Painting #66 and then some

I am so excited, I finished my blog painting, which you will see here directly, and after my last student left, I started an oil painting, remember I said I was going to do an oil painting workshop, well, I started it tonight, I have about an hour or so in this painting, it really needs some fine tuning, but it really is fun, I've taken oil painting workshops before, but it was always the old masters way, smooth, using mediums. This was pretty much straight out of the tube and right now it has rough edges but I'm loving it, I finally got the hang of the way to get it when I was half way through, there is this really neat flow blue bowl in this composition and boy, I nailed it, without the real detail, love it, I can hardly wait to finish it tomorrow. I don't have a photo of it yet, so you will have to wait.

I really like this little watercolor, I used the clayboard again, and that really seems to work for me doing these waterscapes. I start by laying in a thin layer of paint the local color, that's green for the trees and gray for the rocks and blue gray for the water (there is a tiny little bit of sky, and I jambed that in on top of the green, kind of last min). After that was dry, I started to put in the detail, I got another layer on the trees and didn't fine tune them until the last, this time, I really got in to the water, I usually start in the back and work forward, but this time I started with the middle water and worked my way forward, then the back water, and the trees in the background again. Once that was set, I started on the left hand corner and put in the trees that are leaning over the water, then the branches over the other stuff, some are dark and some are light, then I put some tree trunks in the background and put some branches in there as well, the last was the forground shale bank where the trees are falling over, I really enjoyed this painting, and sure hope you do to.

#65, woo hoo! now only 300 to go.

Well, I finally made it, now it should go easier, or maybe it's just that 365 seemed like so many, now it will be so much less, well, let me think that anyway.

I really think that water scenes are my thing, I love these little waterfalls and the reflections in the calm water, must be, it's the thing that really gets me jazzed. Every time I get one of these waterfall pictures out, I just go wild, and I get so excited that it goes very quickly, at least that's how it seems, I really enjoy doing all that water.

This painting is done on the clayboard, again, and the opaques, again, and again no sky, seems like a lot of again's, doesn't it? Well, it may be, but it just seems right. I usually end up taking close up pictures of the water and falls, and when you do a close up, you don't get much sky, but does it need it? No, I don't think so. I started by laying in a thin wash of the local color on the trees and then the rocks and then I put a thin wash of a golden color on the water area, then I fine tuned the background, now it seems like a lotof and then's, oh well. I laid in the darks, then I painted the leaves (those little green dots up at the top) and then worked my way across to the left side and that large rock there, layers and layers, first gray, then some brown, and some black (nothing wrong with some black), then I went back over it laying in squiggly lines for the cracks, once I got that rock shape done, I worked on the rock at the right, that one is more difficult because of all the water running over it, but it looks good to me, then last I painted white over the golden color of the water, when you paint it, the white looks opaque but after it dries it does show some of the gold through, but I make lots of layers of white so that you see little lines that make the water cascade down the hill, I then put a bit of the gold color back in so it doesn't become too white and then I call it done, I love this one, I painted it once before (just this past year), I did a watercolor/collage and made the white water out of the stringy part of the papers, it worked, so I wanted to do this one on the clayboard to see how that one works, and it does, love it, and I hope you do too.

Painting 64, wow! I can't believe it.

Good day to you, I worked today so I'm a bit tired, what's unusual about that, seems like I'm always tired. I worked on this one in class today, I like it, but compared to some of the others, it seems a bit ho hum, maybe not, maybe I'm getting jaded. This is Lake Superior, I'm unsure if it's in the U.P. or if it's in Minnesota, we took so many pictures over 3 or 4 trips that I just can't remember, I'm thinking that it was on the way to the Keweenaw Peninsula, but I'm not sure.

This painting is done on D'Arches 260 lb. Mural paper (obviously much smaller than a full sheet, it really works out nicely for this project, it makes about 24 pieces about 6-1/2" square, I've been working on the clayboard a lot lately and I decided that I should work on regular paper so I don't forget how to do it, I'm hoping that I don't forget how to paint larger than 6-1/2" square, before I started this project I was working my way up to a full sheet (I have 4 started and someday I will finish them), but I think it will wait a day or two, I must be getting older, I surely don't have the stamina that I used to, there was a time that I could stay up painting all night and still work the next day, but I'm sure those days are over, I can barely stay up to blog this lately, I think I'm still recovering from the time change (at least I hope that's what it is, I'm sure I don't want to be sick).

