After a blissful week teaching a watercolor creativity workshop I posted a tutorial in my blog as a gift to the workshop participants outlining one of the techniques I had shared in the workshop.  I decided to share it more widely here.  You can see the original blog post on my artist website here:  http://klebesadel.com

This is a step by step tutorial on how to paint birch trees using wet-into-wet and salt techniques and negative shape painting in watercolor.

Enjoy!

In mid December I had the privilege and opportunity to join my friend and sister artist for a week of RV camping and plein air painting in southern Arizona. This little watercolor documents the end of  a magical day starting with a lunar eclipse and ended watching the full moon rise over Mexico.  It was a special, magical time.  You can see more paintings and read more about the whole plein air painting trip here:  http://klebesadel.wordpress.com/2011/12/26/painting-plein-air-watercolors-and-creating-visual-memories/

The last couple days of my December 2011 plein air painting trip in Patagonoa Lake State Park in Arizona were spent painting an amazing rainy that soaked the park.  Warm and dry in our camper we painted what we could see out the windows.  You can see more paintings and read more about the whole plein air painting trip here:  http://klebesadel.wordpress.com/2011/12/26/painting-plein-air-watercolors-and-creating-visual-memories/

This watercolor documents a wonderful sunset over the the beautiful  Desert Rose Baha’i Institute campus south of Phoenix.  You can see more paintings and read more about the whole plein air painting trip here:  http://klebesadel.wordpress.com/2011/12/26/painting-plein-air-watercolors-and-creating-visual-memories/

Welcome to the final day of the 33 Paintings in 33 Days Project of Alaskan artist  Nikki Kinne and Wisconsin artist Helen Klebesadel.  I cannot believe the thirty-third day has  come so quickly.

My final painting, Water Lilies, is my largest to date in the series, and its already found a new home.   I had a wonderful time shaping the pedals and creating surface textures on the surface that disguised the twining stems below the surface.   I hope you enjoy looking at the painting even half as much as I enjoyed painting it.

I have also posted images of all 33 paintings.  Click through the posted photos to see them in relation to each other.

This project has been an amazing experience for me.  The commitment to daily painting is something I have promoted for years but all to often it was a do-as-I-say-not-as-I-do suggestion.  Having committed to this process and received the grace and benefit of the experience I know that I will continue this commitment on my own for as long as I can manage.

You can see all the paintings in this project, including those painted by my collaborator Nikki Kinne on my blog here:  http://klebesadel.wordpress.com/2011/08/06/day-33-of-33-two-artists-share-a-painting-a-day-for-33-days/

For my 30th day’s artwork of the 33 painting-a-day series I am doing with Nikki Kinne, I reverted to a subject I’ve painted in the past.  Painting bluebirds was one of my first commissions. 

I remember fondly that both my Aunt Meg and my Grandmother Ruth asked me to paint them bluebird paintings.  It was especially significant because both were near the end of their lives when they requested these images.  Now I think of them as a sort of spirit guide, which actually means I pay close attention when one crosses my path.  For the rest of the world, in many many cultures,  they may represent the ‘bluebird of happiness,‘ but for me they symbolize stripping away the trappings of life and getting down to what really matters.  I think its interesting that in at least one European myth (The Blue Bird) with the bluebird at its center the moral of the story is “…that the search for happiness is ongoing, and it is to be found within oneself.”

Bluebirds  have always been symbolically significant to my family and others, but they are also an environmental success story.   Between the 1930s and the 1980’s the population of bluebirds in the US had declined by 90%. They were truly endangered. By the time I grew up in the 1950s and 1960s in southwestern Wisconsin, bluebirds were rare. Pesticides contaminated their invertebrate foods, and nesting cavities were in short supply. Sighting a bluebird was a rare treat that took on mythic proportions in my family. Bluebirds have come to symbolize all things good and beautiful.

Bluebird Restoration Association of Wisconsin (BRAW)  When BRAW was organized in 1986, it was estimated that the Eastern Bluebird population in its historic range had declined by 90% during the preceding 50 years due to changes in agriculture practices, competition from the House (English) Sparrow and European Starling, severe weather in its central and southern winter range, and the loss of nest sites, such as tree cavities and hollow wooden fence posts.  Today, bluebirds are common in suitable habitat thanks to the work of citizen volunteers placing bluebird nesting boxes in the right places and working to protect their habitat.  It makes me hopeful so I paint bluebirds of happiness and give them plenty to eat.

