Miniata Groupers, Chinese Wetmarket, Singapore

This watercolor painting is called Miniata Groupers and is from the Singapore series. Click to enlarge.



It is based on this photograph that I took on my trip to Singapore in 1996 at the Chinese Wet Market. This was a tank of live miniata groupers.


The painting was an exercise in watercolor washes and gradients and was tons of fun. I drew the tank and fish and then painted the water and the painting sat for a long time before I got up the nerve to paint the fish. But once I got started, I was okay and couldn't stop.

Original Art Archive Completion

Here is the remainder of my works that I photographed recently with my new camera to record for my original art archives. I thought that I would post them on my blog for you to look at.

The first is called "Lilacs" and I painted this watercolor and India ink in high school (click to enlarge).

I recall not being particularly impressed with it at the time, but looking back I am amazed at the tiny gradients that I accomplished in the vase. It was all done freehand and I know that I could not reproduce this effect right now. I just had that fine analytical touch that later served me very well in the lab.

The next one is "Neral Images" and is a pen and India ink contour drawing of my first Siamese cat, a Lynx point that I named after a fragrant straight chain organic chemical (an aldehyde), Neral, that I did in 1984. (I only knew about Neral, the chemical, because I studied it as component of an alarm pheromone of Achanthomyops claviger in college, an amber ant that my professor and I collected.)

When I met Sean and moved in with him he had all of these great art supplies because he was an architect. I was over the moon, I was so happy. He told me to help myself and I did. He had two tables in his home office, one for drafting and one for working. I used the drafting table for my artwork. I quickly absconded with his rapidograph pens. He had tons of paper for them, but eventually I used this up and had to buy more.

Then, in a prophetic move, I discovered pointillism. My first efforts were both in color and in black and white. Here is an early color effort of a frog that I gave up on when I became bored.

Here is a red and white bubble eye stargazing goldfish from the April 1973 issue of National Geographic Magazine that featured an article on goldfish done in Pentel color pens, followed by the cover of the magazine.

Unfortunately, I know from experience that the reddish and orange colors will fade when exposed to sunlight.

Here is a self portrait done in India ink. I used a mirror to accomplish this work.

Finally, here are two red and white bubble eye stargazing goldfish from National Geographic Magazine done in watercolor and pen and India ink. I wish I had dated this and signed it because it is a beautiful work and I would love to know when I did it. Do enlarge it to see the details. The colors are beautiful.

These are all of the works that I will include when I do a show in the fall or winter. I am going to have to do plenty of framing before then! Any ideas on how to do framing on the cheap???

Casualty of War I

Please click to enlarge

Here is a new piece of art that I just finished this morning. I had an inspiration a few days ago and have worked on this solidly since then since I feel that stopping our operations in Iraq is way more important than sharing my trip to Singapore. The reason is that we are losing lives of our brave American men and women, plus Iraqis are also being killed. We need to get our asses out of there as soon as possible to end the dying. In the famous words of Edwin Starr "War, What is it good for? Absolutely nothin!"

Cattle Statues, Sri Mariamman Temple, Singapore

This is a watercolor painting that I just completed this morning. Chiaroscuro in style, it is of the two cattle statues that detail the cornerstone of the Sri Mariamman Hindu Temple at the corner of South Bridge and Pagoda Streets in Singapore. I took a picture of the Temple when I was there in 1997 on business, and decided that the cattle would make for a great watercolor painting. So, I searched the web and found the photo below in a flickr album.



One never sees architechtural details like this in the United States! I am blessed that I had the opportunity to travel to Singapore and see this and thus make this painting. I will continue to make paintings from my travel to Singapore.

Koi in Holland Market, Singapore

Here is yet another work that I completed yesterday. If you click to enlarge it, you will see that it took eleven years to finish this work. Much transpired in those years!!! Below it is the photo that it is based upon. We also use a version of the photo for printing our bank checks.

Unfortunately, the camera was not kind to this watercolor painting. The background is a lovely light blue and the fish a delicate yellow. Perhaps you can see that I finally figured out how to use my new brushes in the fin work on the 3 fish left upper center of the painting and the red and white one towards the bottom.

I feel that this work is graphically strong and very pretty even though there are some mistakes in it.

