Wearing Purple [oil, 6”x6”]

Weeks ago I decided that I need to do more small paintings on a more regular basis and really study the mundane, simple things around me.  With that in mind I ordered a supply of 6”x6” deep, gallery wrapped canvasses when Curry’s had their sale last month.  I got some help with “seeing” better last weekend. 

Yesterday I set up a still life with just a red onion with a light green background and painted my first 6x6 canvas.  So fun!  I  love the way these colors complement each other.  There’s a real trick to getting the paint to leave your brush when and how you want it to!  I’ve got a lot to work out in that regard.  My hands can be quite shaky at times so I do better when I make a quick, decisive stroke.  Easier said than done – trust me on that!  Location, pressure, direction, angle, all factors in making oil paint work.  Before the stroke you’ve already made several key decisions – which brush? which color? how intense? what value? It’s very, very entertaining…  Ciao!

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Monday model WIP [oil, 16”x20”]

Monday we had a beautiful model for our painting class with Ingrid.  I felt pretty good about my effort given only about 2.5 hours to paint.  Despite the warning from Ingrid that we often paint shoulders too big, I did exactly that.  Is it ever hard to figure out what isn’t working in a figure pose!  I did spend a fair bit of time measuring and re-measuring my drawing before I started blocking in and I think that helped.  The face is really bugging me though – I missed it totally on the color temperature for the shadow across her eyes.  Have a look at where I was at the end of class [below], and check out how long her right arm was!  I got the proportions “righter” but I’ve still got to deal with the color under her new hand…  or perhaps I’ll just wipe this and have another go next week. 

Cheers!

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Orange Compliment [oil, 8”x6”]

This is the third painting from the weekend workshop.  I was amazed at how much duller the reflection was relative to the brilliance of the orange!  Given that blue is the compliment to orange [ie mixed together they would be dull greyish] I shouldn’t have been so surprised.  I love painting glass and this was a good challenge for the last painting of the workshop.  One more weekend of focusing on, and painting, what I see – not orange sections and a blue bottle!  So fun! 

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Reflections of an Eggplant [oil, 6”x8”]

We continued our weekend workshop by setting up a simple little still life each.  I chose an eggplant, which I thought would be simpler than my striated apple ;-).   It was somewhat simpler but I found it fascinating that a great eggplant only reveals a little bit of it’s purple hide at a time!  Of course the lighting is somewhat controllable with my nifty Home Depot clamp on trouble lamp.  I set it up close to the left hand side of the eggplant and set to work.  The reflections are amazing!  They define the shape and the form, dulling and cooling gradually as they fall away from the light.  Then you have the funny things – like the reflected red of the background fabric and the warmish white of my roll of paper towel sitting just out of sight on the right.  Fascinating!  I thought this was done but I’m going to set it up again tomorrow and see whether I got the right value in the shadow – I’m guessing I’m off by at least two…  I learned SO MUCH this weekend.  Cheers!

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Apple from Liz Wiltzen’s workshop

This weekend I am lucky to be in a Calgary FCA workshop with accomplished painter Liz Wiltzen.  We’re painting in oils and concentrated on value, color, and intensity today with several exercises.  The goal of the workshop is to concentrate on observing these things carefully, putting down the “true” colors.  Once that has been mastered, an artist can move on to their chosen path wherever they want to be on the realism --- abstraction spectrum. 

For the last 90 minutes we worked up our own small [6”x8”] still life.  I brought an apple that was striated red/green – what a nasty thing that was to paint!  The color was difficult due to the complimentary nature of red/green.  Every time I made a stroke it changed EVERYTHING!  I was reasonably happy with the way it turned out despite running out of time.  The background color was challenging and I’ve made it just a tad too cool in the painting.  More practice tomorrow.  Have a great weekend!

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Irksome RSS feed test # whatever [lost count]

I hate techie stuff!

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Foothills Fields [ 9”x12”, oil]

Just a little sketch of the rolling fields and foothills of Alberta today.  Country roads take me home….  have a great day!

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