Wednesday, March 30, 2016

Self Portrait In The Style Of.

Vincent van Gogh. When I look at this painting, I giggle. Maybe I have been taking way too much cold medicine. The goal was to have more van Gogh lines demarcating the features, but, my old "control self" kept smoothing and blending. I have one painting day left of this journey and I am going to post the final painting on Monday. Just a little treat to me. "Take a few days." I say to myself. "Thanks!" I say back. : )

Tuesday, March 29, 2016

Vincent's Clogs

I was in a mood to paint in the style of Vincent van Gogh. I saw this wooden shoes painting of his and I thought, "Perfect." I don't know why I thought that, but I did. I so thoroughly enjoyed doing this painting. His life and paintings are equally fascinating. And, knowing he did it all wearing these stiff wooden clogs. Oh, to walk a mile in these shoes.


Monday, March 28, 2016

Brown Jug.

All I can say about this painting, is that I am happy I was able to paint -- something. Still not out from under this flu bug thing, but climbing back up and making an effort feels good. Here's to your health!


Wednesday, March 23, 2016

Warm Red.

Using a warm red and the same blue and yellow, this apple turned out not much different than the previous two. Biggest difference in all three is probably the background color. This exercise was so worth the time. My color mixing has improved because of it. After painting it three times, I can also say, I know this apple by heart. : )   


Tuesday, March 22, 2016

Cool Red.

The palette I used on this apple had a cool red, a warm blue and warm yellow. I thought adding blue to the mix would make mixing easier, but it didn't. I think the color blending on the Zorn palette apple has an overall richer color scheme. The total opposite of my initial guess. Let's just keep that I was wrong between us, if you don't mind.  


Monday, March 21, 2016

Limited Palette.

Using just two or three colors, forces you to learn how to mix colors. Using an apple for my subject, I am painting it three different times, using limited palettes. The one today was done using a Zorn palette. Zorn was a Swedish artist and only used a vermilion red, yellow ocher, black and white. I was impressed at the number of different colors you can make with only two colors. Limitless.




Wednesday, March 16, 2016

Full Circle.

A sphere. Black and white. All value driven. I should have done this exercise about 10 months ago, but I thought it was boring and unnecessary. I know better today. The point of the exercise is that once you learn how to make a sphere look like a sphere you can paint anything sphere-like. My sphere is off a bit here and there but at least I know what I didn't know 10 months ago.  

Tuesday, March 15, 2016

One For The Cap.

A feather. Tried a different background technique - which translated means, "I lost my way and winged it." Oh yes, the pun was indeed intended. I think the color combination is fetching and it looks feathery. Happy enough. My guess is this is a turkey feather, feel free to correct me. 


Monday, March 14, 2016

Bottleneck.

Maple syrup. The real stuff. God's way of making a mediocre pancake-- spectacular. The only bottleneck I see around here are buckets of sap lining up next to the syrup cooker. I do like the way this painting ended up. Good composition with the slight crook of the top cap and the color of the syrup is pretty close to what I saw. 


Friday, March 11, 2016

Collage.

No painting for today, just a collage of my studio walls with a little over half of my total paintings for the year. In no order of date done or preference. Just felt I had to post something. : )

Thursday, March 10, 2016

Segments.

This little segment is brought to you by, "Orange." A joy to paint this was. I gave more effort to the background than the orange and at the end realized getting the level of darkness for the background right makes the segment move forward and pop. Love it when an effort pays off.


Wednesday, March 9, 2016

Time's Up.

Will Kemp has a wonderful tutorial on painting snow Click Here to see it. The piece today is from his lesson. I spent time watching the videos and preparing the canvas and palette etc, but I only allowed myself 1/2 hour of painting time. It was fun to know ahead of time when I would be done. This exercise may not have produced a better painting but it was so much more relaxing and that is a wonderful way to paint. 

 

Tuesday, March 8, 2016

Berry Good.

Today is one of those days when a good plan went right out the window. I managed to get these berries painted despite the flippy floppy day I am having. I planned to do them in oils but somehow I turned a corner and there I was painting away with acrylics. "Berry good anyway." I say.


Monday, March 7, 2016

Next Step.

In 1866 a drawing course by Charles Bargue was published. The lessons taught students like Van Gogh and Picasso to see and draw and measure. With almost 200 lithographs of drawings done of famous sculptures and paintings, the book is a treasure. One of my next steps has to include drawing from this book. This foot, is one lesson. Measuring is tough. I measure and say things like, one inch and two small ticks. I am, one day, going to learn how to use a ruler. I am, I am.


Friday, March 4, 2016

Compare.

Another do-over. This time I chose a painting I was originally happy with. As I was painting the new one, I realized I have learned a lot about lost and found edges and color mixing. The big difference between the two though, is my ability to see and paint value changes. I also think my ability to photograph the pieces has improved some.  The first pair looks like I took the photo as I was riding in a car on a very bumpy road, while hiccuping. 


Thursday, March 3, 2016

Could You Repeat That?

In less than a month my one year painting journey will come to an end. Thinking about the past year I wondered, "Just how did I grow?" So, I looked back at my year and found one of my first paintings. A coffee cup. I don't even think I finished it. I probably filled it with coffee and took a break and that was that. The cup I did today looks like a bit of growth has happened. : )  I will post the first cup painting as a comment to this post.  


Wednesday, March 2, 2016

Birch Bundle.

Another birch tree grove. Another pencil drawing on black tinted paper. This one feels good to me when I look at it. I think using a black background makes all the colors pop out more. But then I never grow tired looking at a birch tree. I sometimes wonder if they were put here just so we could paint them.

Tuesday, March 1, 2016

Four And Twenty.

Black bird. Just one. No pie. I don't know the name of this bird as the photo was taken by our friend on a recent cruise to somewhere warm and sunny. The shadow and the colors of the bird made the photo strikingly enchanting. This piece was done in pencil and pastel on black tinted paper. The result is a pretty good rendering: dainty enough for a king.