Chinese Wet Market, Singapore: UPDATED

Here is a new work that I just completed yesterday! It is called Chinese Wet Market, Singapore. I used a photo that I took from my visit to Singapore in 1997 as a model for the work (below).



Unfortunately the colors are washed out in the photo of the painting and are brighter in the original work.

This is my first major work since my brain surgery almost 10 years ago and it was really a trial. The medium is both watercolor and India ink and if you click to enlarge, you will see that I give a nod to my past pointillism days. The painting is 16 x 12 inches.

Hooray for me, now I am a painting fool again! I am excited an happy with many works going!

New Watercolor Paint Brushes

Yesterday afternoon I was all excited because I was going to visit my favorite art supplies store. So I got Laila, my German Shepherd Dog, into my Jeep Wrangler and off we went towards the shoreline. On the way there I was thinking it was time to put the soft top on the Jeep so that I can have it down like a convertible for the Summer. That would be so cool!

We got there and the store was no more! There was some clay pot painting place there now. So, we went to a paint store that also carries art supplies and was only a short drive away. They no longer carried art supplies! The lady there told me that the old man at the art supplies store had retired and that they no longer carried art supplies because so many artists bought stuff online. I would have to drive to New Haven or New London to buy brushes. I was sure that they would be pricey at those places. So I drove home to look online.

I did and confirmed that all my current brushes suck even though they are sable. So I bought six new artist grade brushes. Here they are:



They were comparatively expensive, but I need them to do my art. I can't wait to get them! I hope my drawing is done by then and ready for paint.

I also looked at Sumi-e brushes, but there are so many types and variety of prices I was confused. Hirano, if you could recommend one for me that would be a big help.

Works in Progress

What was I working on when I had my catastrophic medical illness you may ask? Well, I had two works in progress. One was a large pencil drawing of a nuthatch that I intended to finish in watercolor. It is too lightly drawn to photograph and to big to scan so here is a picture of one in the pose I drew:



It is way too demanding of fine motor skills for me to finish right now so I will put it aside for the future when I am more confident and practiced.

The other WIP was in the first wash stage of watercolor. I based it on this photo I took of baby koi for sale in Holland Village in Singapore. Sean and I love this photo and use an edited image as a background for our personal checks. So I just knew I had to immortalize it in a painting.



Interestingly, the camera would not photograph it. Sean tells me that it was because the camera could not "see" anything to focus on. So I scanned it in two parts.




It really has a long way to go as far as the painting goes. But I feel very intimidated by this work and don't want to ruin it. This piece would be very unforgiving of any mistake since the colors are so light. So, I have decided to hold off on this one also until I feel more confident in my skills.

I have begun a new piece that I hope will be very forgiving. It is based on a photograph that I took while I was in the Wet Market in Chinatown in Singapore. The photograph is of a pile of discarded fish heads. I was drawing on it yesterday and my hands were shaking a bit but that may have been because of the dexamethasone I had taken for my migraine. It is quite a departure from the usual paintings for me, but I like it quite a bit.

Sean and I are going to go out and buy some new paint brushes for me before I paint again. I will also buy a special Japanese ink one as Hirano San recommended.

I am also considering looking for a new medium that will be more forgiving than watercolor. Any ideas?

Wish me luck!

Christmas Card with Siamese Cat & Ball

Right away I began drawing cards for holidays and birthdays. This is the first Christmas card I drew and we had them professionally printed and envelopes made and sent to everybody we knew. The scans came out crappy so I put both of them in.

I have always been enamored of the idea that a kitten or cat is going about its business, but mindful of us. This drawing is an illustration of that in pen and ink. The kitten is looking up at us to wish us a Merry Christmas before he continues to destroy the tree. The tree is a larch, which would have dropped its needles by December, since they are deciduous.

Egyptian Sisters

From the lowly scarab beetle to the majestic pyramids, I have always been fascinated by ancient Egypt. I have read the stories, been swept away by the culture, art, archeology, architecture, all of it, I have read the histories, mysteries, I may as well by embalmed I am so steeped and imbued with a love for all things Egyptian. I just recently finished reading Colleen McCullough's Anthony and Cleopatra which I loved. Of course it goes without saying that Egyptian art has influenced my art.

