This is one example of recent paintings I am doing based (loosely..very loosely) on photos I took out in the Big Cypress last year. I meant to get started on these earlier but..well I didn't!

The paintings  include the ones shown here (which are 7x10 1/4 or thereabout on 140 lb Arches paper) and some larger ones I am working on. The larger ones are on Arches 300 lb paper and others on Arches 140 lb paper. I will have photos (and the exact dimensions) shortly. I will probably just add them here so check back to this URL.

Of the first three (Here and in the post below) one is accounted for but the other ones are for sale. All of these here are $50 (unframed). I will frame them but with all the stuff I need to do that for these? Plus shipping (I hate shipping) The price framed would be $150 (including shipping).

After laziness and delay I finally got around to doing some of the paintings I'd planned from my last foray out into the Big Cypress. I walked 3 or so miles out into the swamp on a wet trail. You don't see many creatures out there, small fish, little snakes. Although, on the way back in I nearly kicked a water moccasin sleeping along the trail (these trails are in a foot to a two feet of water). That would have been unfortunate for both me and the snake.

These paintings are SORT of of the numerous tiny orchid that grow right in the water. They are really small, realy delicate...and these, of course, do not really look much like them. I used the photos of those as a starting point then the rest came out of my head.

They are how those orchids SHOULD look. There are also similar yellow flowers (that I do not think are orchids)....also lots of cypress trees and bromeliads.

I didnt see any gators but I did hear the sound they make when they are warning someone off...that "shake the water off their back sort of grumble they do. I didn't want to find out if it was aimed at me so I left.

These paintings are called Big Cypress 1, 2 and 3 (in descending order).

So in preparation for working on some new paintings based upon photos I took this past winter in the Big Cypress I started doing some more swamp photos similar to the ones I did when I did my Everglades photos.

This first one (the photos above and immediately below) I thought was 7x 10..it is actually a bit larger and done on 300 lb paper. I was going to paint a single poisonwood tree in the foreground but for some reason I just liked this the way it is and couldn't bring myself to do anything else to it.

The two below are versions of paintings I have done before of the everglades. They are based on photos of walking in the mahogany/poisonwood trees. The top is very similar to others I've done...the bottom is a cross between the close in 'forest' of mahogany and the plain paintings. The bottom one has a sparkle to it. I didn't name any of these yet. Any suggestions?

One of the new larger sky paintings. This one is sparkly in person. It is one I like quite a bit. Not sure what else to say about it! It sort of needs a bigger page for it to show up....

Below this is another large one...(what I call large is like 20 something x like 18 something or so...). I am not fond of this one. I wanted to do a night sky but as you see it just turned into something of a mess. Below The Mess (my title for it) is a small 6x4 sky that I sort of like, except the watercolor spread thing is a bit too obvious for me.

So these are the last group of the sky paintings (excluding the oils). I had a hard time with some of these paintings. There are several that were so "subtle" the photos captured almost nothing.

None of these look totally like the actual paintings--they tend to be darker. The group immediately below (and the one above) are all 6x4 postcard sized.

Below are images that are 7x 10 1/4 paintings. I am fond of all of these. They are mostly watercolor. I may have uses some gouache here and there but not much. I like using gouache as clouds.

This painting is 12 1/8 x 16 1/8....and I am very pleased for it. I decided who it belonged to as I painted it...unless they hate it then I will get back to the drawing board. This one came out exactly as I wanted it to.

The bottom layer (blue) is watercolor while the black and white is all gouache over top of that. There are other watercolor highlights as well.

These are a couple of the three piece sky paintings (each piece is 6x4). These photos are not great and the pieces are actually better than they look here!.

I have individual photos but those are too "sparkly" because the flash went off and the iridescent medium I used came ALIVE in the photos.

More of these to come....

I think these are all watercolor only but it is entirely possible I used some white gouache.

This new sky painting is one I just finished. It is 7 x 10 1/4 and is all watercolor.

I had several photos I cropped to only they sky from central Florida (near Mt Dora) and I tried for awhile to match the colors and tones without much success. This one is the one that I liked best. Several others similar to this are in the offing.

I wonder how they would look as oils.

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Making attempts at painting some renditions of parts of sky photos I received that are peach and violet colored. The one on the top sort of works. The one on the bottome not as much.

Both of these are 6x4 and I am going to work on some smaller ones like this. Have a larger one but it isn't close enough to done. The bottom one I am likely to fiddle with before giving up on it! (I do that)....

The problem with light backgrounds is that it is hard to add white. You are better off using the white of the paper. NOW, with these small ones the paper texture isn't right for that (in my opinion)...

I am not totally convinced I don't like these I suppose but they just didn't really turn out as I intended. All but one of them are 6x4. the one below on the far left is 7 x 10 1/4.

What is the problem? In the above painting, which sort of looks ok abstractly I just didn't get it to look how I wanted. I was trying to put gouache over watercolor.

I sort of like the two on the bottom to the left. The larger one is sort of ok...the one in the middle is black and white...the one on the far left just doesn't work. I was trying to blend in colors and over the black it just isn't right.

But..live and learn!

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