Painting experiments

 

                            Koi fish at the botanical garden, Acrylic on canvas panel 11 X 14.

I had fun painting on a black background with acrylic paint. I've always enjoyed painting fish. I have some of my earlier paintings in watercolor of Koi hanging in my house. I think these have a good sense of movement. I liked the way the bright colors appeared on the black background. I enjoyed watching them at the pond at the botanical garden.  It reminded me of our trip to Israel in 2012 when we visited the kibbutz where they were being raised for sale.  Beautiful fish.

Sitting by the Snake River. 9 X 12, mixed media on paper. This was done in my sketch book with gouache, pen and ink. I also used a brayer (a type of roller). I was just having fun without making too much of a mess.  The woman sitting on the rock was another artist painting in watercolor a couple of years ago at the Swan Falls Park along the Snake River in Murphy, Idaho.  I have done very little painting with gouache, but I had a few tubes to play with.  I actually prefer painting with oils, but they take a long time to dry and I don't always have the patience for that so I decided to do some paintings that would dry quickly.

Memorial Day

 

Although we have lived in Boise, Idaho for 6 years now, we had not visited the Warhawk Museum in nearby Nampa.  They were open on Memorial Day and advertising a flyover. This was definitely a worthwhile trip. We enjoyed looked at all the war memorabilia, the engines and the planes. It made me think how essential mechanics were to the wars (yet how many people encourage their children to study mechanics?).

I found the cut apart engines interesting even though I had no idea what I was looking at. I am not a mechanical person.  I actually enrolled in mechanical drawing in middle school (1950s) and was told that girls were not welcome.  The teacher said he never had a girl in his classes and I was intimidated so I didn't take those classes.  Now we have women engineers and pilots. I'm glad things changed.

If you are vising Idaho, this is a good place to browse. I remember we went to an airplane museum one time in Nova Scotia and got to climb aboard an actual plane and look at the displays. That was a long time ago (2003). I don't remember the name of that place, but I think it was near Halifax. Here is an old photo I found on my computer from 2003.