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″, SOLD

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.