I am currently teaching a week-long watercolor class in Door County and I've gotten a little behind in my postings here.  In my rush to catch up in sharing several paintings from my 33 Paintings in 33 Days with Alaskan artist Nikki Kinne I neglected to share # 27 in the correct order.

Both Nikki and I indulged in the wonderful colors possible in watercolor for our 26th paintings.  I’m still revisiting my rough sketches of Northern Wisconsin and using them as a bases for loose and expressive paintings that try to catch the spontaneity of of the changing light at sunset.  Bu chance Nikki painted a sunrise the same day.

You can see all the paintings in this project to date, and the beautiful sunrise done by my collaborator, Nikki Kinne, on my blog here:  http://klebesadel.wordpress.com/

For my day 28th painting in the 33 painting-a-day series I am doing with Alaskan Artist Nikki Kinne I was in a very quiet mood.  I was prepared to sit and meditate in paint.  This imaginary landscape emerged when I  approached an old  wet-into-wet experiment with an attitude of idle play.  The place seems strangely familiar to me so it must combine elements of places I really know or would like to know.  What lives in that cave anyway?

You can see all the paintings in this project to date, and the paintings done by my collaborator, Nikki Kinne, on my blog here:  http://klebesadel.wordpress.com/

Nikki Kinne  and I were honored yesterday to have our 33 Paintings in 33 days Project featured in the Meylah Marketplace Blog.  We love Meylah!

My 26th day is inspired by my earlier sketches of the north woods of Wisconsin but I used a base image as an excuse to play with the spontaneity of the watercolor.  This wet into wet image started with me wetting parts of the image and dropping in the dominant color and then allowing the colors to mix freely.  Next I dropped salt into the sky and alcohol into the hill to create these wonderful textures.  I had retained dry areas in the shape of the rhythmic line across the hilltop.  After the sky and hill were completely dry I went back in and painted the yellow and red rectangles to complete a dynamic composition.

You can see all the paintings in this project to date, and the paintings done by my collaborator, Alaskan artist Nikki Kinne, on my blog here:  http://klebesadel.wordpress.com/

My 25th painting in the 33 painting-a-day series I am doing with Alaskan Artist Nikki Kinne,  is a study inspired by a cool place on a hot summer day.

It is high summer in Wisconsin.  Summer wouldn’t be summer without at least one canoe trip.  I took a nice long day-trip with friends on the Wisconsin River this week ( a trip which will inspire many paintings to come.)  This little watercolor was inspired by the back channels and byways that are sometimes connected through tributaries to the river.  Some of the backwater marshes are spring fed slues that are filled with yellow or white water-lilies.  Upon returning to my home in Madison I took advantage the sunken garden of our local botanical garden, Olbrich Gardens, to get another close-up  look at water-lilies.  I will be doing more watercolor paintings as we move trough the last third of our 33 paintings in 33 days Project.

You can see all the paintings in this project to date, and the paintings done by my collaborator, Nikki Kinne, on my blog here:  http://klebesadel.wordpress.com/

For my twenty-third painting of the 33 in the painting-a-day series I am doing with Alaskan Artist Nikki Kinne, I worked with a small texture sheet I had created as an experiment.  I was staring at the sheet, willing an image to emerge, while at the same time thinking about the phrase ‘Cardinal Rule,’ and wondering about where it came from.  The next thing I knew I had this little painting.  It feels like the cardinal is looking a us thinking “Now what are you going to do?” A good question.

By the way, the phrase ‘Cardinal Rule’ did not originate from the office of cardinal in the Catholic Church.  Rather, cardinal derives from Latin cardo “hinge”, so that something cardinal is important because all else hinges upon it.  Therefore, a cardinal rule is a fundamental rule; a cardinal direction is one of the principal directions: north, south, east or west.  The Catholic Cardinal’s name came from the idea that the clergy were the hinge to the church’s door through which people could enter.

The bird IS named after the Catholic church officer that shares its bright red garment color.  Thank you for coming with us as we allow our thoughts to meander and make art out of the results.

You can see all the paintings in this painting-a-day project to date, as well as the paintings done by my collaborator, Nikki Kinne, on my blog here:  http://klebesadel.wordpress.com/

On day twenty-one of the 33 Paintings in 33 Days Project I am doing with Alaskan artist Nikki Kinne, I was still  inspired by sketches of the north woods of Wisconsin I did earlier.

