As promised, here is way too much information about my addiction to palettes (all photos are clickable). It's a long and littered road.....

Lipstick or Stealth Palette Business card included for scale

Stealth Palette closed

This is the Stealth Palette, formerly a lipstick sampler from Trish McEvoy. I use this when I'm sketching out in public and don't particularly care for anyone to know. It is the size of a thick credit card. I spray painted the mirror area with white gloss enamel for a wash area.

Angora Palette Business card included for scale

This little palette was given to me. The paints that came in it were like chalk so I tossed 'em and put in my preferred colors. Since it didn't have enough wells, I altered it by adding my own. The top was painted with white gloss enamel to make it easier to see the paint colors in a wash. If you look at the lower right hand corner, you'll notice the broken corner. That's one of the downsides to plastic palettes—they do break! (But it's still functional!)

Daler-Rowney Palette Empty and Unaltered

Altered and filled!

Altered Quarter Pan Palette Note the "legend" of paint names in the upper lefthand corner

27 Half-Pan Palette

"You know what you get when you beat a horse, not just to death, but beyond recognition?" she asked. "Horse feathers!"

Watercolor Sketch from an Imaginary Visit Through Autumn 2010 5" x 5"

For some reason it always seems like Autumn starts in November. Perhaps it's because I live in Florida and that's usually when we begin to see a change in the weather. The humidity drops and a few trees begin to shed their leaves. Our big Maple trees are dropping their leaves early, without the usual color change. I think because of the drought we're in.

We had about a dozen trick-or-treaters last night. They're one of my highlights of the year as you never know what they'll say. One young gentleman was covered with "wounds"—gashes in his shirt and "blood" everywhere. When I commented that it look like he'd been beaten up, he informed me, "No, it's fake blood!"

Who knew?!! ;•)

Another young man (a psycho football player with an evil clown face) was quite pleased to see that I was going to drop a couple of Kit Kat bars in his bag. "Oooooooohhhhhh, I love Kit Kats!!!" he exclaimed. I heard him inform his Mom, "She gave me Kit Kats!!" Funny how something so simple can bring such pleasure.....a lesson in there for the rest of us?!

Two months to go before we close the books on 2010....I find myself looking at my goals, assessing the year, looking at whether I still have anything left that I need to focus in on and put some effort towards. How about you? Has your year shaped up as you envisioned in January?

Are you pleased with what you've accomplished and where you are, or are you like me and need to regroup and apply yourself to a couple of areas?

Now's the time!

You may be wondering what in the world this is suppose to be? A new art form perhaps? An art project gone wrong? Day of the Dead a few days early?! No.................

Back when Sam (my muse) and I were going to the fabric shop in search of the perfect material with which to make a new purse, Chris accompanied us on one of our trips. He happened up on some material that he thought would make a perfect work shirt....skulls in batik!

....mud!!!! And I know this. I know this. I know this. And I did it anyway.

Detail of Vignette Page in Handbook Watercolor Journal 1.35" x 4.25"

Actually, blue and orange don't make mud. I made mud because of the way I applied the color. Blue and orange make some gorgeous, textural browns and grays depending on the pigments used. However, if you try to lift after you realize you've made a mistake, expect mud! Or at the very least to overwork it.

You see, this is an image from the Imaginary Visit Through Autumn! that is currently going on and the image above is my "loose" interpretation of it. I started painting this on the vignette page you can see in full on this post. Since the background was already painted, I should have just left well enough alone  and used it as it was. But no. Oh, no, that would have been too easy! No, I decided to put blue back there because......it was in the photo reference!

Have you ever found yourself doing that when you're working from a photo reference? Doing something that you know would look better if you followed your muse's suggestion or just didn't do something but felt compelled to because it was there in the photo reference staring you in the face?! It's almost like an out-of-body experience! You can hear your muse yelling, "Noooooooooooooo!!!" in a small voice far, far away.

And we do it anyway.

That, I think, is the biggest downfall (taboo?) of using photo references—our artistic sensibilities take a back seat. We go on auto pilot. I also think overcoming that downfall is a tough job. For me, it is an ongoing fight to raise my awareness to stay off auto pilot and not assume that the photo reference knows better than me. Ugh!

