Plein Air - April 30

 We painted at Hayden Falls today. I'd never been there so was excited to see it. Because there are some long, steep steps to get to the falls, I walked down without my gear to take pictures and look around. It was cool and dark and misty from the falls - not good for painting! I enjoyed viewing the falls, but it didn't inspire me enough to climb back up to the car to haul my gear back down, so I just setup above in the parking lot with a few other people. I decided to just do a quick practice piece with a palette knife.

Among the Pines, 8 x 10, oil

 I don't understand why blogger rotates my pics when I download them!

Plein Air - April 9

Finally, our group was able to get out and paint. The weather was a bit warmer today, about 50 degrees with a very dull overcast sky. We painted at Alum Creek State Park, below the dam where the river leaves the reservoir.  I chose a view looking downstream towards the bridge.

I started with a canvas board washed with the Napthol red acrylic wash, as I had done with yesterday's painting. Because the atmosphere was so grey and the landscape so dull, I was hoping it would liven up the painting. Here is my pochade with the completed painting, facing the the view.

This painting is a "ten-footer" painting - it looks much better from 10 feet back! LOL

"Alum Creek", 8 x 10, oil on canvas board

German Lane

I submitted a piece to this week's DPW Painting Challenge. As I painted, I took several in-progress shots:
I printed out Carol's photo and cropped it with a couple of scraps of mat board.

I then took a canvas panel and underpainted it lightly with napthol red acrylic paint. When that was dry, I quickly sketched in a basic layout with a combination of ultramarine blue and quinacridone red oils thinned with Gamsol.

I started with the darks and placed large shapes. I was trying to pay attention to value relationships when I put in the sky and the road. I re-painted those several times!

I was using the photo as inspiration and decided to just go with it to please my eye. I am happy with how it ended up! I had a hard time taking a photo though because of the grain of the canvas and the glare.

"German Lane",  6 x 6 , oil on canvas board

Die Hard Plein Air Painters

Brrrrrr! It was our first day out for the plein air season. It was a brisk 40 degrees with a north wind and misty skies. I stopped by, but only brought my camera and a sketch pad to make some thumbnail sketches. I lasted about 15 minutes, even though I had on layers under my Gore-tex jacket. Hopefully I can make a painting at home which represents the scene and weather.

DPW Painting Challenge - Help Japan Challenge - SOLD

I have posted an older watercolor on the DPW Painting Challenge auction to benefit victims in Japan. Click below,

http://www.dailypaintworks.com/Challenge/FC50B15D-5016-4E5E-87F2-87C3F79BA65B

SOLD!

Leaf and Butterfly

Last Saturday at the MAC - Carnations

Today was the last Saturday my group will be painting inside - next week we will go plein air. Hopefully the weather will cooperate. We had several still lifes of flowers setup to paint today. I chose yellow carnations which I brought from home.

This is pastels on suede mat board. The mat board was bright scarlet red. You might see some of it peaking through. The first photo shows the painting midway through. The final photo is after finished it at home. It was difficult to get a true color photo, but I am pleased with this painting.

DPW - White Vase

I painted a piece for the DPW Painting Challenge. This week's challenge was to paint something white laying on a colorful cloth.  I felt like I overworked this. I was hoping to be more selective with brushstrokes but blended more than I intended.

Pastel - Foothills

"Foothills" - 8 x 10 - pastel on suede mat board

Play - Pastel Underpaintings

I recently bought the new book Pastel Pointers by Richard McKinley. The book included a DVD in which Richard showed how to use wet underpaintings. I thought I'd give it a try. I am not a fan of sanded papers, but had some leftovers of several brands, and decided to experiment. I used UArt, LeCarte and later - Wallis.

In the photo below you will see two UArt papers on the left and a LeCarte paper bottom right. I have blocked in the composition using the reference photo on the top right. I used the same colors of hard pastels for all.

Then I tried several different wet washes to see which I liked the best. In the photo below you will see that I added Wallis to the experiment. Because the LeCarte's grit was dissolved (you can see the white patches), I just threw that away. Because LeCarte uses a vegetable based grit, it was too fragile for a wet wash.

You can see that the Wallis was the most vibrant and had a nice watercolor effect. The others were pretty boring. I then started to add more color with softer pastels to all three papers. I really didn't like the feel of the UArt paper and since the Wallis was much more interesting, I worked on that alone. Below, you will see the finished painting. It was a good experiment overall, but I still don't really enjoy using sanded papers. I prefer a softer feel and suede mat board is my favorite.

