"Afternoon Tea", new oil painting by Sharon Lynn Williams

"Afternoon Tea", 12x12" oil on panel
$575 beautifully framed

I painted this from a still life I set up. The teapot gave me great grief, but I am happy with it now. Sometime that's just how it goes. There is a bit of glare in the darks in this photo, sorry.

I want to take this opportunity to wish you all a very happy Easter -He is RISEN!!

Enjoy!
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"Sunflowers -French Light" oil painting by Sharon Lynn Williams

"Sunflowers -French Light", 12 x 12" oil on Arches oil paper
SOLD

Another painting I did from a photo I took in France. I bought these beauties as my contribution to our picnic lunch one day. They were amongst a riot of bouquets at the market, and I just knew that the others would be bringing food. The vase was an antique white with blue flowers, but the bounced light was amazing.

Enjoy!
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"Posies" oil painting by Sharon Lynn Williams

"Posies", 7 x7" oil on Arches oil paper, mounted on board

$100 unframed

I did this sweet little painting from a bouquet that Barbara (one of my fellow Dreama workshop students) set up in the studio. Itwas one of those rare paintings that just come together without a lot of fuss, thereby keeping it clean and not overworked. Wish they were all like that!

Enjoy!

Dreama Tolle Perry Workshop Review

"Dreama's France", 12 x 12" oil on board
SOLD

I am so far behind in posting this blog that I am totally embarrassed! I realize that the last paintings I posted were from June, with the exception of my Tuscany trip. So I will make the effort to get you caught up to speed on what I have been doing, and maybe even the 'why' of it : )

From May 13-15 I had the great privilege to finally take a workshop with my painting hero, Dreama Tolle Perry. She was as lovely to learn from as she appears on her blog. LOVE her work, and she really made each person feel special and uniquely gifted, no matter the level of ability. I hope I learned as much about being a great art teacher as I did her painting techniques!

For the first 2 days we did paint alongs, so I will share both of those here. The one pictured above was from our second day, but I liked it best, so it got posted first. The second painting is below. I am not that much of a flower painter, but I do love them and have painted them often, just way less often than plein air landscapes -flowers are uniquely difficult to paint from life, and that is the way I prefer to paint.

"Dreama's Flowers", 12 x 12" oil on board
SOLD

The third painting I did, "Italian Colour" was posted on Aug 30th - if you want to have a look click here. That one I did totally on my own, using her method. Had to make sure I had it to use on my own photos before I left the workshop!

I have done several more using her technique of a wet colourful under-painting with opaque oils on top. You can see them here and here. I have done a couple of others as well that I will be posting in the near future. I have tried to adapt her style to my own plein air subjects in order to make the technique my own, and I must say I am encouraged by the results. However, more likely than not, I prefer to work on my signature red-orange ground.

Next post I will take you to Haida Gwaii, so stay tuned.

Enjoy!
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Encaustic painting "Iris" and demo this Saturday!

"Iris", 12x12" mixed media encaustic
$495 -click here to purchase

I have been playing around with encaustic since Christmas, and am really enjoying the ride. In this painting I collaged an original watercolour painting onto the cradled board and then made a textured encaustic border for it. It is an interesting combination of implied texture (in the atercolour) with actual texture.

I will be doing an encaustic demonstration tomorrow (Saturday) at Atlantis Fine Framing (4515 Manhattan Rd SE) from 10am to 3:30pm, along with demos by Ken Bourassa and Tracy Proctor. I am honored to be included with such talented encaustic artists, and to take part in the Calgary Artwalk event!

Enjoy!
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"Sally's Geranium" winter sale painting by Sharon Lynn Williams

"Sally's Geranium", 8x6" plein air oil on board
$150 unframed, click here to purchase

I am enjoying revisiting my past plein air paintings of flowers, in the midst of the snow outdoors. I can't believe it is March already -this winter has been so mild and lovely here in Calgary. This sweet little painting will brighten up even your most down days!

Enjoy!

To purchase this painting, or commission your own painting, please email me at williamsdotsharonatshawdotca (insert characters for the dot and at!)