In this painting I have broken a cardinal rule of transparent watercolor painting.  (I have a whole section in my week-long watercolor workshop entitles “Techniques that will Get You Kicked Out of the Transparent Watercolor Society, and this is one).  The nice granular texture you can see in the trees comes from using waterproof in in the painting while its still very wet.  The ink does not dissolve into gray the way water soluble inks would.  It retains its body and creates this lovely texture.

You can see all the paintings in this project to date, and the paintings done by my collaborator, Nikki Kinne, on my blog here:  http://klebesadel.wordpress.com/

On day twenty of the 33 Paintings in 33 Days Project I am doing with Alaskan artist Nikki Kinne, I was inspired by sketches of the north woods of Wisconsin.

Every so often I clean and reorganize my studio (when I can’t walk through it without tripping or can no longer find what I’m looking for within half an hour).  When I finally get around to cleaning I usually love it because I reacquaint myself with my art supplies and in-progress art.   When I  last reorganized I found a wonderful stash of  landscape sketches of northern Wisconsin from a past camping trip that inspired me to revisit them in watercolor.  The little watercolor sketch above is based on one of those sketches.  I remembered the pure pleasure of a cool woods on a hot day with the smell of water and pines.

You can see all the paintings in this project to date, and the paintings done by my collaborator, Nikki Kinne, on my blog here:  http://klebesadel.wordpress.com/

I found myself painting an imaginary  trickster crow carrying off a fancy, in this case a red string.  While its made up it bears a remarkable resemblance to crows in my neighborhood.   It has nowhere near the majestic power of Nikki’s earlier raven painting, but it does capture the sense of play our Wisconsin crows can embody.  I think crows are wonderful creatures.  They clean up after us, and they know how to play. They can survive everywhere.  If our crows can’t figure out how to survive, none of us will.  Yet they are often attracted to bright or shiny things that they will steal for their nests.  I love black birds.

You can see all the paintings in this project to date, and the paintings done by my collaborator, Nikki Kinne, on my blog here:  http://klebesadel.wordpress.com/

As I mentioned in yesterday’s post, I have preserved my spring poppies in photos that I used as a source for this painting.  While I absolutely love painting directly from life, I have found that when working from life I am more detailed and interested in preserving a representational rendering.  When working from a photo I tend to get a little more expressive to keep my interest engaged.  In either case I usually just start painting using the watercolor to draw with rather than doing a preliminary pencil drawing.  For larger more complex paintings I will do a drawing to ensure a strong composition.

You can see all the paintings in this project to date, and the paintings done by my collaborator, Nikki Kinne, on my blog here:  http://klebesadel.wordpress.com/

On day seventeen of the 33 Paintings in 33 Days Project I caught up on a painting I have been wanting to do since this spring.

The spring slipped away so quickly that I spent a morning capturing the last of the poppies in photographs.  This painting is based on one of those photos.  I am a gardener who grows both vegetables and flowers, including poppies.  I love trying to capture impressions of these wonderful flowers each year.

You can see all the paintings in this project to date, and the paintings done by my collaborator, Nikki Kinne, on my blog here:  http://klebesadel.wordpress.com/

This is the official painting for my participation in the 33 Paintings in 33 Days Project with Alaskan artist Nikki Kinne. This little artist trading card sized work captures the spring Bloodroot bloom as it appeared in a lovely wooded glade near my hometown of Spring Green, Wisconsin.  I haven’t sworn off using photographs for this project, and used on I took in the spring to capture this image.

You can see all the paintings in this project to date, and the paintings done by my collaborator, Nikki Kinne, on my blog here:  http://klebesadel.wordpress.com/

For day fifteen of my 33 Paintings in 33 Days Project with Alaskan artist Nikki Kinne our readers got two paintings from each of us rather than just one because we each had an extra painting to share that somehow broke our self imposed rules. 

My 'rule-breaking' painting took me two days to complete all the layers so it didn't fit the 'painting-a-day' restriction, but I decided to share it anyway.

Inspired by the holiday fireworks, I thought through how I might represent what I saw in watercolor.  I used a technique of adding successive layers of liquid rubber masking fluid over increasingly redder washes of watercolor.  The technique requires you to let the paint dry completely before adding a layer of mask, and then the mask must dry completely before adding another layer of watercolor.

