A Bucket of Berries is the subject of my next watercolor. While looking through pictures taken in the garden last year I ran across this photograph. A bucket of blackberries and strawberries turned on its side on the dining table. Every morning I pick the berries that are ripe in the garden. They are so very colorful and juicy. The photo just looks yummy to me. The berries are coming back to life in the garden and do not seem to mind the fire at all.
Drawing out the shapes I give the darkest background a light blue wash to separate it from where I will need to be careful to keep whites for the bucket.
Next more light washes sort out the blackberries from the strawberries and the tabletop gets a light shade in front.
The darkest surfaces are carefully painted while saving the highlights on their shiny surfaces.
The blackberries are rendered one-by-one on the left side as they lay on the table. It is a gradual berry-by-berry painting, with darkening on the bucket parts to give us a hint of the depths. The darkest shadows on the berries are painted, and with a little water added the bright medium shades are applied. If you are careful enough, the saved highlight will show well.
Reds are added to the foreground area to give a warmer more lively wood texture. The same red tint goes up over the left side of the bucket. Darkening the background alongside the right gives enough depth to show the bucket.
A Charming Traveller visited me in the garden. I heard him arrive with those fast wings and watched as he screeched to a stop and hovered right in front of me. Luckily, I had a camera locked and loaded and got a great picture of him. 
Hummingbirds are such expert aviators. It is utterly amazing how fast and accurate their flying is
Beginning with the hummingbird’s main subject, I then drew the most important flowers behind and below him. I used his photograph to draw him entering the stage from up and to the right. Putting a pastel kind of wash in the background helps me to see the bird outline better.
I faithfully render the hummingbird main star.
To show how he quickly arrived and froze, the only thing I could think of was to put those cartoon movement curves on him. He was repeatedly drawn. The first image was very light and getting darker till he arrived in full color.
The patch of sunflowers I sat in is pretty thick, full of flowers and leaves. With a complicated puzzle of background requiring a little bit of simplification. Finally, becoming a continuous melody of nature.
Slowly finishing the background and adjusting the hummingbird shapes to allow transparency was kind of tricky.
The gradual darkening, and adjusting transparency of the bird were completed in many steps.
The painting was almost complete. But as I gazed at it, there was something wrong. It was the background that competed with the main character.
Elk Hideaway was our home lost in the Oregon Road Fire of August 18, 2023. This is a watercolor painting of it from what pictures I could find. The finished painting reminds me of the peace surrounding our forest home, before.
Our hideaway was a DIY house that we designed and built, my husband and myself. We did most of the work ourselves over 5-years, which is probably why the loss is so hard to settle. Painting this portrait begins with a light wash background and the structure surfaces placed in light yellows.
Next, the shadows and brown pigment are added to the structure along with a little foreground highlighting in the painting.
More darkening on the structure begins to show more of the detail.
I add light wash coats to the foreground and background which seem to start to bring it to life.
The final touch is dropping a beautiful blue skyline over the rooftop. Fini! I get a feeling that everything will be alright.