Eclectic Studio - Tammy Morrison-Koenig

3.5 * 5.75 inch Inspired by this miniature painting I did of this street scene I thought I would tackle a 1/2 sheet version. Starting with the largest color masses I started to block in some local color, deepened the shadow side of the pillars and places the first wash of neutrals in the middle line of windows. and this is where I am right now. Popped in some more color in to the 2 remaining flags, some reflective shapes in the main cars window and added a little crimson to indicate where my darkest darks will be on the cars. This serves a 2 fold purpose. It will serve as a mapping system if my pencil lines get smudged, it also gives we a constant under painting color, which will add continuity once the subsequent glazes are applied. The rich darks are starting to get placed now. Keep in mind that this is just the initial glazes. It will become allot darker in the future. A little more work done on the foreground shadows and the reflections have been started on the cars. The

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

  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

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.

HI all, I would like to introduce you to my youngest boy - i couldnt resist trying to capture the toothless grin that he is famous for. This started out ok with the line drawing and the diox purple underpainting - but now it has got to the ugly stage and i am forcing myself to work through it. His skin tones were painted using rose madder and yellow ochre. Way to yellow for him so i am going to add a layer or 2 of perm rose just to try and tone it out a bit. If there are any portrait artists out there I could really use some help trying to correct these issues. The next installment of Xander is here. It is starting to pop, I started this session by masking out his eyes and a few highlights in his hair before i proceeded to start adding a large wash of his skin tones focusing on transitions between the yellows and reds. After a few layers to build up tone, I went back in with a very light wash of cobalt blue and started "carving out" some shadows. Still looking p

Another art card 2.5 * 3.5 inch just trying to keep my paints wet. For the skin tones I used a mix of yellow ochre and rose madder (yes i do know that it is a fugitive color) with some UMB thrown in for the shadows. The background was painted with hookers green deep and cerelean blue, and the shirt comprises of hookers green, yellow ochre and rose madder for the shadows.

I apologize in advance to all the fish people out there. This painting was not so much an excersize in anatomy then it was on learning a new brush. My absolute favorite new brush. The angle shader. :) It can get into the nooks and crannies, it can produce wide strokes like my flats and fine dots like my liner but without having to switch brushes. YEAH Going to get another one that is designed for watercolor. This one is a little stiff.

Just playing around. Measuring 2.5 * 3.5 inches this watercolor offered alot of challenges. 1. Have done 3 acrylic pieces in a row and going from acrylic to watercolor is like re-teaching yourself how to paint. 2. The size- many year ago when I started to paint it was all very small sizes- as I didnt want to waste paper ;) but over the years i have learned that it is WAY easier to work washes on a large scale. Trying to get into all those tiny nooks and crannies are a big pain. See my clown painting in progress. LOL

You learn from experience- What started out to be a drawing exercise... escalated! A Small 7*9 watercolor - 15 min free hand sketch. Trying to better my perspective drawing, as I am No Landscape painter! This was done with a very limited pallet, consisting of UMB, BS, Cobalt, Yellow Ochre and a touch of rose madder and of course the mud left over on my palette from other paintings ;) Few things I learned, PLAN, PLAN, PLAN This is a very flat toned busy painting. I lost alot of my highlights because the man in front was kind of a last min addition and the tall lady on the stoop was scrubbed back, If you look closely you can see where her head once was. The painting is missing its "sunshine" Warm tones, they seem to have got lost amongst all the greys. Still overall I am still pretty happy with it- matting and framing really do make the difference!

Here are a few bookmarks that I put together. This has been an insanly busy last few months so in place of my usual Christmas card I will be giving these out.

In this mini demo, I decided to test out some colors from the bottom of the paint tub. Using 3 colors 1 red, 1 yellow, and 1 blue and all the mixes that fall in between, no reference and painted with my left hand( I a righty) These quick 15 min studies show how color really influence the overall feel of a painting. From top to bottom RED- perm rose BLUE - Phalo and YELLOW- lemon all of these colors are quite cool in temp and very staining. Feels like late day - very hazy not a bad little color study Painting 2 RED - Crimson BLUE- turquoise YELLOW- Cad Med- Feels like mid day storm approaching. Dont like the painting its self and if i was to do another one i would add more contrast in the sky, reserving some whites while adding more yellow-orange. Also would strengthen the RED - VanDyke YELLOW- Burnt Sienna Ans BLUE- Ultramarine Really love this painting-stong contrast, which makes it feel moody. Gives a definate time of day, and the composition isnt to bad either.

Well I have been meaning to paint this for a while now, as you can see it is a little intimidting. In this watercolor demo I started with a detailed line drawing and then started bouncing around adding some local color to the clown faces with a wash of yellow ochre and cad red. After that dries i start placing some shadows using a thin wash of cobalt. The darks of the eyes are a mix of cad red, hunter green deep and paynes grey. Worked a little on the upper portion of the painting today. Really like the oranges against the blue. Just makes that litle portion sing. This painting reminds me of "paint by number" and with all the little variations i almost have to treat it that way. Day 4 and aprox 15 hours into it.. hmm i may be able to get this done by the end of the year. ;) This time around i worked a little adding my oranges (grumbacher red and gamboge) deeper values were made by adding a little burnt sienna. This will be heightened even more later on in the painting when