Progress slowing now

Now that the trees in the background are done I am getting to the fun part. The fine detail. I have not had time to work on this as much as I would like but this stage will go slower now too. As you can see in the close up the detail is starting to appear. I love this stage. The painting is starting to look like the place I am trying to represent.

Friday progress on Wingard's Nursery

Ahhhhh the background trees are about done! Standing back from my drawing board I really like what I see but I will still adjust them as I work on the rest of this.

As you can see I have put in the first wash of color on the roof, finished the chimney and made a start on the lattice of the gazebo and the arbor on the right. To finish the chimney I only put in a few bricks using a template. The viewer's eye will finish what I have left out.

Landscape progress today

Faced with all that green in the background I decided to crop 2 inches off the top of this layout. It will make for a more intimate landscape as well.

Every time I do trees in the background I learn more. To speed things up I did blocks of color and then chopped leaf like shapes in a few areas by drawing in the negative space around the leaves with Indigo. To make the darker more distant areas look further back I went over all the dark areas with Cerruliean blue. Adding light areas in the background under the overhanging trees adds a feeling of depth and distance. I Did that with white pencil in little leaf shapes to show the little bits of light that makes it to a few leaves under the overhanging trees.

Leaving little openings through the trees so you can see the sky makes the trees look more realistic. I am going to add more later with white acrylic paint. If you study trees they are really lacy and you can see a lot of sky through them. These trees are a bit more dense in reality and you can't see a lot of sky through them.

By using different strokes for deciduous trees and pines helps move the work along. I only added a few areas of truly leafy looking work the rest is just clumps of color. This will let the eye of the viewer finish the area for me without drawing in all those leaves!

I laid down some yellow ochre where I wanted pine and then inscribed incised lines with my ball tip tool to indicate needles on the tree. Going over that with olive green and indigo makes them look piney. Adding a bit more yellow ochre at the tips delineates the clumps of needles a bit more.

This is an amazing amount of progress in one afternoon. I am happy with it. I hope to finish that background tomorrow.

New landscape

I have had a landscape rolling around in my head for about a year now. It is Wingard's Azaleas on the corner of N. Lake Dr. and Pilgrim Church Rd. in Lexington. I finally got around to getting my photo shoot done this week. This photo is actually 4 photos stitched together in Photoshop Elements.

I started the layout (11" x29") yesterday and began the watercolor under painting today. Right now it looks pretty scary! I hate this stage!

Stay tuned I will update this as it progresses.

My class Yorkie is done!

I finished my yorkie from last week's class. I love this little dog. The finished size of this one is 6.5 x 10" I think I will sell it in my EBay store. I am running out of wall space at home!!! ;O)

Good news I was able to get the church reserved to hold another CP class in September. This will be the last one I can do before next spring. My schedule is filling up!!! If you are intersted in joining us drop me an email. gretchenparker@earthlink.net

I have also taken my Ampersand Rose to the Art Spot Gallery in the Old Mill. I have several other pieces there too. If you are local go take a look. It's a fun place to see works by many area artists.

Last CP class tonight

Tonight was the last class in this session. It's been a lot of fun. So much in fact we plan to do another one in September for three weeks. Let me know if you are interested.


Here are the photos of the progress members made tonight. Sadly some of our students got sick and missed the last few classes. Also I just realized I didn't get around to the stars of our class with my camera. Sorry Monica and Tyler. Your work shows promise! I sure am glad we didn't have to send either of you to the naughty chair! :O)

CP class last night

We added a watercolor under painting to our project last night. Not being much of a watercolor artist myself I think many of the students could have taught me a thing or two. Here is what we accomplished last night. Tonight I hope to add a lot more pencil. I can't believe this class is going to end tonight. It's been a lot of fun and I think everyone has enjoyed it!

My First Local CP Class in Lexington

Thanks to Paula Grookett's urging I have been teaching a local CP class at Pilgrim Church here in town. Paula took a class with me on Ann Kullberg's (www.annkullberg.com) CP Caribbean Cruise last spring. If you ever have a chance to take a CP cruise with Ann I highly recommend it! Ann is a blast and such a wonderful artist. She has some super artists teach with her. Nicole Caulfield (http://www.nicolecaulfield.com) taught with me on the one last spring. Ann has two more planned. If you are interested take a look at Ann's site.

I have spent this week trying to get a website up. I was able to get my own domain name: www.gretchenevansparker.com Too bad I don't have anything on it yet. I know a little bit about using Dreamweaver from my Ebay days but I have never tried to put up a website without using a template from the server. It's been an exercise in frustration so far and my resident computer geek, daughter, is on her way to Europe today. Stay tuned........

July 12, 2008 My First Blog Entry

I decided I need a blog to share what I have been working on and to keep a record for myself too.

This past week has been eventful. I gave my first colored pencil class locally. There were 15 students for three evenings. It's been a lot of fun for me to watch them all progress. I will be giving three more classes next week and hope to get a photo of the class that I can share.

While cruising the Caribbean and teaching with Ann Kullberg and Nicole Caulfield in May, Nicole introduced me to Ampersand pastel board. When we got back home I ordered three 8" x 10"pieces in gray, green and sand to play with.

This was my first try on green Ampersand board. It is done from a shot taken in my husband's rose garden one morning after the sprinklers had run. The dark background is watercolor enhanced with colored pencil. Ampersand takes watercolor well!

Then after my California family went home last week I did this one of our granddaughter. I used the gray board.

I didn't like the skin tones so I did it again on the sand colored one and I love it! The skin tones are so much warmer.

I hope my California children will. I am going to give it to them.









I love working on Ampersand. The work goes so fast. These paintings would have taken me literally weeks on Stonehenge paper. While the rose took me about a week, I finished the first portrait in three days while cleaning up the house from our children's visit as well as throwing a dinner party. The second one was completed in less than 8 hours! Amazing for CP!