Sunday Sketches, Sort Of...

Although these collage paintings do not qualify under the sketch category, they originated from my sketch of last week.

These watercolor/water-based oil collage paintings evolved with input from Bernie Bleha, the instructor of the workshop I have been attending.

This first one I did last week and brought to class today. I love the shapes created by tearing watercolor paper; my old paintings.


Bernie suggested I add more interest by breaking up the shapes.


I was on a roll......

This next one came together quickly as I focused on bright colors, patterns, and shapes.


My fingers need a break, but I WILL BE BACK!

More Sunday Sketchers.....

Water Lilies on the Trail

The yellow water lilies have begun to bloom on the ponds along the Chehalis Western Trail in Olympia, Washington. Click on the image to get a closer view.

It is just the beginning and I plan to return for more photos as water lilies are one of my favorite subjects.




A lovely spot to sit and observe nature......



Stay tuned, there might be a watercolor painting one of these days.

Latest Watercolor Painting

Feeling caught up with my house projects at the moment, I spent time creating another watercolor painting of water lilies........one of my favorite subjects.

Although this is the third rendition of this painting, each time it is a new experience. I went more colorful and if you look closer, I used the watercolor in layers actually getting paint thick as if using oils. What fun!


Waterlilies 3
Joanne Osband

I might be on to a new painting technique. Stay tuned.......

Monet's Gardens in Giverny

Have you been captivated by Monet's paintings of water lilies as I have? Someday I will visit his gardens in Giverny, France.

There are two parts in Monet's garden: a flower garden called Clos Normand in front of the house and a Japanese inspired water garden on the other side of the road. The two parts of Monet's garden contrast and complement one another.

The Clos Normand

The land is divided into flowerbeds where flower clumps of different heights create volume. Fruit trees or ornamental trees dominate the climbing roses, the long -stemmed hollyhocks and the coloured banks of annuals. Monet mixed the simplest flowers (daisies and poppies) with the most rare varieties.

The central alley is covered over by iron arches on which climbing roses grow. Other rose trees cover the balustrade along the house. At the end of the summer nasturtiums invade the soil in the central alley.

Claude Monet did not like organized nor constrained gardens. He married flowers according to their colours and left them to grow rather freely.

With the passing years he developed a passion for botany, exchanging plants with his friends Clemenceau and Caillebotte. Always on the look-out for rare varieties, he bought young plants at great expense. "All my money goes into my garden," he said. But also: "I am in raptures."

The Water Garden

The water garden is full of asymmetries and curves. It is inspired by the Japanese gardens that Monet knew from the prints he collected avidly.

In this water garden you will find the famous Japanese bridge covered with wisterias, other smaller bridges, weeping willows, a bamboo wood and above all the famous nympheas which bloom all summer long. The pond and the surrounding vegetation form an enclosure separated from the surrounding countryside.

Never before had a painter so shaped his subjects in nature before painting them. And so he created his works twice. Monet would find his inspiration in this water garden for more than twenty years. After the Japanese bridge series, he would devote himself to the giant decorations of the Orangerie.

Always looking for mist and transparencies, Monet would dedicate himself less to flowers than to reflections in water, a kind of inverted world transfigured by the liquid element.



Nympheas
Claude Monet

In Katherine Tyrrell's blog you can watch a slide show from the photos she took on her recent visit to the gardens.