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"Holly's Lilies", winter sale continues by Sharon Lynn Williams

"Holly's Lilies", 8 x 6" plein air oil on board
$150 unframed, click here to purchase

I spent the day putting the final touches on a large version of my recent plein air painting "Aspen and Willow", but don't have anything new to show you at this time. But it was nice to get back into the studio, after a very rough winter, what with losing my Mom, Christmas, and my surgery. I think I am refreshed and ready to begin again -yipee!!

I recently found out that I have been invited back to take part in the Plein Air Rockies 2012 competition this August!! I really enjoyed it last year and met so many really nice artists.


Enjoy!

To purchase this painting, or commission your own painting, please email me at williamsdotsharonatshawdotca (insert characters for the dot and at!)

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Still More Watercolour Florals

 "Lily Fantasy", 6.5 x 10.25", matted watercolour
available for auction here, beginning price $50

This is another free form flower form, done with out much preliminary drawing, just basically where the stamens reach above the petal edge at the top and a bit of a sweep for the direction of the petals. The demonstration point for this one was to show how to produce lost and found edges on dry paper, allowing the flower to co-mingle with the background.

"Falling All Over", 10 x 14", matted watercolour
available for auction here, beginning price $100

This was the next demonstration that I did, and NO preliminary drawing was done on this at all. I began at the large yellow flower and just made my way out from there. Composition was not the prime concern here, although I think it turned out quite nicely. I had a large bouquet of mixed silk flowers in front of me and I just allowed myself to be inspired by the shapes and colours, so not at all true to the set-up. Great freedom and fun.

Enjoy!

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More Watercolour Florals

 "Iris Power", 6 3/4 x 10 1/4", watercolour
available by auction here, starting bid $50

 Don't ask me why I cannot come up with more original titles for these paintings, any help would be appreciated! This is my watercolour demonstration from day 3 of my workshop. The idea was to combine methods from the previous 2 days into this painting. We worked on composition, trying to find good shapes, both the positive shapes (leaves and flowers) and the negative shapes (the shapes behind the positive shapes). Both must be interesting (ie: interesting edges, varying sizes) and compelling (powerful shapes) if you want to have a great painting.

We began this with doing our drawings on tracing paper, which made them easy to change without damaging the watercolour papers' surface. When the designs were good, we traced them onto our watercolour paper. Two ways to do this are#1) to place saral transfer paper under the tracing paper with its black side down on the wc paper (or make your own transfer paper by covering the back of another piece of paper with graphite) and then put the tracing on top and go over all the lines with a ball point pen or #2) hold the tracing paper design against a bright window and then put the wc paper on top -you should be able to see through 140lb wc paper well enough to see the lines, especially if you go over the tracing paper lines with marker. I used watercolour pencils to trace my drawing on the window, varying the colours as I went along (remember interest??)

Here is the painting part way in. I was careful to loose some of the edges into the white background space, bleeding them back with clear water so no hard edges were left. The colour was puddled in, at the correct values, thereby keeping things fresh and eliminating the need to wash over them again = the key to clear, clean colour! I have gone back with another watercolour pencil to define the centre left edge of the upper flower. Most of the watercolour pencil melts into the washes, so isn't a problem the way that graphite can be. This stage makes sure that you have some hard and soft edges.

In this step I have added more leaves at the bottom, and threaded one large leaf up the bare right side. I did this without drawing it first. I loaded up my brush with non-homogenized colours and let the brush make the form by twisting and turning it while drawing it up my paper. I did some scraping into it with a credit card, and drew into it while it was wet with a watercolour pencil.I dropped other colours into the bottom to suggest other flowers behind and relieve some of the green. I have gone in and separated some of the iris petals and to add some texture. Note that most of the original washes remain untouched. I also placed a bit more colour into the background at the top of the top iris to show more of its form.

There you have it! Some things done with a limited wet-on-wet method, and some negative painting. Both combine to provide interest, while the exciting purity of colour puddling lends the power.

Enjoy!

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More Watercolour!

 "Tulip Power", 15 x 11", matted watercolour
Available to bid in auction here, starting bid $75

 This is my demonstration from the second day of my Watermedia Florals workshop. The object of the lesson was to 'draw' with the brush -no drawing allowed. Following the form with a brush loaded with luscious paint and then puddling colours in and watching how they mix is fascinating, and is a key to understand how to let watercolour have its way. Some caligraphy done with watercolour pencil and brush adds a fun movement to the blast of colour.

Enjoy!

