House sparrows on aspen branch part one

Hello my friends, thank you for coming to my blog. I am looking at the video and the thumbnail is not very high quality, it could be that I have a very big screen. But either way, I just want to remind everyone that when you click on the video, if the quality is not as high as you like it, you can click on the little gear icon and upgrade the quality to the best you like. So no worries here, I rewatch the video at least once and it was good on my tablet. So I hope you guys can enjoy it and paint along with it, stop it or rewind it if something is unclear. And if there is anything that you would like me to explain in more details or actually do a little video, you be sure to leave me a comment, I am very much willing to listen to suggestion, if it can really come to pass could be up in the air, but I will try. And yes I have separated this painting into two part, this is part 1 painting the three house sparrow, and then part two, which I did already and will be uploaded here in the next couple days will be the aspens in the background. If you watch the second one I talked about if you are interested in an aspen fall scene painting, drop me a comment if you would like that. My goal really is to think and plan fun and pretty painting to do paint along with all of you, in practicing these painting we will improve our skills and learn very valuable lessons. It really is my learning pattern, paint a lot, the more we paint the faster we will get better. If you want nice paint brush you can try, I certainly had done a lot of trying. I pretty much really love those brushes that can come to a sharp point, maybe it facilitates my kind of painting. I don’t dwell on supplies a lot, I go and buy watercolor paints to try out when I am in the vicinity of Blick’s art, I also go down to the university bookstore, we have a very nice fine art department and so I buy some stuff from them too. Amazon of course. But the crowning jewel really is the practice, its fun and uplifting and helps to improve everything we do.

I also have been thinking about doing an outing to BYU library, we have a huge library where I just hang out a lot. I looked through a lot of books to discover old paintings and arts. If we can, maybe I will take my camera with me one day and show you what I looked at. I think the benefits of doing that is that I can show you how to expose yourself to good art and things of beauty, the more we look at them, the better we can do compositions and develop good taste. And if you are willing, I will actually show you how I copy ancient artist and discover their secrets, no better way than to try their paintings. We will see what we can do, more fun videos to come.

Ok, so the details of why I use the combination of the color will be in the video, you can’t miss it. The watercolor I used are Burnt Umber, Transparent Red Oxide, Lamps black, Payne’s Gray, Indigo and my usual green mix ( Perlene Green, sap green and Cadm Yellow light, Little sepia if needed) Indigo is big for me, I like the grayish blue color. Part of the feathers on their back are a mix of yellow ochre and Sepia. I usually tell you in details as I picked up the colors. I used a 4 inches by 12 inches piece of arches watercolor paper, also explained in detail the reason for this. And my usual Chinese fine detailed brush, a very fine Princeton detailed brush and a little less detailed brush. I may have used a bigger mop brush for the background.

I talked a little about my injured foot and my awful RSV experience in the video. My foot is doing better but not all well, I am extremely inpatient with it, I want to be well and go snow shoeing, but the swelling is actually hurting here and there. Hope and pray for quicker recovery. I felt trapped, I know I am a baby.

In the video I showed you guys my thrifting find of a frame that is odd size. I really like to know if you guys like to go thrifting. We have the local deseret industry and Savers, they are both very fun for me. I love to find frames to house my painting, so I hope when I am done distressing this frame I will post a pic here with these birds. I won’t do much with it, probably slightly distressing it with white color. I like frames that are a little bit ornate but not too over the top. Since most of my paintings are watercolor. Last week I actually find a watercolor ceramic dish I was thrilled to have. And I thrifted another painting print of a scene likely taken place in the Jane Austen ‘s time, like a ball with people conversing. I will likely not keep that print and paint something else for it. As much as I love love reading Jane Austen’s book, and am very grateful for her to open up a period of history in England for us to learn and to see, I do not like the social setting then. Too much sadness and it was hard to be rich and hard to be poor. I hate the gossiping part and the pressures the young people must be experiencing. So that painting kind of reminds me of that. Often time I like to look at painting for uplifting reason, especially those that I put around the home. Remind me of nature, beautiful things that suggest to my mind that I should go hiking or go on a walk. I like seascape too. If the painting were old english countryside, I would have kept it. But I do want to clarify that I love Museum, I have great admiration for artist that can paint war, chaos, sadness, propaganda, etc. Because a lot of skill and feeling goes into those painting, and I will not hesitate giving respect to those amazing artist, but I like to go to museums to see those art. I prefer home to be a little bit more peaceful. I have a great imagination, thats why you can find me standing in front of a painting for a long time, just for the reason that I maybe totally engaged in the imagination in my mind and having a really good time. Do you go to Museums? Do you enjoy historical paintings. Those are all treasures to me. I hope I can capture some beautiful painting in our Museum and Library and talked about them here.

Thank you again for coming. Hope you have a wonderful week and keep those brushes wet.

Kathy