Paperwhites

“Narcissus, single stem”, ©Jill Rosoff 2007, 12″ x 4″ $125.00

I love it when bulb season starts.  I bought my first pot of paperwhite narcissus (of many, knowing me) at Trader Joe’s the day before yesterday.  Since I first grew tulips from bulbs I’ve loved bulb flowers–narcissus, daffodils and tulips mostly.  And they don’t grow easily in Southern California, they need cold weather, so I have abandoned trying to grow them here, I just buy them.  When I lived in the house with a garden in Berkeley I grew tulips for a couple of years (see my August 15, 2008 entry).  I did a lot of my early watercolor explorations from that garden.

The paperwhites are particularly interesting to paint, because its a white blossom. In watercolor, the white area is left alone, there’s no color on it, its just the white paper.  Its an exercise of negative space.  I want to articulate the delicate and sensuous shapes and curves of each petal and flower, while maintaining its white-ness.  So its an exercise, of which color to use for rendering those lovely shapes, and how delicately I can apply it.

This piece is a little larger than my small works, but I decided to add it to the blog today to celebrate that the holiday season is starting.  And that there are new ‘models’ available again!

Workshop series starting up in January

I’m very happy to announce that I’ll be giving watercolor workshops in Costa Mesa next year.  The sessions will be held on alternate Saturdays starting January 9th, from 9:30 am to 12:30 pm. These will be informal workshops aimed at helping those who come with their watercolors and their techniques.   Attendees are welcome to bring any paintings they are currently working on, ideas for new projects, and to those who have little or no experience, bring your desire to learn how to paint with watercolors.  I will help you along with your paintings, give demonstrations on technique as the situations arise, and I’ll work with each painter to help them achieve the painting they they want.

Please contact Karen at Karen’s Custom Framing, where the classes will be held, to sign up.  The room holds 8, and 3 people are already signed up!  The cost is $25 per person per session.

Tell your friends!

KAREN’S DETAIL CUSTOM FRAMES

3625 West MacArthur Blvd., Suite 303

Santa Ana,CA 92704

714-966-9138

karen@karenscustomframes.com

http://www.karenscustomframes.com

Drank the whole thing

“Finished with My Coffee”, © Jill Rosoff 2009, 5 1/5″ x 8 1/2″, $75.00

The empty cup stares back at me after I finish my morning coffee.  >sigh!<

With this painting I had to decide whether to paint it with coffee in the cup.  Up until this piece I had yet to do one of an empty cup, and I’d just finished my morning cup o’ joe, so I went with that moment, you know, when you long for just one more sip.  Thinking about it I found that I was looking at the shadows falling in the empty bowl of the cup, especially as they added an unexpected swirl in the composition, a happy happenstance.  The pastel colors of the coffee cup popped when I contrasted them with the yellow with red striping of the table cloth.

A Pretty Great View

“A Pretty Great View”  ©Jill Rosoff 2009, 5″ x 8″, $65.00

I just went on my first away-from-it-all vacation in 5 years, back to Hawaii, an old favorite.  For me, Waikiki is one of my favorite beaches, you can sit and do nothing and still be completely entertained.  The view is spectacular, and even though civilization continues creeping in an taking over, there are still some things that will always be special.  And even though I managed not to pack my camera (egad!), between some sketches, my cell phone’s camera (!) and my deep memory, I’ve done some watercolor sketches.  Here’s the first one of the land of aloha.

Cup and spoon

“Blue Cup on Yellow Table” ©Jill Rosoff 2009, 5″ x 8 1/2″, $75.00

I’ve been away on vacation, my first real one in a long time, so please forgive my long absence from this blog!  It was really good to get away, leave all cares behind.  And Hawaii called, it really did.

This piece is an iteration of “In Blue and Yellow” that I posted on August 26th this year, revisiting the colors and the arrangements of the elements.  I rarely revisit a composition so specifically, but this one just pings with me.  It ended up dealing mostly with primary colors, with secondary and tertiary colors showing up pretty much just when their layers met one another, except for a little magenta I couldn’t resist using.

Chromatic cups

Chromatic Cups, ©Jill Rosoff 2009, 6″ x 10 1/4″, $100.00

This set of four espresso cups has appeared in many of my Coffee Cup series of paintings.  I found them years ago in San Francisco, I think, when I lived in Berkeley.  The colors caught my eye and I was smitten, which happens to me so often.  I thought I’d use them for  espresso, but they have modeled more often for paintings.  I like my espresso a’ latte!

I’m often in a place in one of these paintings where I want to show a difference between a shadow that is cast which is the result of bright light being blocked, and the shade on the side of an object that faces away from the light source.  Its a test to convincingly illustrate the differences–one is a surface in shade, the other is the blocking of light by an object on a surface.  Where is a shadow that is cast versus where is the lack of direct light.

Cups and squiggles

“Two Demitasse on tablecloth” ©Jill Rosoff 2009, 8 1/2″ x 5 1/2″, $65.00

One of the interesting things about this series coffee cup pieces is the choices I have for the environment the coffee cups are set in. More often than not in my mind its a kitchen or breakfast table, near a window with a view to a garden and sunshine is pouring in.    The visual questions are along the lines of:  will the focus be more on an architectural kind of layout, the color composition, or on the cups, the table surface, the other elements of the painting?  Ultimately the painting’s completion is due to a combination of them, but the journey on each piece is different.

If you can smell the coffee and the hot croissants…ahhh!  so much the better.

More Gerberas

“Gerberas in Green Bottle” ©Jill Rosoff 2009, sample clip of painting in progress

I first saw gerberas when I was working in a law firm (really!) in San Francisco oh so many years ago.  One day the sole female partner brought a bunch of them in to put in her office.  It was a ‘wow’ moment for me, watching her walk by with the bouquet.  I honestly didn’t believe they were real flowers.  I was enthralled with the oh-so-long stems, the vivid colors, and all of those long daisy petals.  And the backs of the petals were a whole different color, but really, simply a paler tone of the frontside color.  They were like bright fireworks frozen on to the end of an impossibly long stem.

What I’m showing here is just one section of a new painting in progress, a tall, narrow piece.  The full painting is 6″ wide by 24″ long.  I wanted to show just this bit of it here, zeroing on the petals.  The finished painting shows the full-length flowers and stems in a green glass bottle.  It will be available through my website (click on the orange tulips over there on the right) once it’s completed.

A side note, from the ‘who knew’ file: the stats for this blog show that ‘gerber daisies’ is one of the top searches and most often viewed posts on my page.  so thanks to all who look for and find the paintings!!

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In Blue and Yellow

“Blue and Yellow Cup” ©Jill Rosoff 2009, 5″ x 8 1/2″, $75.00

This is the newest addition to my series of paintings of coffee cups.  There is something quiet and peaceful about sitting with my coffee in the morning, waking up, sun shining in on the table, sorting out my thoughts, planning the day.  My friend Paula did an etching of a coffee cup and spoon that I saw years ago at her house, which stuck with me ever since, so along with my morning coffee fix, she and her print are is as much an inspiration for these paintings.  This one also became a color homage to the  kitchen at Monet’s house in Giverny.

First plumeria of the season

“First of the Season”  5 1/2″ x 8 1/2″  ©Jill Rosoff 2009,  $100.oo

Here it is.  This was my first plumeria bloom this year, that I watched and waited so patiently for.  The view is from the top of the plant, its just 3′ tall, so I look down on it when I’m next to it.  There’s many more now, a gift that keeps on giving.  Thanks for the cutting, Mom!   And the pink plumeria tree downstairs in the patio started blooming 2 days ago.  Smells like heaven!