To purchase this painting, or commission your own painting, please email me.
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Back to Watercolour!

 "Daisy Power", 11 x 15", watercolour
This painting is available at auction here -beginning price $125

Many of you will be happy to see that I have returned to painting in watercolour again. It is a medium that I have always loved, even if it is somewhat limiting for creative expression, as it requires a fair amount of planning before brush ever touches the paper. In order to circumvent this, I like to make a wet on wet chaotic mixture of sumptuous color, and then pull out shapes from it. This works wonderfully with floral forms as they are so forgiving. The form I am using is a 'daisy type' form -I have these growing in my garden, but I don't know the name of them -if you know, please tell me!  Below is a step-by-step outline of the process.

This is the first step. I have soaked my 140lb watercolour paper in the sink and then began puddling in analogous mixed of yellow through red. Make sure to put various oranges in rather than just go from yellow to red without the visual bridge of the oranges. I left a lot of white paper and into some of it I popped in a variety of greens (yellow-green through blue-green using different yellows and blues). Some of the green puddles into the yellow and some into the orange-reds, making more neutral greens. I have tried so save some of the white as well. Make sure to bring your colour all the way to the edges of the paper -you don't want white paper there as it will draw the viewer to the edges of the painting, and perhaps right out of it!

This is the next stage. I am finding some daisy shapes by negatively painting some parts of the flowers with darker mixtures of the colours in the underpainting. Don't always do the negative painting with green, if you negative paint with the flower colours, you have new opportunities to find new flowers under the top ones. I am very careful to vary my edges between lost and found around EACH flower. You don't want them to look cut out and pasted on. 

 

Further work on the painting, finding some stems and leaves as well. Notice that some of the flowers and leaves have positively painted parts as well as negatively painted ones -this adds variety and keeps the viewer intrigued. Try not to say ALL the flowers, leave lots of colourfully suggested forms. The question to ask here is, if it says flowers, how much more do you need to do to it? Stop earlier rather than overdoing it. Better to be 80% done than 10% overdone!

This painting was done as a demonstration in my current Watermedia Florals workshop. Please see my website for upcoming workshops.

Enjoy!

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New Oil Floral and another SALE painting! by Sharon Lynn Williams

"Flowers and Oranges", oil on canvas, 16 x 20"
$1195.00 framed, free shipping and handling

It was a real joy to paint this floral on an extremely cold and snowy day. I think it captured some of the life and warmth that I was seeking. It was painted on a white, untoned canvas, which meant the colours really had a chance to sing, the only problem was that I had to chase out all those pesky bits of white that were left unpainted.

And now another CLEARANCE SALE painting:

"Roses Return", acrylic, 13 x 16" image size
framed in a contemporary black cube frame with a linen liner
original retail price $450, for a limited time now only $150 plus GST, shipping and handling

Roses Return was painted on a textured support. The roses were 'found' in the colourful washes, and allowed to break forth.
Enjoy!

To purchase this, or commission your own painting, please email me.

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"Reflections With Oranges", oil painting by Sharon Lynn Williams

"Reflections with Oranges", oil painting from life, 16 x 20"

This painting presented an interesting challenge for me. I had the items on the floor and I was looking down on it -which made for an interesting composition that was kind of tricky to get the perspective correct on. I wasn't sure about the background colour, so I decided to wipe it off, and behold, what remained was exactly what I was looking for. Who knew?

By the way, Poppy Riot has also now sold, so I think I will continue the clearance sale into February. It is nice to get some wall space back, but I really miss my babies.

Enjoy!

To purchase this, or commission your own painting, please email me.

CLEARANCE SALE WATERCOLOR

"Poppy Riot", watercolour, image 11 x 14"
framed size 18 X 22", double matted and in a lovely wood frame
SOLD

It is really hard to let this one go, as it is another of my favorite watercolours, but alas, I need to reclaim some wall space in my house. I hope it goes to a good home!

Enjoy!

To purchase this, or commission your own painting, please email me.

"Red Peony Bouquet", oil painting from still life by Sharon Lynn Williams

"Red Peony Bouquet", oil painting from still life, 16 x 20"

Here is a bouquet for you to brighten your day (I hope!). I did this one from life with my painting buddies Ingrid and Alice. Ingrid had a huge bucket of silk flowers, and it was up to me to make an arrangement. I set it up based on the large red peony, but all of us were cursing the 'blasted red peony' by the end of our painting time.

