Some readers didn’t realize the paintings displayed on this blog were done by the blog owner. Me. I have been a landscape/wildlife painter for over 30 years and have taught classes. I do know those who are self-taught usually are passionately bound up in the process of painting. Why else would you stumble around an easel for frustrating years? And yes, a class can give some direction. For many beginning painters. But many of us, we are off milling our own wheat. Sitting our butts down and watching someone paint is agony. I think many teachers are insensitive to the fact that people learn in different ways. Some can read and look at pictures and come away as confused as before. Some need a naked model before they can paint body parts…But most just need a pad of good watercolor paper and some paint. Doodling large shapes, just having ‘fun’ with what develops can be as inspiring as sitting in a hard chair. I’ve been asked to do a video for beginning watercolor painters, and am thinking about it. Just at the thinking stage. I don’t know. My hat’s off to anyone who plays around with paint and then falls into it. And what is this garbage of painting is ‘relaxing?” Aggggghhhhh~ It should be but I’ve missed that stage. Each piece of heavy white watercolor paper brings its demons with them into the room to frustrate and irritate. That is what is behind the old story of “fear of that blank page”. LOL!
The paintings below are mine.
Lady Nyo
–
(this last painting was done from a photo of an Italian Landscape, from a cook book! One of the problems with photography is the flattening out of dimensions and so you have to ‘think in the round’ a bit and add color. This turned out pretty good but I had to really think.
Some of these aren’t displayed well, but so is much of life.
–
These are obviously of some wildlife.
(This last painting I will have to iron or figure out some way to straighten out the creases. This comes from removing it from a board before it was dry, or some other strange event. Cats prowl around my easel, so they could be suspects….)
And my personal favorite. I gave this to a relative who obviously didn’t like it, hung it on a closet louvered door, where it fell and lay in the dust under a bed for a few years. I found and brought it home and hung it (fixed) in my bedroom. I used it for the cover of “Song of the Nightingale”. One less cover I had to paint. Now, that’s relaxing. LOL!
(And Thanks to Nick Nicholson in Australia for the photographing of these paintings.)
Jane Kohut-Bartels
Copyrighted, 2018
Tags: "Some Paintings of Landscape and Wildlife", Jane Kohut-Bartels, painting and writing mix very well
March 8, 2018 at 6:45 pm
The watercolors are beautiful. I like that pair of owls with one resting on the other and the landscapes with trees especially LS-17 where there is a tall tree to the right matched by a white cloud that almost looks like a mountain on the left. I think you should make the tutorial on how you paint with watercolors. It not only might help someone get started, but it would help others see your perspective on this art.
LikeLiked by 1 person
March 8, 2018 at 6:52 pm
Thank you, Frank. I am weighing my time between painting and writing and right now,… I am warned by my husband that I have a book in the oven (“Kimono”) and it is so alluring to jump ship and paint instead of edit! I’m ADHD all over the place. LOL! But I am thinking of it. I don’t have a clue that I could sum up ‘how’ I paint in watercolors, but perhaps I could learn something about the how IF I forced myself to do so. I’ll go look at LS-17 because I forget which one is that. I never title paintings….so I never know what to call them unless it’s painting 3, painting 4, etc. Like poets with “Untitled”. Perhaps we don’t have any energy to title things when we are finished. Thank you, Frank. I like the baby owls, too. I looked at LS 17. That is a study in oils I did of a Gainsborough landscape a few years ago when I decided to switch over to watercolor. I am sometimes pulled back to oils, but it is a totally different technique as you might imagine…and not one for instant gratification. LOL
LikeLiked by 1 person
March 9, 2018 at 3:09 am
These are superb – particularly like that ship…
LikeLiked by 1 person
March 9, 2018 at 3:26 am
Thank you, Maureen. I have more paintings than I have walls to hang them. LOL. There are just a few, but I do want to paint more….even if they don’t ever make it into frames. Thank you, again. I love to paint water…and I left out a few of wildlife that are reflections of what is on top of the water. LOL
LikeLiked by 1 person