Painting #256 - Oct 7 - A simple little still life tonight

Running out of energy again tonight, so I decided to gather a couple little things (love chickens and marbles), so I decided to do this simple little set-up with chickens and marbles. The marbles were my Father-in-laws (I personally never got to meet him, he passed away before I became his daughter-in-law), but they knew I loved the marbles so they gave them to me, I have several jars, you did see one of the compositions with some of the jars several months ago, and the chicken basket was my Mother-in-law's, which I acquired after she passed away, and the chicken pitcher was given to me by my sister (she loves to shop for things she thinks you will like), so this is a special little set up.

I really didn't take a lot of time with this one, have about 2-1/2 hours in this, but I finished the oil painting that I was helping a friend with, and I worked on a couple of other oil paintings, sat for a couple of hours at the Hillsdale Art Guild's show today, and got my blog painting done, so I'm about whipped and ready for bed, so this will be a short one.

I drew the shapes of the pitcher, basket and marbles, then went in and mixed purple and neutral tint for the background, and it didn't get dark enough, so I added black to that mixture to darken it a bit more, it looks dark here, but really, it's not that dark. then I started with the chicken pitcher and moved down to the basket, the ribbon on the basket is really not nearly as difficult as it looks, it's all just fudged, and that includes the basket, I just laid in the shapes of the splines and the made sideways strokes to indicate the weft of the basket (I'm sure that isn't the correct terminology, but, you get the picture, I've never made baskets, and I'm sure I never will, even though my Great Grandmother did make baskets, just don't have enough time), the marbles and the ribbon on top of the basket chicken were last. I like this little painting and I hope you do too.

Painting #255 - another stream with rocks picture and then some

Well, I really struggled to get this one done, I had originally started one of a house and driveway in winter, but it was actually 10" x 10" and I wasn't sure I could get that one done during my china painting class (since I didn't get it done in my watercolor class today), and since I couldn't feel confident about that one, I decided to do another stream picture, well, I didn't start it until 9:30, pretty late, and I just got done with it, and it's 1:00 a.m. so that took awhile, I probably should have stuck with the house painting, oh well, done now. Well, I looked around for one of the Ampersand claybord's but I had them blocked off in the front room (my studio is a 12' x 50' trailer and I have it jam packed, I put up my drafting table the other day and the only place to set it up is right in front of the doorway to the front room, so I couldn't get the the small ones, this is a board that I coated with gesso it's about 7" x 10", not a good choice but that's the way it is, so it took too long but it's done now, while I waited for the first wash to dry (takes a bit for that since it's on gesso), I painted these 2 little strips, they were going to be book marks, maybe they still will, who knows, but I had them left over from my Strathmore Museum board that I cut my matts with, I just couldnt' waste it, and I thought I'd just do a little design, I really liked painting on it, so I kind of got wrapped up working on this instead of painting my blog painting, now I have a headache, so this is going to be short.

I started this painting by laying in a dark green at the top and worked my way down with a dark brown and then threw in some blue and green to that mix for the water, I laid in the coastal fog and purple for the rocks and the started to work on the water, when the water looked about right, I did the rocks, laying the ones in the foreground under the water is kind of fun, and the ones on top, then I did the green leaves, the leaves started to get too picky so I mushed them around with a larger brush, I like this little painting and I hope you do too, my fav is the little blue flowers though, they really were fun.

Painting #254 - Oct 5 - Got it together today, haven't made it to the studio though.

As soon as this is done, I'm heading to the studio for a couple hours, I have lots to do, but I did get my painting done early today, that probably won't happen often, but today is Blue Moon and I didn't want to have to paint it at Susan's, I have something else that I want to do there. I decided to finish this petunia painting that I started at the Constantine fair, well, I meant to work on it, but, I didn't like it, that was probably why I didn't want to work on it, so, I wiped it off and started over, this petunia painting was made up, although I did go out and pick a couple of flowers off my petunia's on the porch, so they aren't the same purple petunias that I started with, it went fairly fast and I'm pretty happy with the results, this is on a 5" x 5" aquabord, with the opaques, so, lets get started.

First thing I did was wipe it off, so then I got the purple out and painted over the ghost, there was a bit of residue, and I just floated the purple flower color over that, then I put the green at the top on and then placed some green for foliage at the underside of the flowers, then I concentrated on the flowers, these particular petunias are very veiney, as you can see they show up pretty good, I got the flowers in and concentrated on the negative spaces on the foliage, once that was done I floated some pink on the lightest leaves for some contrast, since there was pink in the washed out background, then, to play that down, since it was rough looking, I floated some white over it translucently so it wasn't so strong and the texture of the bord didn't come trough so much, and that was pretty much it, I like this little painting, and I hope you do too.

