Watercolors by Celia Blanco

"Summer Morning Geraniums"  20 x 30 cm watercolor on paper ( Cartiera Mangnani hotpress) In the first months of summer, the light is very strong at dawn and into the early morning hours. It's a great time for taking reference photos because of the abstract shadow patterns that objects create. In this painting I tried to push the idea and work with the shadows being formed against the building. The brightly colored petals are being warmed by the rise of the early July sun. For lack of better ideas, the title to this watercolor is... "Summer Morning Geraniums". I started this painting as a sketch to test paper I recently purchased and in order to play with some new colors in my palette. There are many mistakes in the painting but I managed to finally achieve strong darks. Hooray!! I need to work on my leaf painting skills, they never come out looking right. Indigo blue, Winsor Green and  new Gamboge are my new colors from Winsor and Newton.  I hopefully didn

"Citrus Garden"  watercolor on paper 38 x 28 cm. I found the inspiration for this painting in Greece, walking by an orange juice bar. Baskets, beautifully filled, a lemon tree planted in a little garden and grapes growing on a vine. It is both an invitation to stop and smell the sweetness of the citrus and walk in and quench your thirst with freshly squeezed juices. The person who thought of this was trying to attract our senses: it worked … the bar was packed with tourists. The background being rather busy, I tried to eliminate as many details as possible to highlight the baskets. I also simplified my palette in the hope of tying the painting together at the cost of digressing from the photo reference. I wish everyone a wonderful weekend, thank you for stopping by!

WIP 38 x 28cm. watercolor on paper   WIP I would like to update you on my art endeavors for this week. I am painting a still life from a photograph taken during my recent vacation to Crete. It represents an orange juice bar. I love the lemon tree, the grapevine planted behind it and the citrus leaves in the orange filled basket. It is citrus heaven! I was only able to get one shot because I needed to keep up with the group. Otherwise I would have exploited various angles and lighting situations. It is hard to conciliate keeping up with a schedule and photography. I am slowly building up the layers but don't have much to show for. I am reading an excellent book, Making Color Sing, by Jeanne Dobie . I am trying to put into practice some of the numerous suggestions in the book about mixing color and making them work well against each other. I finally ended up working from a black and white reference photo I made because I wanted to make my own color choices. I'm worried

"Red Water" watercolor on  paper  27 x 18 cm. We are having hot weather, 100 degrees in the shade! It's normal for August in Rome but not ideal for painting watercolors. I drew two big compositions last week. I will show you once I have something more concrete evolving. For now I am afraid to start on something complex and not have it work out, I feel as I have forgotten things along the way. I will contrast this feeling by just throwing some paint on a piece of paper, play around and know I will rip up the end product. I did that, in  the sweltering heat of my balcony. The water evaporates almost immediately. I gave it another go with a painting of a plastic bottle that I saved. It's of the French water Badoit. Good water and cool bottle! I think red for a water bottle is unusual. Clear, green or blue bottles are more common. This time I'm a little happier, although I was hoping for better results. I wasn't able to get all the nuances the way I was ho

photos from my trip to Crete Hi everyone! I feel energized, I am looking forward to painting again. We visited beautiful Crete on vacation. I took many photos, there is inspiration lurking in every corner! I did a lot of snorkeling, swimming and soaking up the sun. I ate a lot of yogurt and feta cheese (gained some weight ... oh, well) ! We visited the Palace of Minos at Knossos. We had a wonderful guide (the lady holding the yellow umbrella in my collage) who gave us a fascinating tour of the site. We also visited Chryssi Island on the Libyan Sea, a protected uninhabited island.I have never seen such incredible blues and turquoise. I thought it funny that amidst all of this ancient rich history there is even a Starbucks! My husband and I have been doing some maintenance work around the house this past week. We repainted the kitchen and some of the living room. With weather in the 100's we feel slow. I am hopeful to at least have prepared some paper and bought extra gator b

"Chorus Line Girl" graphite on paper 17" x 24" I am going on vacation and will not be posting for the rest of the month. I wish everyone a happy summer and thank you for the undeserved encouragement and support you give to my artistic endeavors!

"Just Peachy" watercolor on paper 9".5 x 9".5 inches / 24 x 24cm. I find the DPW painting challenge a good place to turn to when you feel you are lacking a direction in what to paint. This week, the focus is on composition. There are a lot of excellent points on things to keep in mind which I tried to incorporate. You can check that out by clicking here . It's a delicious time of year as fas as fruit is concerned. I'm always attracted by the colors of fruit and it is difficult to try and present it in a unique way. I worked larger than life in order to play with the washes more. And the best part is eating my still life once it is all over! I've included the full size images of the paintings from Master artists from last weeks hand "quiz". Have a great weekend! I "The Creation of Adam" Michelangelo