Happy Birthday Week And The New Bison

Dear Bergsma Friends,

Guess who's birthday it was this week?!

I was honored that my friend, Erin Baker of Baker’s Breakfast Cookie fame, handmade my birthday cake and in her usual style. She attempted to make this double fudge cake healthier by including BEETS. THANKS ERIN!  (She wanted to make sure I at least ate one piece) It was DELICIOUS!

My Neighbor and darling friend,Heather Othmer of Windermere Real Estate, hosted the party at her beautiful new home on Chuckanut Mountain.

Here I am with my Daughter Jessi, and Best Friend Anna Schaad. She has her violin concert tomorrow night at The Mount Baker Theatre! I hope to see you there, if you have a ticket, because… It’s SOLD OUT!

Dominique Zervas and Erin Baker. You may have seen Dominique last time in my blog. She was the Queen Of Hearts.

Heather Othmer, Wendy DeFries of Avenue Bread with her daughter.

…and the rest of the happy party goers. The party definitely heated up as the evening went along. We’ll end here.

Now on to this week’s bison painting and your lesson on … COLORS FOR A TWILIGHT SKY

Tara told me that she was tired of the pink skies in the last several mountain paintings. So, in this painting I have a chosen a new set of sky colors.  Like always you mix up plenty of color in advance and start with the lightest areas of your painting first; which in this case will be the full moon.

The moon is created by painting the entire thing first with clear water and then when it’s almost dry you place the blue mineral paints in just the right places to indicate our beloved moon’s face.  These are the real markings on the moon. I have chosen cobalt green, mangenese blue, sepia and naples yellow to create a series of aqua blue-greens for the moon and the sky. Note: the varied colors of blue in the sky match the craters of the moon and tie the entire sky together.

The naples yellow on the horizon graduates (blends) to darker blues to create the feeling of twilight. Because the bison will be dark, I needed to create a sky that was lighter in color on the horizon, so the bison would stand out. In order to repeat the sky colors in the picture, I have mixed the same palette to create the foliage below: blue and yellow make green. “Repetition With Variation”

After all the blue-greens were painted, I mixed up several shades of mineral blues and reds to create the grainy rocks, which will represent The Badlands of South Dakota.

Anytime you paint rocks, use mineral paints because they add interesting texture. Remember mineral paints are the ones made out of ground inorganic material. (dirt ) My favorites that I use frequently are: cobalt blue, cobalt purple, cobalt green, and caput mortium.

ARTIST TRICK! Space heaters are not just for heating your feet. Here I am quick drying my washes.

With the background almost finished, I can now start painting the bison and marmots.

So, here I am using sepia brown, payne’s grey, and the blue mixture from the sky to create the coat of the bison. The reason the nose looks curved, is I started the nose area by painting with clear water and then gradually built the colors up on the edges to create the illusion of light shining on the bridge of the nose.

Once again, keep the faith, that these shapes will eventually create a bison.  I am using the same colors in the marmots. Tara says, “Just make them fluffier.”

These were originally prairie dogs, but we found out they don’t roam on the range with bison, so we changed them to marmots.

I will complete the bison next week and begin the big horned sheep.

I FEEL VERY LUCKY TODAY!! Linda Thompson, not only bought the original of the orca whales in front of Mt. Rainier, but she brought me a car load of rare flowers to brighten my day and wish me a Happy Birthday.  THANK YOU LINDA THOMPSON!

I’ll send you a picture of the garden when all the Stargazer Lilies bloom. I’m so excited. Maybe some of them will become paintings!

Thanks everyone for your support of my blog and my art.

Have a great weekend and happy painting,

Jody

~ by jodybergsma on May 8, 2009.