I often tell the "travelers" on Imaginary Trips, "Make the image yours! You have a photo—make this an artistic representation!!" And yet, we (and I certainly include myself in this statement) are compelled to be good little artistic beings and put in every color, detail and tree that the photo shows us.

As disgusted as I am with myself for how the piece above turned out (because it was soooooo much better before I added that blue into the background and then tried to remove it because I knew it was a mistake before I ever touched the color to the paper!), I will continue to fight the good fight. I will continue to listen to my artistic muse....BTW, Sam, my muse, was woefully disappointed in my choices, and in me, for not listening to her.

I will continue to struggle and NOT forget to make the image mine REGARDLESS of what is in the photo reference! And so, I will be revisiting that image above and I will make it mine! I'm gonna show that photo reference who's boss!

Yes, I am a color junkie! Let me say that loud and proud! I have enough paint to last me another 137 years and that's if I painted everyday! If I paint at my current schedule I could probably stretch it to closer to 188 years. Maybe more. Yes, I'm definitely a hardcore color junkie.

On the Hunt 3.5 x 8.5 Handbook Watercolor Journal Ink, watercolor & gouache

The gremlins are running amok in my life. They've gotten into my video equipment, the sound equipment, software, online services, my email account and things I've mailed through the USPO.....just to name a few areas where they're having a jolly fine time wreaking havoc! I'm not sure if they're stirred up because of the full moon or if the axis of the earth is off by some slight millisecond or it's just my turn. Whatever it is, I'm more than tired of it and ready for some semblance of what passes for normal around here.

The image above (assuming Blogger loads it as it seems to have had its fair share of gremlins, too) is one based in symbolism. The colors, the design, the items represented in the piece all have special meaning to me. Someone else looking at it may wonder what the point of the art was, but when I look back at this page, I'll know. No words need to be written on the page.

Using symbols in our work to represent things we don't want to give voice to or any more importance than it already has, is a wonderful way of getting them onto the page and out of our heads. Now that I've put the gremlins on notice, I hope they go back to wherever they came from!

Update on the Handbook Watercolor Journal....if you look at the very top of the page and along the left side, you will note dark and light splotches in the pigment. This was caused by very uneven sizing. Sloppy, really. Luckily, the paint grabbed darkest at the top of the page and is suggestive of sky with clouds in front of it. The side splotches just look like a bad wash job!

Since I don't often do full page washes, I'm not overly concerned with it; however, because of this and a few other things I've noted along the way, I would only recommend this book from a standpoint of pure experimentation and play or to test the long format. It is unfortunate too, as this book will not become a staple sketchbook in my world because I do like the format very much. I think it would be better to make my own, with paper I prefer than live with the unpredictability of when and where uneven sizing may show up.

Jacqueline over at Art in My Heart, recently saw my looooooong goose neck in the looooooong format sketchbook and has shared a page on her blog from her Provence sketchbook! Go check it out!

I think I'm going to have to give this a whirl in my looooooong sketchbook! Be sure to note the random edges around the outside of the page as compared to the nice orderly edges within. (She even shares directions on how she did it!)

I've had these lovely pears sitting up on the counter for nearly a week now, patiently waiting for the tickle of the brush...

Handbook • Watercolor • Journal Watercolor 3.5 x 8.5 inches

This was done in much the same way as the leaves in this post. I wanted them loose and easy. No pencil was used in either sketch. In the sketch above, I rendered the shape of all three pears as one shape. Once the wash was dry, I went back and added further washes to break the shape into separate pieces of fruit. Shading and shadows were added last.

Handbook • Watercolor • Journal Watercolor 3.5 x 8.5 inches

I decided to have another go on the next page. Here, I painted the dark form shapes in one wash of Holbein's Mineral Violet. After that dried, I went back and added the various yellows, golds, reds, and browns. Last, I add a bit more shading to the fruit and to the table top. A couple of interesting notes I made to myself on this was that I was surprised to see how much I not only tightened up on the second sketch, but also decreased the size of the sketch.

After noticing the differences, I realized that I had not been sure how well the mineral violet would work out as the shadow color, let alone with the other colors added over it. Those "concerns" about whether or not I would succeed played a role in my decision making (to paint small) without me even being aware of it!

What might you be doing that holds you back?