An Illustrated Merry Christmas

Well. I have offically been caught up in all the hoopla that this season brings!

There has not been much time for painting this month.  

But I have managed, here and there, to make time for my illustrated family Christmas card.  

I know this is not the type of work you are used to seeing from me but it is a tradition
30 years in the making.

I started these pen and ink illustrations with just my husband and myself when we were first married down to our very grown up children today.

2013

A new family member added this year,  my daughter-in-law, Jenni!

The three angels on the right are for mine and Larry's parents who have passed away.  

They have appeared on the card in this way every year since they've been gone.

The paw prints in the snow and the bone are for our beloved little beagle, Glenn, who was a true member of our family and has been gone now for almost four years.

We adopted him from a rescue and he lived with us for almost 13 years.

And a few from past years.

2009

I often dressed us in Dickens type clothing.  

Sadly, this was Glenn's last appearance as he passed away the following Spring.

2008

Santas Workshop

Can you find Glenn and the Angels?

2007

The Twelve Days of Christmas.  What was I thinking!

It was quite a feat getting it all on an 11" x 17" space but it is fun to look at.

2000

1998

1997 

1995

This was the first Christmas since my Dad passed away.

That's him watching us from the shop window.

This illustration was made for him in honor of a childhood memory. 

My Dad, brother, sisters and I always walked a few blocks away to buy our tree from a city lot.

We then all carried it home together to decorate.

1990

The kids are 3 and 6 years old here.  Where does the time go.

As you can imagine, doing this for 30 years there are alot more but these are my favorites.

After my mother in law passed away we were at her house cleaning up.

A very sad task.  

While going through some things I found a box in which she had saved all the cards
from the first year on.

I have them packed away for safe keeping.

Merry Christmas friends and celebrate a Happy New Year!

Autumn Jewels

"Autumn Jewwls"
Watercolor
©Carmella Tuliszewski 2013

The morning of our son's wedding my husband and I were up super early.  I don't know if it was excitement or nerves but there we were looking at a long, long morning of waiting to get ready.

We went down to the hotel lobby, grabbed some coffee and sat outside.

What an amzing morning it was!  Perfect weather for an outdoor wedding.

After a awhile Larry started to fall asleep in the rocking chair so i deceided to take a walk with my camera in the Cooperstown very early morning sunshine.

Now you can imagine the multitude of colorful leaves blossoming on an Autumn day in upstate New York, but this branch really stopped me.

Every color from golds to magentas to blues were on this one branch reaching out to the light.

Since this is the first time I have ever painted leaves, I'm sure I have not done nature justice but this little painting will always remind me of that perfect morning.

Let's Talk Color! Orange.

Orange can be tricky.  Too bright and it looks brassy.  Too dark and it looks muddy.

So I spent the last month or so making myself work through these spectral deamons.

I don't like working with segmented paint trays unless I need to make very watery washes.

I love my white butcher trays and keep a few going as I work a painting.

For me it makes for easier and more spontaneous mixing.

And, as you can see, I don't worry about keeping a clean edge around the painting.

I test all my color mixes on the outside edges as I go.

A mat will cover all this up anyway and in furture when a collector deceides to change the mat they will find all the research done in the execution of their art.

As an art teacher for many years, I taught Color Theory quite often.

If you are still reading this then I assume you are an artist or someone really interested in the process.

Meaning you probably know all the basics of color theory but here are a few things you may not know.

What does the word HUE mean in the name of some of your watercolor paints?

"Hue" means colour and indicates that a modern pigment has been used instead of the traditional one. For example, 'Cadmium Red Pale Hue' is a 'colour of cadmium red pale'. A hue colour is not necessarily inferior.

Speaking of Cadmiums... did you ever notice that cancer warning on the back of Cadmimn paints?

They can be harmful if used as an inhalant like airbrushing.  But read this resource article from Winsor & Newton for more info.

http://www.winsornewton.com/resource-cente/product-articles/spotlight-on-colour-cadmium-yellow?lang=gb

And how about all those lovely Quinacridones I see artists raving about lately?

Well, they are worth their weight in gold and I am a real fan.  In fact I've put a set made by Daniel Smith on my Christmas list this year.

The Quinacridone family of colors (pronounced kwin ak’ ri doan) are high-performance pigments with outstanding transparency and color intensity. Ranging from pink to purple and gold to sienna, they are lightfast with a clarity traditional pigments cannot match. These modern synthetic colors were created in the 1960s for use in automotive paints, where brilliance and lightfastness are essential.

In the early 1990s, Daniel Smith became the first maker of artists’ paints to introduce a full line of quinacridone colors. Ideal for watercolor painters, quinacridones combine the power of staining pigments with the luminosity of transparent pigments. They produce glowing washes, have incredible depth of color and can be lifted easily while still wet. Understandably, quinacridones have become some of our most sought-after colors.

The above are the color receipes (sorry about the yellowish pic) I most used in my painting
 "Flow Blue".

I also used a variety of blues as a glaze to either darken or quiet down some of the oranges.

My absolute favorite orange right from the tube is Vermilion.  Love it, mixed with other reds and yellows it never fails to deliver a brillant color.

My favorite new color is Quinacridone Gold.  The most georgous color straight from the tube!

A few technical notes.