I started with the sky, then the water line, I let them blur together, after that was dry, I put in the tree line and the tree reflection, I painted the sand in and spattered some, keeping in mind that this is all a first layer, there are several, I don't just paint it one time and done, I'm not that good, wish I were but I'm not. I decided that the water line wasn't dark enough so I enhanced that, then the trees again, I also thought that the right side of the picture needed something, I almost put in a tanker (being it is on Lake Superior), but decided to throw in some brush and a small tree to break up the blankness of it, in one of the photo's the Queen Ann's Lace was there, I just added to that ( I do tend to work from more than one photo). I just kept going, putting in rocks, and spattering and darkening here and there until it got to a point that I wasn't sure what more I could do to make it better, I also decided to add a few birds, then I quit. I like this little painting, it's very calming, and I hope you do too.

63 paintings, not bad

Well, I had a very busy day today, the mat cutter called me again, something about that, I'm petrified of getting behind, so I cut and cut and cut today. I only actually cut 7 or 8 mats, but I did cut the blanks (10" x 10" and the foam core), so, then when I need a specific size, it won't be so bad, I'll only have to cut the actual mat, I really got a lot ahead today.

I really wanted to oil paint, I'm taking an on-line oil painting workshop and I worked on getting the canvas ready, but, I didn't actually get time to paint it, I did get it all ready to work on tomorrow though, I'm sure hoping that I can get it done tomorrow, we'll see. While I was doing all that, I had to clean up a spot to work (I'm really bad about keeping my studio, it sure doesn't take long to get clogged up), now that I have a place to work, I think I can get it done pretty quickly, I'm only going to do 10" x 10", I'm possibly going to consider them for my blog, I'll have to check with the instructor to see if it will be ok to use them on line, but just in case he doesn't think I should, then I will make sure I get the watercolor painting done, I really don't know if I want to count it as the blog, since the instructor is providing the photo, I've been strictly using my own photo's for reference and I really feel good about that. We'll see. While I was cleaning, I came across a painting that I had started a few months ago, since I spent so much time cleaning and cutting mats, I decided to finish this one (it was about 1/3 done, I did do most of the work on it. It's almost the correct size so I think I can make it work.

This is a painting of Jeannie's Dinner in Coldwater, the Blue Moon Girls (me included) displayed paintings there for almost a full year, changing them out about every 6 weeks, and the first paintings we did were (of course) of Jeannie's Dinner, this is a similar painting to the one that I put in there and "Sold", I have done a couple of others, I really liked the format of this scene so I decided to do this small one one night at Blue Moon, well, some where in the shuffle, I missplaced it, now it's found and finished. It's done with opaques, the first wash was done with opera (a holbine color), I took a workshop with Donna Zagotta and she starts her paintings by outlining each area with the opera, then filling each one in with a thin wash of opera, so you end up with a very pink painting, then you start deciding on the colors and do each section until you get to the point that you can pull it together, that's one of the reasons that you see all that hot pink, you don't always cover every bit of it up, so this is a Donna Zagotta style painting, it was a lot of fun and I really learned a lot, she is a very good teacher.

I like this painting and sure hope you do too.

#62, glad this was done.

This is the painting that I told you I painted yesterday, so glad I was smart and got this done yesterday, we left today at 8:30 a.m. and didn't get home until 7:30 p.m., I really did work, but it was at my knitting, I can't just go and do nothing, so I finished a sweater vest that I've been working on so it was a good day even though I didn't get to paint, sometimes you just have to do stuff with your family, I surely don't want my husband to get an attitude about my art, he did ask me last week "and how long are you going to be doing this painting a day?", well, I told him and he just said "great, no sleep for a year", so I have to get my stuff done earlier, I'm going to work on that, and I don't want my husband to be mad at me because I wait until it's time for him to be home before I get my painting done, that has to stop, my reason for doing this blog was to get me to paint, but not at the expense of my marriage (I will certainly give that my best effort). Ok, now I must talk about my painting.

