Artichokes WIP

This colorful painting of artichokes has been lots of fun. While taking a workshop with Karlyn Holman 3 years ago, she shared some of her photographs from her European teaching jaunts, and this reference was one of four of artichokes that I just loved. This particular one was at a street market in Paris. The pastel colors are actually there in the chokes...and...it's a feast for the eyes while painting. There are lots of edges that will be cleaned up, and several more darker combinations of colors going across the page. This one is quarter sheet, and I'm using so many different colors I won't name them all...just a whole bunch of greens, blues, magentas and pinky yellow hues. I just wonder if they taste like the plain ole green ones we get here in the states?

My painting of Neiman is finished I think, but I'm going to live with it a bit longer before signing...might need just another tweak or two.

More Neiman

So, here's where I am this afternoon. I had hoped to finish her today at art retreat, but we fooled around with a birthday party and other fun stuff so I'll definitely finish tomorrow. I can already see that I will need to do a glaze of quin gold to tone down the bedspread...either all over, or at least beside and behind her. Still having fun painting shapes and not particular designs.

Neiman WIP

Here is Neiman, one of my kitties...undoubtedly the prettiest calico I've ever seen. She is bright orange, bright black, and bright white...if you can call black and white "bright". And she has orange eyes. I'm into this at about the 2 hour stage so there is lots to do and you may have trouble reading the background...it's my RalphLauren black floral bedspread and it repeats Neimans colors beautifully...but it's a really fun paint so far. I'm trying to be looser with this one (not like my crystal) and I think I've used almost everything on my messy palette except green and lemon yellow. Will get back to it tomorrow and hopefully I'll post another progression photo.

Cityscape

Finally finished my cityscape, and finally got a photo straight enough to post. I really enjoyed fooling with all the greys in this. Purposefully I tried not to go into too much detail with the buildings and trim (as is my usual way)and it was really a fun painting. If I do any cityscapes in the future, however...they'll be half sheet as painting building any smaller is somewhat challenging.

Cityscape WIP

The weather is terrible here today so I'm planning to spend the whole day painting. I started this cityscape (my first) yesterday at art retreat and it's from a friend's collection of photographs taken somewhere in Europe. The drawing is rather messy and once posted looks a bit crooked, but I though I'd show you where I am with it now. Lots of glazing yet to do and just the basic work there on the left side. I started at the bottom (which I've never done) as I needed to establish my darks before painting the buildings. The reference actually had lots of people in the street scene, but I didn't want to paint people so I used my artistic license (that Paul Jackson gave me during a workshop) and took them out. Hopefully I'll get this finished this afternoon...it's quarter sheet size and not really that easy to paint the detail when it's small like this. Next time I'll paint any cityscape in the half sheet size...good lesson learned.

The Sunshine Plate

My artist friend from the UK, Pat Elliott, gave me this very appropriate name for my painting. Many thanks to her as my mind is frozen from all this cold weather and I couldn't come up with anything I liked. As you can see, I completely eliminated the banana nub and thanks to the miracle of aliz crimson and permenant red the whole orb was lifted out and painted over and it just looks like a dark area of the apple now. Just love transparent paints. All this red and yellow make me happy...and I do hope it carries over as we're supposed to get snow tonight and all day tomorrow. Ah, Texas weather!!!

Unnamed WIP

Since Texas is shivering under this cold artist blast, I decided to paint something red to try to warm up...doesn't work! I'm so aware of my artist friends in Minnesota and Chicago right now as they fight this stuff all the time. It was 15 here this morning and Texas's electricity company is doing rolling blackouts every hour or so in hopes that the whole system won't crash. Thank goodness for our fireplace and WalMart sweat suits! Sure is good soup weather though.

My idea for this little setup was to use my new square red floral plates, but they don't show all that much...I finally showed my husband the whole set (they've been in the old studio for the last 6 months and I was waiting for spring to change out...hope we can get used to square plates). Anyway, I drew this off yesterday and have painted this far today in between warming my hands at the fireplace. There is still much to do...shadows, finishing the apples (as one is still in the yellow stage), adjusting values...you know the drill. This is quarter sheet in size. Hope everybody is staying warm....