Eclectic Studio - Tammy Morrison-Koenig

Hi everyone, Its been a bit since I posted last. Been kinda down dealing with all the snow we have been getting. From 25 to -2 and blizzard conditions in 24 hours. EEk. But my garden survived and is thriving.. now i just want the sun to peek out again. Anyways, here is a small painting I did for the WDE over at wetcanvas. I was drawn to this photo for the twisting winding shapes and the textures on the yellow bulbous masses. Now to try and capture that. After I drew out the general shapes and masked out the yellow bulbs I started an under painting with some gambouge for the sunshine and turquoise for the shadows with a little rose madder thrown in for good measure. ;) Next I came back with glazes of sap green for overall continuity. And some more glazes of turquoise and gamouge.. making sure the layers are dry. After the masking was remove I came back in and stippled in some lemon yellow, gambouge, lt red and orange. ** special note, take care not to cover the entire white space

Hi everyone. Well summer is quickly moving in in this neck of the woods so I have been busy digging my garden beds and planting some vedgies. I already have onions, radishes, spinach, carrots and beets coming up. :) As well I have been busy with getting 3 back to back commission pieces - in pencil. Kinda funny since I usually work in watercolors. hmmm. Thinking maybe I should rethink my focus. LOL Anyways this is my latest. It is a picture of "Lad" a border collie with a wonderful story behind him. In the reference picture one of Lad's eyes was closed - so I opened it up and added a stick in the foreground - I guess he is a fetcher. :) Working with black fur is not easy. Even though it looks black there are 3-4 values within those darks. Good morning. :) So in this installment the fur is starting to "fluff" up and you can start to see the many shadows involved in the underside of the puppy. Also the woodwork is starting to get some texture in it. I am also go

  This is one of my most helpful tips - create color cards. I have about 100 of these tiny 5*7 reference cards that show different color mixes under different circumstances. Some for people, landscapes, floral etc. This one represents some caucasian skin tone color mixes. There are alot of people out there that use Cadmium red in their mixes but i find that it doesnt lend it self to glazing well and it is a pretty strong color. If I use it it is usually right at the end for detailing.

This is what happens when a painting paints itself. I started this little piece by wetting my paper and just dropping in some color. reserving some lights - as the darks I can always paint in later. Let it dry. Now it is just rotating your picture until you see pattern you like and start "carving" the image out. This painting started out as a 6*6 and ended up beign an art card size. I will probaby use the extra in either a scrap booking page or a collage.

Just doodling and this what I came up with- I thought it was done after the first shot but it needed atmosphere to go along with mood. So i added some bushes in the front, and yet it was still missing something- so i went back in added the fence and deepened the shadows a little. Im thinking the shadow behind him is a little off it should be taller abd skinnier and sitting more off to the right a little - but oh well. One of the joys of watercolor is it is very hard to correct mistakes. These little paintings start out with a few simple Random brush strokes on a comination of wet/dry paper, I let them dry and them find pattern with in what was and work with it. That way your brain has the chance to switch over to the left and paint "what you see.. not what you think you see" Thank you Betty Edwards ;) These are my versions thumbnails.

When i started painting i was overwhelmed with the amount of tube color out there. But I soon came to find the best color mixes are the ones you make yourselves. Greens are a prime example of this. One day I was bored and pulled out every watercolor in my paint box and do a simple color chart. This color chart is very valuable when it comes to seeing the saturation, opacity, staining quality, and any special notes or qualities that the color may have. But out of this rainbow I only use the first 11 colors on a regular basis, adding an exotic color every once in a while just to switch it up a bit. A palette is such a personal choice and not all people will be drawn to using certain colors, I use palette because of its simplicity. A warm and cool of each color and neutral mixer (burnt sienna). I am looking at switching my warm red from napthol (grumbacher) red to more of a transparent. When I was working on March of the clowns I found that this red was NOT a good glazier as it seemed to

Just waiting for some supplies to come in so I can start working on my latest commission, and since it has been a few years since I did anything in black and white so i thought i would start a small ink piece to try and work on my values. I am working this piece with a sz 03 micron pen. It has been so long since i brought my pens out that they have almost dried up - which is exactly what i needed to get this piece going. Ink is VERY unforgiving so you have to work slowly judging lights against darks and building up your darker values. You cant go back in and erase it later. About 6 hours into this already and it is only 8*10. Yes I am still working on my Xander portrait ;) 7.5"*8" Ink on paper For Sale $85 USD

Love to hear what you think?

6.5" * 8.25 Watercolor on 140lb $220 USD For Sale Matted and Mounted Im such a techno weenie. I do have a WIP for this painting somewhere around here, I started it last winter i just dont know how to bump and archived post.

First of all I would like to apologize for this being a little backwards :( Wedding in 4 days and not alot of time to fix this. But I hope you can follow along. Pretty happy with the way this has come along time to put in the final details and darks in the wings.. sign it and call it a day. please excuse the photography,the last image is the only one i take the time to try to get as close to real colors as possible. Working on the front wing you will notice that it is slightly brighter and rosier - a few washes of perm rose maybe one of cobalt in the center followed by a few more of perm rose finish off by a few of raw sienna and add some glow with a little lemon yellow. I save lemon yellow and any cads until the last - they dont seem to play well with others. ;) going to go back now and fix that horribly bright background using a fairlay rick mix of paynes grey, this is quite transparent so all those pretty colors you mimicked in your background will still show through. Now doesnt t