You can see all the paintings in this project to date, and the paintings done by my collaborator, Nikki Kinne, on my blog here:  http://klebesadel.wordpress.com/  (Go there to see what rule Nikki broke).

Day fourteen of the 33 Paintings in 33 Days Projectwith Alaskan artist Nikki Kinne was a very busy day for me so I focused on a close up portrait of a ripe strawberry on an artist trading card sized paper.  Of course I also happily ate my model before I headed off for the day.

Taking the time to focus in on a subject with careful observation before charging off for a full day changes the quality of the day.  I consider it ‘putting my artist eyes on.’  It changes how I see things all day long and makes me eager to get to the studio in the evening.

By the way, an artist trading card (or ATC) is a collaborative experience of sorts too.  I was introduced to them on my first trip to Alaska by the artist community in Fairbanks.  ATCs are miniature works of art, 2 ½ X 3 ½ inches in any material.  They should be originals, or small editions created with the intention of trading them with other people for their original artworks the same size.  ATCs are traded like baseball cards, one art work for one art work.  I love including the making of artist trading cards in my art workshops as an extra exercise, if there is enough time, so I can trade with my students, and they can trade with each other too.  I have quite a collection now.

You can see all the paintings in this project to date, and the paintings done by my collaborator, Nikki Kinne, on my blog here:  http://klebesadel.wordpress.com/

This watercolor of one of my favorite summer plants was my painting for the twelve day of the 33 Paintings in 33 Days Project with Alaskan artist Nikki Kinne. 

As I walk out my back door and head across the yard to my wonderful little  studio I am hit with a heady rich sweet perfume that pulls me up short and demands my attention.  Its source is the patch of milkweeds that I grow every year to lure Monarch butterflies to my yard.  Milkweed is one of their favorite food. 

This painting is my attempt this year to capture part of the budding and flowering of these wonderful, useful  weeds.  I’m sure I will revisit painting these plants because of the way they capture my  olfactory attention every day, at least as long as the flowering lasts.  I thank them for the butterflies too.

You can see all the paintings in this project to date, and the paintings done by my collaborator, Nikki Kinne, on my blog here:  http://klebesadel.wordpress.com/

For day eleven of  the 33 Paintings in 33 Days Project, in which I am exchanging a painting a day with Alaskan artist Nikki Kinne, I explored symbolic representations of nature.

This 9x10 watercolor is an attempt to capture the uplifting feeling I get that all of nature is represented in a crow’s flight.  For me the crows embody the forest, the wind, and the the grace of the wild, even as they adapt to what ever circumstances they find themselves in.  I feel honored when they gather in the tree that shades my studio at sunset.

This painting is not for sale (Nikki and I are exchanging a work each from the series and this is the one she has chosen for hers).

You can see all the paintings in this project to date, and the paintings done by my collaborator, Nikki Kinne, on my blog here:  http://klebesadel.wordpress.com/

For day nine of my participation in the 33 Paintings in 33 Days Project, in which I am exchanging a painting a day with Alaskan artist Nikki Kinne, I revisit yesterday's theme with this 7x5 inch watercolor.

I have painted another little watercolor to capture a memory of my recently deceased dog.  It is little tribute to my Decca dog resting among the daisies.

Art making is a thinking process.  We can use it to understand the things that happen in our lives, including both loss and joy, and to reflect upon where we are and where we need to go.  I am so grateful I was able to allow myself to have art my life.

While the work is not for sale I wanted to share it with you anyway as a part of the 33 Paintings in 33 Days Project.  If you would like to see the rest of the paintings Nikki and I are going as a part of this project, you can check out my blog at http://klebesadel.wordpress.com/

An artist trading card was my painting for the eight day of my participation in the 33 Paintings in 33 Days Project, in which I am exchanging a painting a day with Alaskan artist Nikki Kinne. 

This little painting is a tribute to the little black dog that was my heart for eleven out of her eighteen years.  She reached the end of her life this summer and I miss her terribly. She liked to hang out in my studio while I painted and watched out the window so she could protect our yard from invasions of squirrels and rabbits.   She was a mutt that we called  a ‘Spanaua’ because she was a Chihuahua/ Spaniel cross, and she was smarter than I am.  I wouldn’t change a thing about having her in my life even though it means missing her now.