I usually work on Arches cold pressed blocks which do not require stretching.

Since "Flow Blue" required a larger paper, I had to stretch a 22" x 30" sheet.

It makes a real difference in how the paint plays on the surface.

Soaking and stretching takes some if not all of the sizing off the surface of the paper.

This makes lifting color almost impossible as without the sizing, the paint sinks into the fibers.

But it does give the paint surface this lovely felted look.
Try soaking in cold water for as short a time as possible to help keep some of the sizing.
For my next large painting I will be working on a 300 lb sheet of Arches Cold Press.

Masking can be our friend.

I needed very thin lines on some of the dishes. Winsor & Newton mask and a quill pen works wonderfully!  I love this mask.  It stays liquid longer than others I have used and you can shake the bottle without fear of clumps.

Well, I see we are getting our first snowflkes of the season this morning!
Good day to you!

Flow Blue and Gerber Dasies- Progressions

Composition is always important when you set out to plan a painting but especially
so when laying out a still life.   I love still lifes.  I love finding interesting objects and
"setting the stage" with props and lighting.
Here I set the stage so that your eye travels with the daisies down through the the scene on the
diagonal to the focal point of the two flowers sitting in the front plate.

These antique flow blue dishes hang in my dining room as a collection I started over 20 years ago.
The design became smudged as the dish was imprinted, hence the name, and making for fun watercolor painting.
They date from about the 1880's to the 1930's.

Now the real fun begins!  Orange and blue are complementary colors and classic together.
Color intensity comes from the color itself and from the colors around it.
But more on colors later.  I tore out some pedals and just let them drop.
I do like the circle on circle design but wanted to break it up some by introducing a new shape.

Now I need to make sure it will look the way I see it in my head by starting details.

Moving along, excited every morning to get back at it.
I love that even though these are all the same variety of flower, they are all so different.

"Autumn Suns",  Watercolor,  18" x 24"

©Carmella Tuliszewski 2013

Next Post- All the fun color receips used on this piece!

Jacks

I won't lie, it's been difficult to paint, as much as I love it, after the exciting weekend we had with family and friends at my son's wedding.  But I managed to finish this little piece and it was all I needed to get back in the swing.

Growing up in Philadelphia I enjoyed all the favorite summer pass times a city kid can hope for, such as, bombing the neighbor kids with water balloons, jumping into a full blast open fire hydrant for refreshment and a good round of double dutch.  But I have to say Jacks was my favorite game.
It involved throwing ten of these mental spikes down, letting the ball bounce once as you picked up the required number of jacks and catching the ball before it hit the ground for a second time.  It would start with one and a time (onesies), then two at a time (twosies) all the way up to the super challenging all ten at a time.  I had some scrapings and callouses on the outside of my hand by the end of every summer.

My own well earned badge of honor.  Ahh, good times.

"Twosies"

 Watercolor,  7" x 20"

©Carmella Tuliszewski

I've been wanting to practice painting colored metal in prep for a future painting I have in mind and this was perfect.  The swishy blue lines are meant to symbolize my hand flying down and sweeping up the jacks one after another.

Well now that I'm back at it again, I start a larger painting tomorrow.

Have a good evening!

Mini Pumpkins

Orange and red have always been difficult for me to use in watercolor.  Not sure why.  They just are never as bright as I'd like them to be or difficult to darken without getting that muddy, grainy look.

So I was determined to get better at it with some extra practice and I figured a few things out.

I never use any browns right out of the tube.  Seems to be the kiss of death to a fresh looking painting.

I make all my browns by combining many variations of the three primary colors.

I also make most of my own greens for the same reason.

An even better way to darken an area is to use the complimentary color.  In this painting I glazed with different blues over the oranges to get the darker areas of the pumbkins and candy corn.

"Blue and Gold", Watercolor, 10" x 15"

©Carmella Tuliszewski 2013

This is another fabric piece from my propt basket.  The lining up of the design so that it looks like it is going back in the distance is a trick of perspective.

Here is a little interactive tutorial on drawing a pattern in 1pt. perspective.

http://juliannakunstler.com/art1_1pt_ch_board.html#.UkXlkhaCCJU

That's what I did here except the design staggers a half step in the repeat on every other row.

After the drawing was done I washed the lighter blue across, let that dry completely and began painting in the design with the darker blue.  Sounds a little crazy but I love doing those kind of details.

With a drink (non-alcholic!) and some good music it goes fast.

When I taught middle school art one of my favorite artists was Matisse.

I became pretty obsessed with him.  Read all the bios and stared for uncomfortably long periods of time at his work in museums.  And ever since I have just loved combining patterned fabric in my still lifes.

Here are some past still lifes of mine which incorporate patterns as a base.

"Cradled Lemons"

"Family Jewels"

"Fabricated Swim"

"Hearts Alight"

"Paisley Pumpkins"

Well I've gone on a lot longer here than I intended!

Thanks for taking the time to view my work.

Paisley Pumpkins Tweeked

When I finish a painting it goes up on my board so that I can check it for possible improvements.
Don't get me wrong I do love this painting but there was something...  Too bright, too high key or maybe the shadows are too strong?  I deceided it was all that so the tweeking began.

Here's the original version.

And here's the revision

See the difference?  A softer, gentler version that's a little easier on the eyes.

What do you think?