ice cream, birds, and watercolors...

It was another hot week here in Michigan. Yes, I'm ready for fall. I'm ready for 60—70˚F weather. I'm ready for cool crisp mornings and cold dew on my car... but it isn't fall yet, it's just August.

So, in the mean time, I recommend sitting down and having a nice big bowl of ice cream every now and then. The greatest ice cream I have discovered this summer is Hudsonville's Orange Cream Swirl. If you remember or have recently had an orange creamsicle — it's like that translated into a tub of ice cream. It's delicious. Oh, and so is orange sherbet. Yes, I love that stuff.

Since I was drawing birds a few weekends ago, I decided to format some new pictures for sarahkdesigns:

say's phoebe | cedar waxwing
male northern cardinal | female northern cardinal

And then I worked on watercolors this week... which means I got out the salt, and the watercolors, and the gouache, and the brushes, and the paper, and conveniently used the empty tub from my orange sherbet to hold the water...

And after I use the salt I scrape it off the painting and reuse it... which is interesting, because sometimes it's covered in pigment and that transfers to the next painting.

details of some of the paintings of this week

And yes, I finally bought gouache. And decided to use it with my watercolors (although I did keep it on its own shiny new separate paint palette). I'm heavy handed with the pigment anyway - but it was interesting to see the white actually stay white when it dried.
(And for anyone uninitiated with my watercolor paintings - you can see the actual paintings here)

It's hard to explain making something abstract when you're not the stereotypical character archetype artist. I don't see the world through some narrow prism, and I don't think there's only one path to some ideal visual. When I sit down on the floor in front of the paper cutter with my paint and water and salt and brushes and paper - I have a vague idea of what I think maybe I'm going to do. But really, to a certain extent - whatever happens happens. And when I'm finally done putting paint on the paper or sprinkling it with salt - when I pick that wet painting up and set it down on the carpet to dry — I know it that when it dries it will look different from how it appears wet. Some of the salt will melt, some of the colors will run, pigment will be absorbed or overpowered by other pigment... and while some of it is knowable, there's a certain mystery and randomness to it.

So, the wet paintings sit there on the floor and I go to bed. And usually they're dry when I get up. And when I come home from work the next morning I scrape the salt off them and get to actually see the final result, which is the cool part. Because there's painting it and playing with color and juxtaposition and all that, and then there's finally seeing what it really looks like.

And then I have to sit there and name them all. Because, let's face it, I don't just ever paint one painting. Don't get me wrong, I like the paintings, but I can't imagine setting all that stuff up and having to vacuum salt off the carpeting for one painting.

Of course, I still have to do that vacuuming part.

So, stay cool and have some of your favorite ice cream : )