While the work is not for sale I wanted to share it with you anyway.  If you would like to see the rest of the paintings Nikki and I are going as a part of this project, you can check out my blog at http://klebesadel.wordpress.com/

Day six had too many appointments and too little time in the studio, but what fun I had with the time I did have creating this little artist trading card sized tribute to the anticipation of new fruit in my garden.

You can see all the paintings in this project to date, and the paintings done by my collaborator, Nikki Kinne, on my blog here:  http://klebesadel.wordpress.com/

This is day three of my  33 paintings in 33 Days Project with Alaskan artist Nikki Kinne.  We are sharing a painting a day for 33 days via email and my blog.  You may go there to see Nikki's paintings too:  http://klebesadel.wordpress.com/

For day three I leave the imaginary symbolic behind and focus on the luscious strawberries ripening in my garden.  I love to paint from observation.  There is nothing like holding a leaf or flower in front of you and turning it to see how the veins connect. 

But I haven’t abandoned spirals completely.  Strawberry seeds create intersecting spirals across the surface of the fruit. And then there is the reward when the painting is completed of a sweet treat from the garden.

For my first little painting in the 33 paintings in 33 Days Project, I start with the familiar and go directly to my favorite meditative process of painting dendrites and spirals in the form of a spiraling branches.

This is the first of my small paintings that launches my experiment with my friend and sister artist Nikke Kinne of Fairbanks Alaska.  For 33 days we will be  participating in the Daily Painting Movement.  If you would like to see Nikki's paintings too..check out my 'Muse and Her Artist' blog at http://klebesadel.wordpress.com/

Introducing the 33 Paintings in 33 Days Project that Fairbanks artist Nikki Kinne and I have agreed to undertake with an eye toward sharing simple playful paintings across the distance between Wisconsin and Alaska.  I will be posting mine here for each of the next 33 days.  If you would like to read about the project and see Nikki's paintings too, check out my 'Muse and Her Artist' blog here:  http://klebesadel.wordpress.com/

Nikki and I have agreed to do a painting a day for 33 days and sharing them with each other and on my blog.   We have agreed to make paintings that can be any size (from artist trading card sized on up), in any style, as loose or tight and as fast or slow as our mood and the obligations of the day require.   Our goal is to carry on a visual conversation for a month and three days to keep us in contact, and challenge ourselves to relax and  play a little in our art making. No rules beyond  33 paintings in 33 days.

We hope you enjoy sharing our journey.

I have loved these delicate Wisconsin wild orchids for years. This is the sixth in a series of ten little paintings celebrating the abundance of wild Moccasin Flower orchids. All of the paintings combine the chance of watercolor textures with careful control rendering the delicate flower.

"Flora IV" is an original Watercolor Painting, 6 x 4 inches.  It will be sent unframed but matted in 10 x 8 acid free mat

Painted on 300lb Arches cold press watercolor paper using only the highest quality professional artists materials

I retain all copyrights to the painting. The copyright does not transfer with the sale of this original painting.

I have loved these delicate Wisconsin wild orchids for years. This is the fourth in a series of ten little paintings celebrating the abundance of wild Moccasin Flower orchids. All of the paintings combine the chance of watercolor textures with careful control rendering the delicate flower.

"Flora IV" is an original Watercolor Painting, 6 x 4 inches.  It will be sent unframed but matted in 10 x 8 acid free mat

Painted on 300lb Arches cold press watercolor paper using only the highest quality professional artists materials

I retain all copyrights to the painting. The copyright does not transfer with the sale of this original painting.

This is a limited edition giclee (digital) print of an original watercolor. There will be no more than 100 prints in this edition.

When I was growing up on a dairy farm in rural Wisconsin I thought I didn't know any artists. I thought artists were crazy dead white guys from Europe who cut off their ears. I didn't realize that I was surrounded by artists everyday, who worked in fibers. They sewed quilts, crocheted everything, and they could generally could make anything. I have very vivid memories of my great grandmother creating a crazy quilt, which inspired a series of painting honoring these artists and her. My series, called "Everyday Use" (after a short story by Alice Walker), now includes 30 paintings.

This painting was inspired by quilts that have pattern names that are based in rural life. 
(This image also available as a larger limited edition giclee print that is the same size as the original 28 x 20 inches for $480. If you are interested convo me and I will make it available on the page for you.)

COPYRIGHT: I retain all copyrights to the painting. The copyright does not transfer with the sale of this original painting or print.