My kids are all home for the holidays so I haven't had any time to paint. Which is just fine with me, as I have really painted my brains out since the spring. The rest is good, and I hope it leaves me refreshed and stimulated to dive in again after New Years. I hope you all had a wonderful Christmas and wish you a wonderful New Years Eve.

Enjoy!

To purchase this, or commission your own painting, please email me.

"Bouquet iii", acrylic painting by Sharon Lynn Williams

"Bouquet iii", acrylic painting, 12 x 16"

This is a step-by-step demo I did with my mixed media class and my advanced watermedia class. It is a 'Sharon' take on a Bob Burridge class exercise. It was a good way to demonstrate the flexibility of acrylics. The painting was begun by splattering dots of yellow, pink and blue on watercolour paper. After this dried, we drew the vase and table shape and then glazed the table with an orange made from the yellow and pink. The vase had a translucent veil of light blue floated on and then the stems in the water were painted wet on wet. Next an opaque of blue and white was made (no water in the paint) and the flower shapes were painted negatively. Lastly the flowers and leaves were suggested in a random way with transparents and opaques. This great exercise showed the three ways acrylics can be used; transparently as glazes and washes, translucently in thin watery opaque washes and opaquely with thicker paint, as well as stressing negative painting.

Enjoy!

To purchase this, or commission your own painting, please email me.

"Holly's Lillies"; plein air oil painting by Sharon Lynn Williams

"Holly's Lillies", plein air oil painting, 8x6"
$350 beautifully framed, FREE S&H

Did this one sitting in my friend Holly's backyard. She is a lilly-o-holic and I think she is getting me hooked as well.

I am sitting in a pub in Anstruther -just for you! The hotel I am staying at doesn't have WiFi, and the pub does, so I am having a wee pint on you. :) Scotland is just beautiful. Our room overlooks the ocean. The sun has been shining but the wind is brisk and strong. Having a great time, and hope to post some photos tomorrow -if I am thirsty enough!!

Enjoy!

"Yellow Dahlias" , plein air oil painting by Sharon Lynn Williams

"Yellow Dahlias" , plein air oil painting, 6x6"
SPECIAL LIMITED TIME SALE $125.00 with FREE S&H

This is one of my potted dahlias that I picked up for a song this spring. I hope to save and overwinter the tubers, but I have had limited success with that, so wish me luck!

I am off to Scotland on Friday for a whole month. I am taking a plein air watermedia course with my hero Stephen Quiller for 10 days in Anstruther, which is just 10 minutes from the famous St. Andrews Golf Course. Dave will meet me at the end of the course and then we will travel throughout the UK until the end of September. I will have sporadic access to the Internet while I am gone, but if you want this painting, just email me and it will be first come, first served. I hope to be able to post some of the paintings that I do while I am in Scotland as I have the ability to do so. But otherwise, I will see you at the end of September.

Enjoy!

To purchase this, or commission your own painting, please email me.

Another SPECIALLY PRICED painting!

"Sally's Poppies", plein air oil painting, 8 x 6"
$175.00 unframed, FREE S&H -limited time offer until September 25th!!!

Another painting from Sally's garden. I just loved the variety of cool greens in the poppy, I had to try to capture them. This painting will cheer you up on the gray winter days ahead :)

Enjoy!

To purchase this, or commission your own painting, please email me.

SALE Painting and plein air oil painting by Sharon Lynn Williams

"Forest Light", oil painting, 9x12"

SOLD

I did this from a photo on one of our many rainy days this summer. I run around at last light taking all kinds of photos of wonderful subjects that I just don't have time to paint, but can't resist the light. This was one of those beautifully backlit aspen groves.

"Sally's Geraniums", plein air oil painting, 8 x 6"
$175.00 unframed -after the end of August the price will be $350 framed. FREE S&H

This is one of the limited time sale offers that I promised earlier in the month. I did this sitting in my friends' garden while her lovely dog (who I would have loved to paint if only he would have stayed in one spot) sat at my feet. It will bring some summer joy into your home during the seemingly endless winter days ahead!

We are off to go camping for a couple of days, so will talk to you when we get back.

Enjoy!

To purchase this, or commission your own painting, please email me.