Autumn Paintings

We continue to have sunny and beautiful autumn weather here in the North Carolina mountains.  I have been doing some quick little fall scenes in watercolor.

The first three are 5" x 7" watercolors.

This one is 10" x 10".

This next one just sold at the art and craft fair at the Jefferson United Methodist Church.

And here is a seasonal journal entry.  I just felt like painting some pumpkins!

Happy Thanksgiving!

May you be truly thankful for all the blessings in your life!  

Autumn Leaves, by Jeanne Turner McBrayer, 2016

Here is a watercolor page from my art journal that I hope you enjoy.

Maple Leaf Studies

Yesterday I practiced painting maple leaves.  What could be prettier this time of year?

 

Influenced again by artist Bob Burridge, I am trying do series of paintings.  I brought in some maple leaves from the yard and put them up on the drawing board with some 5" x 7" papers.

 I sprayed some watercolor paint  to get the mottled effect.  

On the next one you can see the drips from the painting above it on the board.  I kind of like it!

I think I got the colors right, but feel like the paintings are a bit overworked.  I think I will try it again, and seek a lighter touch. 

Autumn Color Inspiration

It has been a fabulous three days in the North Carolina mountains.  It rained on the way up on Thursday night, but after that it has been beautiful, with a full moon and mostly clear skies.  We took a couple of trips into town to buy groceries and other supplies.  Signs of the season were everywhere!

We took a ride up to the top of Mount Jefferson to see the colorful view.

Of course, we took some Gator rides closer to home.  It was so pretty.

I was a happy girl!

Our contractor has finished excavating for the basement of our new cabin..  Now when we look out the window we see this.

But the view from the new cabin will be nice.

Tomorrow morning I start my class with Fealing Lin.  I am both nervous and excited.  More to come!

Linn Cove Viaduct Watercolor Painting

I think this painting is finished now!  I started it last Wednesday at Art Student Academy in Wake Forest. Steve Filarsky was the instructor for Autumn Color in Watercolors.



Linn Cove Viaduct, 2011, Jeanne T. McBrayer

I punched up the color a bit, added the illusion of a railing, and added more foliage in the foreground.  I added more dark paint under the bridge to make it pop more.  I also added a little bit of gray to the blue ridge mountains in the background.  I mixed a very dark green to make the evergreens stand out.

Here is a very cool product if you want to revise a watercolor painting without starting over. 

It is intended to prepare any surface to accept watercolor paints.  Glass, seashells, wood, fabric, metal...all can be prepared first with Watercolor Ground, and then painted with watercolors.  However, it is also good for covering up boo-boos.  In my case, I did not like the shadow that I painted on the viaduct, covered it in the white ground product, and then repainted it in black.

You can see some tutorials on this product at the Daniel Smith website.



First Fall Weekend in the Mountains

It's starting to look like fall on the first official weekend of the season.

More and more trees are displaying their autumn palettes.

As is the forest floor.

The fern banks still shine in the shafts of light that reach them through the forest, but some have shed their brilliant yellow-green for the tawny golds and brown of fall.

My window boxes on the cabin have been very sad since all the heat of the summer.

Now they are happy.

It makes me so happy to be in the mountains.

Almost Heaven!

Cold Mountain

When we left home (Wake Forest, NC) to go to the mountains on Friday afternoon, it was sunny and warm, about 60 degrees F.  Around Winston-Salem, NC, it was raining hard.  Then it cleared up, and we were treated to some spectacular cloud formations as we approached the mountains.

For awhile we enjoyed the remaining autumn foliage in the foothills

Then, it started snowing!

You can see the snow on the windshield.

It did not amount to much, but it stayed fairly cold all weekend.  This morning it was a chilly 21 degrees!

We went to West Jefferson for groceries and supplies on Saturday.  A beautiful ride! This is one of my favorite spots in Ashe County, a quilt barn in a pasture with hills rising above.

There is a nice promenade of maple trees in Jefferson that are still looking colorful.

There were some traces of snow on the ground and in the Christmas tree fields.

A check of the "stealth" camera memory card showed lots of visitors in the woods behind our house since last weekend.

We had a beautiful new baby to admire at our neighbor's home...little Shelby, one month old!  She weighed only four pounds at birth, but is healthy as can be, and very sweet!

I sewed on some more beads and embellishments on my Zentangle hand art quilt while we watched football on TV and later while the guys were in the woods hunting.  I might "unsew" some of this stuff, as it is looking kind of busy.

We had a beautiful ride on the Gator this afternoon before leaving for home.  There is a patch of snow in the mountains in the distance.

This time the trip home was incredibly beautiful.  The afternoon sun lit up the golden trees along the country roads.

Before we reached home, it was dark, and the stars and a trace of the crescent moon were in the sky.  Daylight Saving Time has ended and it is darker earlier.