Painting #253 - Oct 4 - I'm not going to say it!

Well, I think you know what I mean, and that's just the way it is, can't help it, I think I'm a night owl. I worked on this painting today in class, but I didn't get it done, so, I was going to come right home and get right at it and get it done, well, I didn't, and I guess there isn't any excuse, so no reason to explain why I didn't.

This painting took me a lot longer than I intended, I worked on it for about an hour in class and then I have about 3 hours when I got home, don't know if it's that I'm finally getting filled up with rocks and water or what, but it didn't go as quickly as I thought it would, I thought I would be able to finish it in an hour, and that didn't work. Oh well, I got it done, and that's what counts, I'm looking forward to getting in the studio tomorrow, I want to finish that oil I was working on yesterday, don't know if it will be dry enough to work on yet, but I just want to try, I'm anxious to get it done and out of the way, I was going to try to get a painting done for the Park show, but that didn't pan out, now I'm going to work on something for the Ella Sharp (a local, well relatively local)competition, I would like to get in it this year, that show leans a bit modern, and I don't know if my work will make it, I'm a bit traditional, well, except for the opaques that I've been using lately, that's not really traditional.

I started this painting by laying in the green at the top, and then I worked on the rock area just below them, then I moved to the other rocks, which let me find the water. Then, I put in the darker part of the water, as with most of these, I've been using a lot of neutral tint by Lucas, that a very interesting purply brown, added to the gray it really makes a nice rock color, of course that's not the only color that I use, can't make the rocks all the same color, too boring, but it is the color I usually lay them in with. after that, I worked up the trees with several layers of different greens in the shape of the forward leaves, then put that shadow green by Shinhan (love that color, it is so dark and lucious), in the darker areas, and then moved around with a watered down version so it wouldn't bee too dark, the rocks gave me a bit of trouble tonight, I just couldn't get into them, maybe tomorrow I'll figure out something else, so I don't have to do the rocks for a while, any way, I finished the water by making the water movement with darker colors alternating with the lighter colors, then white on top to make the foam, then I finished it off with some indication of tree limbs on the background trees and it's done, I like this little painting and I hope you do too.

Painting #252 - Oct 3 - Well, it's a long story tonight

I don't have a brain in my head, well, when I'm painting, that is. I am in the dog house, I forgot to go to my SWMWS meeting tonight, I got over to the studio this afternoon, never a thought in my head that it was the first Monday in October, oops, I'm the secretary, well, by the time I realized it, it was too late to make it, I live about 50 min away, so, sorry guys, didn't mean it. Nothing I can do about it now, maybe they will think about getting a different secretary, I really didn't mean to do that, I thought about it Friday, then I was in the process of trying to get into that plein air retreat, then the weekend, and Monday came, and since I didn't get to do much in the studio over the weekend, I was looking forward to painting some things and getting some matts cut, well, I sure can't think of two things at one time, and painting, when I'm at it, I'm at it, oh well, I'll try to do better next time.

Anyway, I did some oil painting today, nothing that I can show you, it's really someone else's work (not a professional, Just one of my students), they asked me to help them out, and I accepted, but it was fun, I really was getting right into it, the unfortunate thing about it is that there is no good photo, the only photo is a newspaper clipping that's about on it's last leg, all yellow and the faces on these people are so small that I can't be expected to get a likeness, if I had a bit better of a photo, I might be able to, but at this point, I've already enhanced it 100% and I still have to do the faces, hopefully I'll be able to finish it this week and get that one out of the way, then on to the next, still haven't done the portrait, I'm working my way up to it. Now that I'm getting to the studio on a more frequent basis, I may be able to get some of this stuff done, so, I got to painting late again today, so I chose this simple landscape for that reason.

I painted the very pale blue gray sky in, and how I proceeded was to lay the foggy hills right in the sky color, since it did melt right in, then I just greened up the grayed blue for the next line of trees and I just kept adding green until I got to the foreground rock, I painted this on 6" x 6" aquabord and I used the opaque watercolors, next time I try this I'm thinking that I might try to paint it translucently, that should be a challenge since I'm so accustomed to the opaques now. Then, I painted a middle tone on the rocks and jammed in some weeds on the left corner, then I just worked on the rocks until I felt it portrayed them as best as I could, then the trees just beyond the rocks, I spattered, to enhance the rocks and then I spattered the weeds and, ta da! It's a painting, I like this little painting and I hope you do too.

