New paiting up on my new blog

Hi all,
I've got a new painting up at http://www.seamlessexpression.com/blog/2015/4/20/napa-river-flats

It's from out at the Napa River Flats, from a few months ago.  Come on over and take a peak.  If you want to get notices, subscribing is very easy and straight forward.  I'll be cross posting links like this for the next few posts, and then I'll be posting all content only on the new website.

Thanks for visiting!

Steve

I have a new website!

Hi everyone.  Exciting news!  I have been working on a new website and it is now live.  This blog, and all the old posts, have been ported to it, and I will be making all my new posts at that new address.  You'll be able to find me at-

www.seamlessexpression.com

Please come and subscribe to this new blog!  :)  Go to the homepage, and navigate to the blog.  From there, it's very easy to fill in your email address and get a simple email notice sent to you each time I update the blog.

The new site includes a bio, gallery of images, contact page, and a links page.  The gallery includes info on each image, as well as price, for those interested in buying.  The links page will be getting developed more over time, but it currently includes a list of active links to various watercolorists I greatly admire, as well as some info on my materials and setup (with appropriate links to buy some of it). 

Over the next month, I will be cross posting links here each time I post at the new blog, for your convenience, but in time this site will be abandoned, and all new content will only be available at the new website. 

Thanks everyone for your reading support.  I look forward to seeing you at the new website!  :)

Flower Studies and what not

I've been busy doing lots and lots of studies for a lake painting this past week-- I'm trying to get some control of various wet into wet techniques.  Before that it was various paintings of a snowy mountain using Raw Umber.  Before that it was various paintings building on the older Mare Island series.  So, lots of work, but not quite stuff ready to show.  I'll be sharing all that when I hammer out some 1/2 sheets I'm satisfied with.

In the mean time, I've also been doing some smaller 1/8 sheet studies of flowers.  I can see that I'd like to blow these up and get more wet into wet.

This first one is freesia-

This second one is from our plum blossoms-

Beyond that, what's a painter do when he's got 40 minutes to spare and wants to practice?  Use the back of bad paintings to practice straight lines I guess.  ;P  I did a set of lines, then attempted to do a second set of straight lines inbetween each of them. I then attempted to connect the tips of two specific lines (like telephone wires) over and over, using various ones.  One wants a consistent width too, so I tried different brushes with different volumes of paint, using different levels of pressure.  This is tougher than it looks! I still wasn't particularly satisfied.  Clearly work to be done. 

uNothing like screwing up a nice painting because you can't make a simple straight line.