I wanted to make a tribute to my twin sister for her birthday, so I drew this pen and ink drawing of Egyptian sisters. Click to enlarge. She did a scan of it, so it is wider than you see here, so you don't see the drawn border goes all the way around the picture and she had it beautifully matted and framed.

Koi

All I can say is man, this one has my blood, sweat and tears in it. You cannot imagine how many studies it took to get this one to work. The central idea was that the magic of seeing a koi break through the water should be captured by the koi actually breaking through the paint. In other words, the body of the koi should be physically bursting through the paint medium, pushing it aside. My thought was to draw or paint the fish and then do a solid wash over them that they would burst through.

To get this to happen, I had to find a waterproof medium to color the fish with. So initially I painted them with water color and then covered them with wax. That looked terrible. Also I had to discover what kind of paper to use. A flat non-textured paper was needed.

Many studies later, I happened on Sean's collection of Berol Prismacolor pencils. They came in all the colors of the rainbow and excitedly, I hurriedly drew the koi. I taped the paper to my desk to prepare it for the watercolor wash and did the black wash. It totally covered the fish. I was disgusted. All my hard work went to waste. I waited until the paint was not runny and ripped it off my desk in anger.




Thank goodness I did not ball it up and toss it out because as it dried, the wax pencil cracked the water color paint on some of the fish. With the help of some gentle scraping with a palette knife, I was able to see the fish I had colored on the hardest and that had the most wax pencil deposits. So, I scraped harder on the other fish and am overjoyed with the final result. Click to enlarge.

Cock

No, not that type of cock! Get your filthy minds out of the gutter. This is not that type of blog! Oh wait, it is. But still, this it not that type of cock. Cock as in fowl, or rooster. Cock as in Hiroshige's Cock, Umbrella, and Morning Glories on plate 20 of the book "Hiroshige Birds and Flowers". I scanned the image, but the picture was too long for my scanner (click to enlarge):


I felt very inspired and wanted to see if I could render this via water colors. I of course simplified it considerably into just a wash and the cock and here is the result:



It is the only Hiroshige bird that I feel I did a good job with at all. It still needs to be framed and matted and would probably benefit from some tight matting at the sides to make it look narrower and taller. I particularly like the black tail feathers and the feet. Your comments are welcome.

Blue Butterfly Tail

Now that my graphic eye was turned on, I scanned the Chinese Goldfish book for another fish to paint. On the very same page I found one:


The book describes this fish as:

Variegated butterfly tail with reversed gills

But for me, the bright orange and white colors distracted from the strong graphic image of the fish. So I went with Payne gray in my water color interpretation of it. I also took another look at the anatomy of fish scales and devised a new method for portraying them. Here is the result (click to enlarge).



Again, I employed the dry brush method and used a wash with paint pooling for the eyes. I thought the paint would never dry and had a fear that I would smudge it, but that didn't happen. I like how the paint in the tail seems to be different colors, but it is not. It is all just Payne gray. I am in love with this color! I am somewhat happier with how the scales turned out, but not yet thrilled.

This is the mate to the Black Butterfly Tail. I wanted to paint a trio, and did attempt it, but it never worked out. As usual, your comments are welcome.

Black Butterfly Tail with Bulging Dragon Eyes

Finally frustrated with pointillism, I revisited watercolors. I searched my books for inspiration and came up with this Chinese Goldfish book put out by Tetra. The wonderful thing about this book is that there are photos straight from China of the way goldfish are kept and propagated there and the way they were kept in palaces in ancient times when myriad servants were around to make water changes in the beautiful porcelain, marble, wood, pottery and earthenware containers. Of course all of the variations of goldfish are shown. This book really spurred my imagination.



My eye for graphics was grabbed by this image on page 67:



The book describes this fish as:

Black butterfly tail with bulging dragon eyes

An exceedingly rare variety of goldfish, renowned for its butterfly-like caudal fins. It is as black as traditional Chinese ink and has large protruding eyes. This variety of fish likes shallow water, only 10 cm deep. An adult fish measures between 15 and 20 cm.

I just had to paint this fish. So, armed with my black watercolor paint I had at it. This was the result:




I used the dry brush technique. In general I feel that I captured the spirit of the fish, but I am not happy with the scales, which I rushed because I was impatient to finish the work. I think that graphically the painting is a success. The final work is 13.5" x 10". Click to enlarge.