Painting #251 - Oct 2 - Another late start

Here we go again, I think I must like being tired from staying up too late, it's technically the 3rd now, but this is my painting for the 2nd, I have multiple reasons for being late today, the major one is, it's husbands day, we got a late start for the shopping today, then out to eat and then over to my daughters (had to check out some school fund raiser thing for Mr. Ryan), so, we get a bunch of stuff that maybe we could get along without, but if it helps the school projects, that's good, so we got something, well, not yet, but we did order it.

I was going to do another lighthouse view of Big Sable, but, it didn't make me feel good, so, off it came, and on with this pear still life, remember I told you I'd be doing another one, this particular one, if you couldn't figure it out, was taken just after the other one (I think I did the apple pear study, day before yesterday), and I mean by that is that I had decided to cut the pear in half and then quarters, well, I chose to take a couple photo's, I really liked the pear center so I cut it in half and laid the others on the plate with the peals, now remember this is red pears, and those apple pears (I cut them both at the same time, that was my lunch), those strange little things on the other side of the knife are the centers of the quarters that I cut out.

Now, mind you, this was a bit tricky, since I had started the painting as a lighthouse, and then wiped it off, so I had to make my lines dark enough to find my pear shapes and the plate, once that was all drawn on (I did it with the brush and paint, I don't usually draw on these unless I feel I really need to be precise), well, as the paint got laid on, the lighthouse became lost, and the pears and knife became found, I did get really opaque with this one, since there was an underneath color, where I wanted white, I really had to lay in the paint. If you notice, I tried to show the texture of the table cloth again, I textured it with some line work to make it look like a weave, I could see the table cloth texture and I wanted it to feel like a table cloth so that's why, I only did it in the lower half, the top one was much darker and I didn't want to draw your eye they, hopefully this worked.

I floated in the table cloth colors, and got that how I wanted it, then I jumped in with local colors for the pears and the plate, since it was really kind of dark for this one, I chose to play that down pretty much. I love the contrast of the pears on the plate, and the gray/green/blue shadows on the white flesh of the apple pear that was quartered on the plate, the 1/2 pear is a red pear, but all you can see is just a very thin line of red, but it's enough, I'd like to tell you how this progressed but it's pretty complicated, love playing with those just slightly off white colors, grays, greens and blues to indicate the shaded flesh of that fruit, I don't know if you can see it or not, but that 1/2 pear really almost looks wet, I like this little painting and I hope you do too.

Painting #250 - Oct 1 - A bit late again tonight

I'm bad and I know it, I don't seem to get at the painting until it should already be done, oh well, just the way it is, I guess.

Today's painting is another photo from North Carolina (again), I'm sure these photo's were taken before I had digital, which means that it was taken in North Carolina, I didn't get very far in my picture taking ventures, except local stuff, until I was married, for the second time, my husband is very sweet about taking me on trips, the first year we went, I don't think I had the digital camera yet, but these photo's look like North Carolina to me, and so that's were it was, I'm fairly sure it was even the same stream, my Brother-in-law let me out of the car, he drove on and waited about a mile or so up the road, because I was driving him crazy wanting to stop, I actually got out on the rocks in the middle, jumping back and forth so I could get these pictures that look like I was in the middle of the stream, and that is surely where I was. Of course, I was much more limber then, and thinner, and younger, did I say that?

I've really been loving painting these little paintings of the rocks and streams with the little falls, I've got about 2-1/2 hours in this, or so. I painted it on a 5" x 7" aquabord, with the opaques (again). I started by laying in a mixture of neutral tint (a Lucas color), and purple and some coastal fog (an American Journey color), then started by painting the background rocks, then I moved to the rocks in the middle and then on to the ones in the foreground, that pretty much made my waterfall shape then I dropped some green in for the leaves and some darker neutral tint to set them back, the water, where it's greenish, was put in with some sap green mixed with purple and neutral tint added, I grayed it down a bit so it wasn't so bright. Then I started working on the rocks, putting shadows in, then going back in with some highlights, and then blending when applicable, I splattered darker and lighter on at this point so I didn't get too far with the water and then I finished the rocks. Next the water, and some indication of the movement of the water going over the rocks, I put some periwinkle blue on the shadow side of the falls and mixed some purple in for the middle area, then I worked on the tree leaves in the back, oh, I did go in with neutral tint and set the area under the leaves dark and painted around the tree trunks, then the leaves, a few layers of different colors of green. Then, I worked on the falls by getting into the white, and the rest is history, I really like this little painting, and I hope you do too.