Watercolor on 300 lb paper $100.00  8 by 10 inches
Rembrandt is one of my Koi,& as most of you know, I name my fish after famous artists.

In a letter to Huyghens, Rembrandt offered the only surviving explanation of what he sought to achieve through his art: the greatest and most natural movement.” Whether this refers to objectives, material or otherwise is open to interpretation; either way, Rembrandt seamlessly melded the earthly and spiritual as has no other painter in Western art.

One of my favorite paintings of Rembrandt’s “The Mill”

A few more finishing touches and this commissioned painting will be ready to send to it happy owner.  

This is a family of Koi… The two larger fish are the parents, the white is the female and the black is the male.  The little Koi are their offspring which are always protected by the parents.  

This piece is 22 by 22 on 300 lb artist grade Arches pure white paper.

If you would like me to paint a koi painting for you, just send me an Email,  and we can discuss it!

shantimarie@mac.com

This is a close up of my work In progress.

Acrylic on ampersand  8 by 10 75.00

This monocromatic painting is done in a deductive  or (negative painting) manner.  This is where you paint the entire board with the colors you wish, in this case the mid value, then pull out the lights while  also adding the dark.   Sometimes you’ll put in some darks and pull out the item either to mid value or to light value.    This painting was completed as an exercise we  did at Wild Acres.  Our instructor was Phil Garett ( SC “Golden” Rep) .  We were using the long awaited for… “OPEN” acrylics.  Since this technique takes some time to finish, its the perfect opportunity to try these slow drying paints.

You might like to try this little exercise… You don’t have to do anything to the ampersand board it comes ready to go.   We went outside and picked up items like flowers or seed pods and used it as a bit of inspiration.  I chose leaves because I love fall leaves and always try to paint some each year.

“Negative” painting just means you paint around the object your trying to depict rather than painting the object directly.  Usually by using value and color counterpoint to create the illusion of the object.  It’s frequenly a technique one does in watercolor and it can be very challenging for some folks because they have to think in terms of whats needed in the background to form the Foreground.  I use ampersand a lot but this was also a chance for those folks who don’t paint on this medium to give it a try.  If I could afford it, I paint many of my paintings on the stuff.  Its fast easy and consistent.  It comes in all sizes and can be framed very much likie an oil painting.  Of course you can frame it under glass if you wish and they look great either way.

Acrylic on archival mat board 8 by 10, $ 75.00 

 Its a beautiful day here in SC the kind you wait for all year.  Too bad I had to clean out my aquarium, house, pool and do books for most of the day.  Maybe tomorrow I’ll go to the lake and let the dogs swim.  It may be one of the last times this year for  the dogs to swim in the lake.  Once it gets cold  only one of my dogs will  even get into  the water.

 I planned a play date for them, isn’t it funny to actually have a play date for dogs?  Well if you want to get a lot of work done its best to wear them out.  It takes a lot to get themso tired they lay down for the rest of the day.  Its one way to get things done without having too many winey complaints.