Play Two

Play

Stepped into the studio this evening just to play with pastels. Just a simple quick sketch.

A Career as an Artist?

Interesting article - I think she makes a lot of sense.

http://blog.penelopetrunk.com/2009/02/06/how-to-build-a-career-as-an-artist/

Painting Saturday at the MAC - Abstract?

Finally made it to Saturday painting again. I'm just getting over the first cold I've had in years, so didn't have a lot of energy to paint, but gave it a shot. The group suggested we try to abstract our still life. It's difficult! I got started and changed things a few times, but was still headed towards a realistic painting. I quit for the day. We don't get much done in our short 2 hour time period. I may try to work on this, and again, try to abstract what I have. I like the color palette I have used so far.

Winter Wonderland....

A wonderland, only if I can stay inside!

Ice Day! Let's Paint!

I stayed home today. We had about 1/4" to 1/2" of freezing rain this morning, and we are expecting more this evening. My driveway is on a slight hill and I am not sure I could get back into the garage if I left, so I took a vacation day. Got my laundry caught up, watched alot of my DVR recordings and finally got into the studio!!

I decided to try painting with the new DPW Challenge Group. Since it is a very dreary day, I had a hard time taking a good photograph. 




"Imperial"  5 x 7, oil on mat board coated with mat medium

Painting Saturday at the MAC - Whiteware

The still life today had a set of white porcelain ware. How difficult! But I think it ended up pretty good.

"Whiteware", 8 x 10, oil on Yes! canvas panel

Back in the Saddle again....

Finally back to painting again. Yes, I had plenty of time to paint on my own, but just couldn't get motivated. The group met today for the first time in weeks. We painted a still life again. 

I bought myself an i-Pod touch recently and wanted to play around with the camera on it. The top photo shows the still life setup and my painting. I used an app on the i-Pod that simulates a HDR camera. It took two shots (one light and one dark) and merged the two to make the photo. You have to keep the camera still as it is taking the shots (which I find hard to do) and the people in the background moved - so there is a bit of blurriness. But compared to a standard shot I took, I think the app does improve the vibrancy of the photo.

The second photo is a bit farther in my painting process. This was taken with just a standard shot.

This isn't one of my best paintings, and I am bored with it, so won't be doing anything more with it. But it was a good exercise to get me painting again!

Saturday Painting - Clementines in Jar

Finally back to painting with the group on Saturday morning. It's been so long since I got the oil paints out, I wasn't sure if I could even paint anymore!

I put a couple clementines into a glass jar and put another beside it. I wanted to try my hand at painting through glass. In the photo of three below, the first image is the photo of my setup, the middle is what I painted while with the group, and the right is my final painting finished at home after trying to tweak things. I am fairly happy with this, even though I can see lots of things that need corrected when placed beside the photo. I did have trouble getting the ellipses of the jar correct.

"Clementines in Jar", 8 x 10, oil on canvas panel

MAC Birthday Party

Today, my group demo'd at the MAC birthday party from 2-5pm. They had birthday cake to celebrate the McConnell Arts Center being open one year. They had live music, potter demos, painting demos, and tonight there was a performance in the auditorium.

My group painted live models in two different galleries. I had a tough time again. I was a little too far away to be able to see the facial features well enough to get a good likeness. As usual, my portraits never look like the person....

These are pastel. The first one is on on Pastel Mat and the second one on suede mat board.

Painting Saturday - Male Model

We had a guy come in to sit as a model for my Saturday painting group. Since we only had 2 hours, I just used black, grey and white pastels on cream colored LeCarte pastel paper, instead of trying to use paint.

There sure isn't much resemblance between my sketch and the model though..... it's much easier seeing what is wrong after you take the photos and place them side by side...look at that huge head!! But its all about practice.

Demise of a Giant

I posted about one of my favorite trees, in a nearby park, back in March of this year. Recently, I found that it was finally cut down. I visited today at lunch and took some pics. Such a beautiful tree, but obviously, it had some rot inside.

 

Ohio Plein Air Exhibit

Come see the exhibit of my Saturday painting group's artwork. We paint each Saturday morning (year round). This is an exhibit of some of our favorite work. The exhibit will hang from November 14 thru January 13, 2011.

Painting Saturday - Small Pastels

Today we setup some stuff on the table in the middle to paint still lives.

I painted a couple small 5x7 pastels on suede mat board.

"Gala"  5x7  pastel on suede mat board

"Onion and Candle"  5x7  pastel on suede mat board