink.

My 3.5" x 2.5" paintings have been divided into two main subjects, portraiture and whimsical illustration. I have enjoyed doing the portraiture in watercolor - even though the 'canvas' is small, it is big enough to get the detail in that I enjoy. Doing a little illustrative scene is a whole other story. To get all the details in you have to paint VERY small. I am not sure I am satisfied with what I have come up with to this point.

I am going to post a couple of recent illustrative pieces and would appreciate your critique of them.

"Bunny Serenade" is done in acrylic and colored pencil on paper.

"Catching Falling Stars" is watercolor and watercolor pencil on paper

"Little Red Riding Hood" (SOLD) Mixed - watercolor and acrylics on paper.

I would appreciate any comments. If you want to see more of my art cards, visit 

Cathy Darling Art on Ebay

Painting in Portland

I am in Portland to help take care of my grand-daughter Lily. A couple of weeks ago a dog bit her in the face. :(
I packed up the biggest suit case we had. Not just for my clothes, but for the inflatable mattress. My daughter had just moved to Portland the month before leaving her furniture behind. We were worried my suitcase would go over the 50lb. weight limit, but it weighed in at exactly that... 50lbs!

I came out on Jet Blue and they have a policy of no oil or water based paints, so I packed up my watercolor palette (dry) and brought along mini watercolor paper to paint art cards. An art card is 2 1/2" x 3 1/2" so I could pack a lot of them!
So far I have only painted 2 cards, they are in my whimsical style.

 This one (above) is titled "Breakfast at Tiffany's, 

Pupper's and Miss Pretty Kitty's. 

This art card is titled "Finding Spring". 

It is fun, experimental and a good exercise to paint this small. I will continue to paint while here in Portland. It rains a lot and often cancels my daily walk... I thought my waterproof windbreaker would be sufficient but I was wrong... so I will happily paint when it rains.

Arches Watercolor Paper Disappointment

A few months back I moved. Which means I was forced to go through and organize all my art supplies. This past week I needed to paint a watercolor to enter into the Utah Watercolor Society Spring Show. This year we have the amazing John Salminen to jury our show.

Determined to use some of the supplies I had in store, I found some Arches 140 lb. cold press watercolor paper. I haven't used Arches for several years now but my memory was soon refreshed as to the reason for that.

Starting the painting with the first couple of washes was fine, but then as I applied more layers of color, the paper acted very weird and the colors would not blend properly. Frustrated, I kept on going; I had a deadline to meet and no time to start another painting! If you have read my blog at all you may have gathered that I tend to procrastinate painting for shows til the last couple of days before it's due.

The painting ended up ok, but I wasn't pleased with the face of the girl. Painting skin tones can be delicate work, and this paper would not let me blend the colors as well as I wanted. *sigh*.

The title of this painting is "Then It Dawned On Her". Kind of a poetic tribute to why I will never buy Arches again. Yes...

NOW I remember why I switched to Fabriano WC paper.

Dreaming

This is a more whimsical painting titled "Dreaming". It is number 3 in a series of women paintings I am doing.

 My purpose in doing a series is to explore the topic and paint wherever the inspiration leads me.
There are many virtues that are embodied in women and often they begin with a dream.

This painting is 10" x 8" on gallery wrapped canvas. $250 plus $5 shipping in the US and is available for purchase. Contact me!

She Can Do It!

Today I put the finishing touches on this painting. It's second in a series called "The Virtuous Woman".
When I was thinking (out loud) of what to paint next in this series, my daughter suggested that I do something like the poster of  "We Can Do It".  It is an American wartime propaganda poster produced by J. Howard Miller in 1943 for Westinghouse Electric as an inspirational image to boost worker morale. (1)

One of the titles I considered for this painting was "Strong in so Many Ways", but my daughter vetoed it. That title does say in just a few words the idea behind this painting. But no go. My next thought was to just call it "She Can Do It". My daughter was asleep on the couch and couldn't gun it down, so there you have it.

"She Can Do It" is a tribute to the strength of today's woman.

This painting is 8" x10" x .75" on gallery wrapped canvas. $250 plus $5 shipping in US. To purchase it please contact me!

(1) Wikipedia

A New Series of Paintings

Today on my blog I am posting the first of a series. The series is called Virtuous Woman and it is inspired by all the women that I know that are multi-talented, smart, and wonderfully kind and good in so many ways.

Who can find a virtuous woman? For her price is far above rubies. (Proverbs 31:10)

This first painting needed a title and as I thought and painted and painted and thought, a song soon began repeating itself in my mind. It was a song that was an anthem for women in the 1970's as women attempted to combat social and cultural inequalities. I was fresh out of high school back then and was able to witness that bit of history. Although my interpretation is a bit different, I think the song title lends itself to a perfect title for this painting.

How can I describe today's woman? Oh wait, that's why I am painting this series for! Each painting will be an exploration of the many facets in a woman's life. "I am Woman" is the opening statement. A woman and her world. I painted the world like a halo that crowns her head, symbolic for the angel that she is.

