Watercolor abstract leaves painting and holiday cards

This is a large watercolor and right now it’s in the gallery waiting for a home. I’ve been painting big lately and it feels really good. There’s lots of underpainting and patience in preserving the white areas in this work. That’s really necessary to keep the colors clean and the feeling fresh. The basic idea to start with was to take leaves and branches from my little
garden and draw and paint from life as the composition.
Painting from life has always been my favorite way to go. The colors and shapes point me in the right direction. I did some underpainting with inks on completely saturated full sheets. I used my fingers and didn’t use a brush for the underpainting.
I stuck the very wet paper to a big sheet of plexiglass and it sticks very well and stays wet a long time. I can dry it between takes in the sun. This is my favorite style of painting. It reminds me so much of how I used to paint in California years ago. It’s liberating. Someday when I grow up, I’ll make a video of the technique.
I’ve been remiss in posting for many reasons I think we are all feeling. Lockdowns, covid fears, busy with life chores, some health issues and the list goes on. Anywho, I’ve had a bit of a difficult mountain to climb but I’m happy to say it’s hopefully over. I have lots of new art challenges and I’m facing them head on.
With the work at home as normal now and the new lifestyle settling in, painting has taken on a new pleasant dimension. I surround myself with studying intently trying to catch up on my digital drawing that I haven’t done in a long time. I even bought Affinity Designer software which is completely wonderful. Photoshop is still my go to but I love what this program does afford. I’m beginning to have some time with it.
Since we got through Thanksgiving and have a little less than a month before Christmas, I’ve been busy designing and redesigning my holiday greeting cards. It’s kind of amazing to realize how many I have drawn and painted over the years. This is kind of goofy fun because it’s so flippant. I still try to put some thought into each one and people love them and yes, they get it. The season is very short when you are trying to play catch up on time. Everybody knows you should start December in June but hey, stuff happens. It’s been fun playing catch up and I’m posting one card a day on my Facebook page.
I have done two more large paintings and I will post them to catch up.