Six Sisters and a Dog Painting

Patience is a Beggar's Virtue by Catherine Darling Hostetter

Do you have a sister? I do and a very good one at that! Saturday I was planning on going to a Utah Watercolor Paint-out in Salt Lake City. They were going to paint train cars. I don't really have a set up for plein air (painting outdoors), so I was looking through all my stuff for something to use (like a folding chair, folding table etc). It wasn't long before I heard my phone ring and guess who? My sister Debbie!

She was calling to see if I wanted to go to "What a Woman Wants" at the South Towne Expo Center. My sister is a lot of fun, and I love hanging out with her, so I said yes!
We planned on going at 10:00 am and I figured I could make it to the paint-out which was at 1:00 pm.

So what does a woman want? Apparently the vendors there thought clothing, jewelry, crafty decorations and essential oils was what was wanted. It was fun to look at all the stuff. I have an art show in a couple of weeks, so I also looked at the way the vendors displayed their merchandise.

The WWW show featured guest presenters on stage. One that interested my sister and I were "Six Sisters". They are sisters that grew up in Utah and when they began to reach adulthood and some were getting married and moving out of state. To keep in touch with each other they began sixsistersstuff.com blog. They shared recipes and craft projects and soon they noticed they had a following.

Since their blog start in 2011, they have published cookbooks, do blog conferences and I don't know, sounds like they have a lot of fun together. I can understand this having a fun sister myself. Only in their case it's "the more the merrier"!

Anyhoo, on Saturday they demonstrated some of their recipes. One that I thought was interesting and tasty (they served samples afterwards) was the Funfetti Cake Batter Dip If you like to lick the bowl when you bake a cake, this dip is for you! You dip Vanilla wafers in the dip. Yum!

To make a long story a little shorter, I didn't make it to the paint-out. No worries though, there is always one another day.

I mentioned a dog painting in my title, didn't I? My artist friend, Sandi Olson curates an art display at Great Harvest in Sugar House. She asked me to pick up my aspen painting from the last show and to bring in an animal painting. It inspired me to paint a new painting for the show, a cute black lab-mix.

I titled the painting: Patience is a Beggar's Virtue

If you are a Salt Lake City local, and love animal paintings visit 

Great Harvest in Sugar House at 21st and 21st. 

Be sure and check out the Six Sisters blog for lots of yummy looking recipes.

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!

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! 

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.

Art is in the Eye of the Beholder

Bird Dog 12" x12"

Art is in the eye of the beholder. In the case of visual art, it has to be. In your eye, I mean. So you can see it. Right? Now whether you like the art or not becomes the duty of the brain, interpreting what you are seeing and making a judgement call.

My show at Local Colors is this week, with the opening this coming Friday night. I am working hard to get my paintings ready. I am one of those artists that move a bit quicker when I have a deadline. The problem with that (can you say procrastination?) is you run out of time to do all that you really would like to do for the show. *sigh*.

Since I still have a few days yet, I am optimistic and plan on getting a lot done. I am excited about the drawing for the $600 painting to be given away that night. There's more details on my blog about it. If you haven't entered, you can right here:

 The drawing has ended. Congratulations to Susan Daniels.

16" x 20" painting valued at $600

Maybe this flying dog painting doesn't jingle your chimes, but think about it...it could be just the ticket for a kids room or a gift for someone who loves dogs. I am sure someone would like to give this painting a good home. After all, whatever your reason for entering may be, we all know that art is in the eye of the beholder.

Sorry, that is kind of a corny ending to my blog entry today.

Gardening a Painting

It's late, but I thought I would hurry and write here a bit about my day. I have been painting alot and it feels great! So I guess you could say I had a good day.

This painting is called Gardening for Mental Health. At least that is what it is titled until I come up with something better. It has a quote carved into the frame; "You can bury a lot of troubles digging in the dirt". This painting will be available at my upcoming show.

Don't forget to enter in my painting drawing. For more info go to this link;
http://catherinedarling.blogspot.com/2012/03/enter-to-win-this-painting.html