This is an 8" X 10" painting and is available for purchase, $250 plus $5 shipping in US. Contact me for info.

Blind Leading the Blind

Each year the Springville Museum of Art holds a juried show that focuses on Religious art. This year I created a painting titled "Blind Leading the Blind". My reference is from the teachings of Christ in Luke 6:39 (KJV).

It is painted in acrylic and is 24" x 30" x 2" on gallery wrapped canvas. I took it down to Springville on Saturday. The show will be juried this week and of course I am hoping it will get in.

I like to include words or quotes in my art occasionally. In this painting I put a quote that I thought was pretty profound. It reads:

"The world today is in serious trouble. It is struggling for survival in a sea of selfishness, hate, greed and sin. They travel and cry for peace but do not want peace in righteousness."

To me that translates to this; many in the world have a bad case of spiritual blindness turning from the true source that gives us light and knowledge.

The leader of the group appears quite confident as he leads his followers. I came very close to adding the words coming from his mouth: "the ditch is this way" (see Luke 6:39). I think that we are not totally blind when we make choices and I think neither is this guy. The women in the center is labeled as trusting in the arm of flesh. The fellow behind her appears to be not only spiritually blind but deaf as well.

I often take a photo of my paintings, but my camera battery was dead so I had to borrow one. Apparently this camera is sensitive to capturing good pics of people because when I snapped a shot of the painting, a message appeared. It read: "Did someone blink?"

It made me chuckle and say; no they're just blind.

I Have a Show at Local Colors!

My art is featured this month at Local Colors of Utah Gallery. The theme for the show is "I Can Fly".
I recently moved and it took me a little bit to get in gear to paint for this show. I hadn't painted for a couple of months and when I finally got around to painting, I just couldn't get inspired.

*sigh*

 No matter what, I just couldn't think of anything I wanted to paint. The theme was really wide open for all kinds of ideas, but alas, none came my way. Finally some very good advice came to me...Stop thinking and start painting!

So I did and even though I wasn't thrilled with my first idea, I just kept painting. Pretty soon the ideas started coming. Unfortunately by that point, I only had a short amount of time to paint before the hanging of the show. The show is now up from October 18th thru November 13th.

This is one of my paintings in the show:

 "Flying a Hare Too Low"

  Come see what else I ended up with when I had to fly by the seat of my pants, or should I say 'paint' by the seat of my pants?

An Award From Robert Burridge!

This month the Utah Watercolor Society held it's Fall Show at the Michael Berry - Utah Artists Hand Gallery in Salt Lake City. The juror was Robert Burridge. If you are not familiar with him, you should do a search. He is a delightfully funny guy as well as an outstanding teacher and artist.

My painting 'Adoggio' was awarded a juror's award by Robert. At the reception I went up to him to thank him for the award. He asked which one was mine. I told him and he smiled. He said "When I saw that, I laughed my @$$ off."

My joy in painting is to bring a smile to the viewer, and if they happen to lose a body part in the process, well, mission accomplished.

See the show! 163 E. Broadway (300 South). October 3-November 1, 2013

Summer Bunnies

Marketing art online has become quite a good venue. I have been selling on ebay since 2001. After much study and learning how to sell there, I finally started on Sept. 11th. However I had a free dial-up connection and a very slow computer and my first auction didn't go live until about 10 minutes after midnight on Sept. 12th. It took all evening to get everything loaded up and ready to go. I was also watching the horrific events on TV and I am sure that slowed me down a bit.

So here I am almost 12 years later still selling on ebay. Because of my gallery connections and other online venues I have decided to make collectible art cards (ACEOs) my main product for this venue- tiny paintings for tiny prices. I am also in the process of cleaning out my studio and offering art at clearance prices. They need to find a new home.

I have a set of auctions that will be ending this evening for Bunny art cards. They are in watercolor and are 3.5" x 2.5".

 Knitting Bunny

Little Miss Bunny

Bunny Love

Check them out before they are gone! 

Update on My Activities

I have been working hard on my art lately. The past two years I have been tending my baby grand-daughter who is just turning 2. My grandmotherly duties have been relieved a few days a week as little Lily Rain is going to pre-school to expand her social  skills.

That means I have more time to work on my art! I am working on my watercolor painting currently. 

I was recently juried into Xanadu Gallery of Scottsdale AZ as one of their online studio artists. 

You can purchase my work there at:

The Art of Catherine Darling Hostetter

I was also accepted into the Trodden Path Gallery; You can purchase my work at this link:

Cathy Darling Art

If you are live in Utah, you can find my art at Local Colors Gallery  1054 E. 2100 So. Salt Lake City, UT 84106 Or visit their website:

My Pure Art Gallery

Sold!

Also in Utah you can find my whimsical art at Paisley Pomegranate of Park City, and Salt Lake City.