Marvin Szmit White Church by Ocean

This is my second submission for July 2014 Virtual Paintout challenge, it's watercolor on Arches paper.

When I saw this little white church by the ocean (ref), I was a bit torn. I liked the white and blue contrast that is very Greek, however, it's a bit clichė and I saw many paintings on VP with similar subjects already. However I still decided to go ahead because I thought the wall of the white church is perfect for water color, and I wanted to see how intense and saturated of a blue I can get the sky to be with water color. I also used masking ink during the painting process to reserve the white spots in the middle of darker colors, such as the crosses on the door. There was a blemish on the water color paper unfortunately and that had shown through on my sky. Next time I will experiment with other types of water color paper.

Morning View over Sengekontaket Pond

Every summer we go up to Martha's Vineyard. This is a morning view across the Sengekontacket Pond around 6:30, 7 in the morning when we went for our morning walk. I painted this view a couple of years ago with oil. This year since I'm traveling with water color, I decided to give the view another try with water color.

Acropolis Museum Two Horse Riders

This is for Virtual Painout July 2014 Greece challenge. It's water color on 7x10in Arche paper.

Greece is a very interesting place to travel virtually. I was looking around in Athens, and realized that the Acropolis Museum also has Google street view. I visited the museum virtually and decided to try to paint this wall sculpture with two horse riders. (Ref) 

This summer with all the travels I'm doing, I decided I would bring water color with me, instead of oil. Water color is easier to travel with. I bought some new brushes and paper from Blicks when I was in Boston. This wall sculpture I thought would be well suited for water color, and I also deepened the shadows to make the horses and horsemen pop out even more.

Primosky Kray Leisure reading

This is for Virtual Paintout June 2014 Russia challenge. It's oil on size SM (15.8x22.7 cm) canvas.

I chose this relatively straight forward view of a man sitting on lawn chair reading a book, but with the background much simplified. (Ref)  With this character study I wanted to show strong color combinations, blue, orange-red, yellow. Plus it's almost summer, this will lead nicely into the summer season!

Sunshine through the Woods

This painting was done referring to a painting in Mr. Abe Toshiyuki's water color art book. It's water color on 9x12 water color paper.

Mr. Tokshiyuki's water color works all have such zen like quality to them. In the book, he talked about using masking ink to block off areas for the leaves so all the deep colors can be added, and then with the masking ink removed, lighter colors can filled in at the end. I gave this technique a try a few days before his workshop this weekend. Plus, I'm memorizing as many of Japanese vocabularies as I can so that at least hopefully I won't be totally lost at the workshop, which will be held in Japanese. I'm really looking forward to it though.

Lago Buenos Aires Shore

This is my second submission for Virtual Paintout May 2014 Chile challenge. It's water color on  9x12 water color paper.

Recently I came across a book by a Japanese water color artist Abe Toshiyuki whose art works  of nature have a strong sense of light and meditative quality. I saw this book at a art supply store Sekaidou in Tokyo. The book was written mostly in Japanese, with partial English translation. I was learning both water color painting and a new language at the same time!

One of the techniques Mr. Toshiyuki employed was the use of masking fluid. I wanted to give it a try. So I used a scene which is not too far from the first scene I used for this month's challenge. (Ref). I thought water color would be great to paint water, and I used the masking fluid for the highlights of the leaves and lower vegetational. 

Dusty Road by Lagos Buenos Aires

This is for Virtual Paintout May 2014 Chile challenge. It's oil on 10x12 canvas panel.

This month's challenge contained mostly mountains, farms, and lakes. Roads often times were unpaved, so when vehicles drove by, there was quite a bit of dust. I thought I would have some fun with the dust while contrasting with the mountains and lake. I chose this scene with the pick up truck (Ref), and then kick up the color.