This is the first painting I started yesterday, but the other one really grabbed me, anyway, this is a nice painting and went very well, I didn't have as much time to dwell on excess detail, when I got done with the other one I only had about an hour and fifteen min. to finish it before it was time to go home, and I only had about 15 or 20 min. in it to start, so that's pretty quick, I am hoping that I can get faster with all of them, time will tell.

I did a rendition of this painting about 27 years ago, I entered it in The Michigan Area Competition at the Art Center of Battle Creek, I didn't get an award, but, I then put it in their rental gallery and sold it there. This one, being a square, is shortened a bit, which makes it look wider, or else, I tried to put too much of it in the picture, who cares, it looks pretty good to me. I started with purple/gray/white for the sky then went in with a pinky/gray color for the far away branches and the really spring green for those willows in the background, the trees were put in somewhere in the middle, then I put the water in with the grayed down blue with white in it, then the banks on each side, I put some rock shapes in with a very light gray, just so I could tell where they were. Once that was dry, I dry brushed some green on top of the brown on the bank, there wasn't much green, but some spots of it, the left side had some reddish twigs growing up behind the foreground tree there which helped with the reddish color of the foreground bank and water, then I started fine tuning the background by putting in some pale brown twigs to indicate some darker small trees growing there and then I did the water, I usually do the water last but this time, I wanted to make sure you could see some of the rocks in the foreground water, so I put them in first and then started the wave action with the blue, it was really cool how quickly that worked out, then the bank on the right side, I really started getting into the little bunch of rocks and wood and twigs and stones there right in front, then I just continued with that, somewhere in there I jumped in to get the trees in the background, I added some darker tree shapes and it started to pull together, I really like this little painting and sure hope you do too.

Painting # 61 Was a good day today

It was may day to work at the gallery today, not many came in, kind of slow, so I got a lot done, probably a good thing since we are going to be gone all day tomorrow, family stuff over by Toledo, so it was a good thing I got tomorrow's done today, I know I won't have much chance to paint tomorrow. Now, the question is, do I give them both to you today, or do I make you wait? I think I'll make you wait, it just seems that i should do the blog tomorrow. When I did 2 at once a few weeks ago, it was because we didn't have electricity and I wasn't sure when I would get it back again, but this time I just think I'll wait.

This painting was actually the 2nd painting I started, I decided to start this one while I was waiting for the other one to dry, but, I got so wrapped up in it, that I just had to finish it first, love this one, had a lot of fun doing it.

I started with a little swipe of sky, you probably don't see much of it, it's where the yellow trees are in the back, I then painted the trees green and then moved on to the rocks, I used that light gray and purple again, I really do like that color for the rocks, then I floated in a thin wash of a golden color where the water fall (or gorge) is, then I started to fine tune the trees, after that I worked the rocks on the right side and then the rock on the left side, once that was done, I finished the tree area in the back by putting in the tree trunks. When the tree area was done, I then decided to finish the falls, I put in a bit darker of the yellow in spots and some thin areas of a very light gray/blue, after that was dry, I dove into the white, and I really applied it thickly.

I'm thinking that I will have to tackle this painting again, much bigger of course, and transparently. Then, maybe I'll do it in oil, who knows, then there is always pastel, and acrylic, wow, I could have a whole bunch of them, well, we'll see. I really do like this painting and I hope you do to.

Painting #60, I'm getting there, one day at a time, lol

Yesterday I told you that today's painting is the other half of that painting, I did manage to pull it off and I think it looks great, I wasn't sure as it is mostly falls and I had to invent some of it because my photo didn't have the really close foreground in it, I wanted it to match the other painting exactly so the part that I didn't have was just (what I call) fudged. I have painted a lot of water and waterfalls lately so I think I got that under my belt, and it does match.

I'm going to give you the regular rundown, I started with the trees (no sky) and sketched in the rocks (with a brush, no pencils on this one) and painted the grayed down blue where the water and falls were, at the very end I painted the white in making the brush move like the water does over the rocks, the rocks are a blue with brown and purple added then white, I really liked the color they came out, a perfect rock color. this painting went pretty fast as it is almost the same as yesterdays and I'm feeling the looseness of these little waterfall paintings, I like this one and if you slide them side by side,they look like one long skinny painting, pretty cool. Hope you like it too.