Sunflowers

These sunflowers were painted a couple of months ago and I'm just now getting around to posting them. Have finally learned (with the cooerced help from my son) how to resize my photos and post them successfully. Heretofore, they have come out magnified 2000 or so times when pumped up and I really don't paint THAT messy...does that mean our eyes are lying? He has recently installed Photoshop CS for me, and of course I don't know how to use it yet. The sunflower on the left top is from a photo that a friend took out in Ruidoso, NM and I just added the lower one for folage and interest. Couldn't help throwing some red into the sunflower and background as I always think a little red goes with most anything. This is quarter sheet, Arches 140 CP paper.

Architecture workshop painting (no title yet)

Here is the painting I produced at the Paul Jackson workshop held here in Noonday last weekend. Funny how after one of these intense sessions, your mind wishes you could have started over, but you can't. I have admitted that I'm no workshop painter, but basically I do like this one. There are many things I would have done rather differently had I had a little more time...starting with being sooooo much more careful with my application of masking. The whole feel is too tight for the way I generally like to paint also. There is a lot of masking on this painting and now it will take days going back in and cleaning up all the rough edges once it was removed. When we started, we wet the entire paper (half sheet), "threw" on rather thin opera, winsor yellow, and a blue arbritarily and let is mix on the paper and let it dry. We basically started with winsor violet on EVERYTHING in the structure (other than the stained glass) with the value being according to the darks in our reference pics. Who would know that you can cover up purple as much as we did? Paul Jackson knew..ha! Anyway, the only colors used on this whole piece are winsor purple, burnt sienna, indigo, manganese, french ultramarine and a light wash of new gamboge on my masonary to try to warm it up a bit. I will give it a few days of cleaning up edges and evaluating darks, but it is basically finished.

Paul Jackson workshop

Just finished the Paul Jackson architecture workshop here in Noonday and it was fabulous. I am NOT a workshop painter at all, but I am very pleased with the painting that I produced and will post it maybe tomorrow if I get it finished. Here are Marla (Paul's darling wife), Paul and me at the workshop. This picture is just typical of Paul's wonderful personality and as you can see, he's quite playful! He can take a rank beginner and in just a few days, have them turn out a painting of which they are very proud. He is really a genius when it comes to painting and the processes and thoughts involved in producing a very good work. If any of you are ever given the opportunity to study with Paul, you'll definitely not be disappointed. Any of you who have seen his latest street scene work on Facebook cannot appreciate that painting until you have seen it in real life. It is truly stunning. Most of our painting group from Bullard were able to take the workshop and if I can get all our paintings together in one place, I'll try to get a photo posted showing everybody's work.

Teacup Cherries

My latest little cherry painting is finished now...I think. I have to live with it for a day or two to see about any value changes, but once I put the dark background in, it did seem to balance some of my concerns. I have the mat placed a little high on the bottom, but my battery died on my camera and this was the only shot I was able to get this afternoon. It will be cropped just a little larger when I get around to it. I'll admit that I'm pretty bad about not getting back to these little projects unless I'm framing something immediately. An artist friend once told me that we should never show our work without placing it behind a mat, but that doesn't always happen around here. I've found that I really enjoy working with the gold on china and am looking forward to painting some more pieces with china as an element. Like most artists, I have tons of setup photos done...it's just hard to get around to deciding to paint them. Ha! This painting is small..8 x 10..and I used a very limited pallette for my colors..alizarine crimson, quin burnt orange, quin red, perm rose, burnt sienna, burnt umber, new gamboge, and a touch of cobalt and untramarine blue for darkening here and there.

Teacup Cherries WIP cont'd

Just wanted to let you see what I've gotten done this afternoon (between going out and checking on one of my pet roosters, Hercules. He and his previously #2 guy..Big Red..had a little fight yesterday to see who leads the harum and he lost.) Anyway, I am at a point of decision whether to deepen the shadows with a bit more blue/purple or live with them a little while. Still haven't decided what to do with the background, but since this is a small piece so I do have lots of choices. Thought about using some lace again, but I don't think I want to invest the drawing time it will take.

Teacup Cherries WIP

 

My previous attempt at painting cherries has become a dismal failure and I've "junked" it. The purples were just too much for me to oversome, so I decided to call it a day with it. But, not wanting to end painting the cherries on a sour (pun) note, I decided to come up with another little painting and hope for better results. This teacup painting is with the pink limoge china that I love so much and working with the pinks to magentas is more to my liking that all that purple. So, we'll give it another try. This is really in the WIP stage right now, but at least I'm feeling somewhat better about it.

More WIP Cherries

Today, I worked a bit more on the cherries and have made a pretty good muddy mess out of them. My camera has the saucer looking very blue/purple and it's not actually that dark in real life. However, I am definitely going back in and lift most of that color off the saucer as it is way too heavy. Should have left it white, but that's hindsight. I am also not happy with the cherries and decided I would make Raniers out of them rather than Bings, but now am going back with reds to change them back to Bings. It's really rather fun to work on a piece, decide that it has too many problems to like the finished painting, but go ahead and work on it anyway. I can always learn from everything I paint so I don't ever think the effort is wasted. Am trying to decide now what grays I want to use for the white tablecloth the place is sitting on...going to have to throw it to the maroon gray I think...we'll see. I'm trying to paint and watch Green Bay and Arizona play ball at the same time...I should know better by now! But, sure did enjoy watching the Cowboys stomp the Eagles. Ha!!

Cherries WIP

Thought I'd post a bit of the newest cherry painting I decided to do since the weather is so cold and I wanted to paint something warm and happy. I actually took about 70 setup photos yesterday and printed out 6 of them that interested me. My favorite was one of the cherries with a collander and situated on my favorite striped place mat from Pier I. The reflections will be a bit challenging, so I didn't want to get that quite ambitions today. I'm going to finish this tomorrow and my friends (who want something to paint) will give their hands a try when we paint at the ArtRetreat on Tuesday. The Cowboys play in just a few hours, and you know that I'm a football fan so don't want to get into a painting that I don't want to quit on...and I might for the Boys.

Rooster and Hen

Today is the first day of the new year, and I shot my mouth off and told the artists on Artcolony that I was going to paint a rooster today, so I had to back my mouth up. This is my first attempt at acrylics and it was rather fun. I have certainly developed a new appreciation for acrylic painters because this medium doesn't mix or work like watercolor and I was assuming that it would...sorta. I chose to use dark and gaudy colors because I love bright paintings and I knew the white would really stand out on the chickens. However, now I may go back in and dull some of the whites down once I figure out how to do it without making the colors muddy or gray. There are also a few more things I can see I need to do, but that will come after the bowl games that I am going to be watching the rest of the afternoon. I am a real football fan so I moved my painting into the tv area so I could at least hear what was going on. This painting is 16x20 and my acrylics were probably at least 4 years old so I guess they were still creamy enough to push around with my brush. I'm rather proud of myself for painting today. I'm telling myself that I'm going to paint and post at least once a week, so I'm good for at least 6 more days. Ha!