I would love to hear your comments.

Fuschia

This is the very first water color painting that I ever did, while the rest of my high school class was painting apples. I can still see my teacher looking at it with his hand on his beard and saying "Sue, you've outdone yourself. But the task was to use the water color as a wash not as you have. So you will have to do another painting." So I painted lilacs.

What this technique is called is dry brush because the colors are applied and then the next is applied after the first dries. I love this technique because it appeals to the obsessive side of me. The wash is nice too, but far more unpredictable.

While others needed a model to go by, this came straight from my head and is titled Fuschia.

Click to enlarge

Young Koi

The date I did this piece is now in dispute. The signature date is 1983, but the copyright on the book I used is 1989 and I distinctly remember buying the book in San Francisco in 1989. So, maybe I did the drawing in 1993 and the signature date is incorrect? I also remember being a new koi owner at that time and that didn't happen until we moved which was in 1986. Okay, I'm glad I cleared that up in my head. The actual date I did this drawing is 1993, not 1983 as indicated on the drawing.

The drawing was inspired by the inside photo from this wonderful Tetra Encyclopedia of Koi which I first spied in San Francisco and bought on the spot. Since then I have used it as a guide to my koi keeping and breeding. Anyhow, as soon as I saw the photo of young koi on the inside of the hard cover, I just had to draw them. So I got out my Pentel color pens and had at it.



This was the result. Unfortunately, I really liked the drawing lots and hung it in my office at work where it got lots of natural light. Thus, the reds and oranges have faded terribly as has the blue that I used as a background.

Click to enlarge

So, everything that looks yellow now was red or orange at one time. The piece is just really less spectacular than it was but you get the idea. As a medium, Pentel color pens and pointillism were not the way to go for drawing koi because of the color fading and the time required. I had to find another medium to capture them.

Foggy Landscape

I continued to search for photographs that moved me to draw and found this one in a National Geographic Magazine. It looked like it would be lots of fun because of all of the colorful wild flowers and so I had at it with my Pentel color pens. I don't know if I am happy with the result compared to my other works or not. Click to enlarge.




The pinks of the flowers have faded a bit and did not come out quite right in the photograph. I had lots of fun drawing the umbels in the Queen Ann's Lace and trying to put them in three dimensions. I feared hours of work filling in the foreground, but then thought it looked fine without it.

Old Woman

This work has been shown at the New York State Fair in Syracuse, NY. It was completed in 1984 and was done from a photo that my husband Sean took. He was in a park in Syracuse and came upon this old woman. He asked, as he usually does, if he could take her photograph and this is the gesture she made. He shot the picture immediately. Once I saw this photo I knew I had to draw it. So with his permission, here is my pointillism rendition of Sean's Old Woman. Click to enlarge.




She was really a challenge to photograph too because the drawing is so light (you can see my reflection in the glass). Actually, when I was doing this drawing it was quite difficult to tell when it was done and when to stop making dots. I was so afraid I would ruin the effect I was trying to capture. Do you think I stopped to soon?

Portrait of a Young Woman

This was the first ever portrait that I did of a person in pointillism. It was from a sepia photograph of Sean's maternal grandmother when she was a young woman. I had some trouble with her hair and so some of it I did as a characterization, like her bangs, and then other parts I feel I got right, like at the nape of her neck. This is when I decided that old people would be easier to draw though I was pleased with this result. Click to enlarge.

Wild Flowers

This piece was shown at the New York State Fair in Syracuse, NY and at the Everson Museum as part of an "on My Own Time" Show, both in 1984. I also completed it in 1984. It is pen and ink pointillism on paper. Click to enlarge. The actual drawing inside the mat border is 8" by 12".

Verne, my brother, nearly had a heart attack when he saw it because some of the flowers are not in bloom at the same time of year, so this actual bouquet would never be seen. I had a good time drawing it because I love flowers and I chose ones that gave me the best opportunity to use the craft to its best advantage. See how the Jack in the Pulpits have lots of fluted creases to be drawn in as well as twisted petals. Those are divine to do in pointillism. Please let me know your comments.