A Painting A Day

I had such a good time this morning painting with Plein Air Memphis. We got together at the Wolf River and spend about 2 and half hours painting. Afterwards we met up and got a group photo. Such great artists - they are an inspiration to me!

So this is my effort from today. For the most part I was happy with the values. So much green! So many variations of green! I used a limited palette simply because I was too lazy (or maybe too hot) to get some more. So I was proud of myself for achieving these colors with just ultramarine, viridian, cad yellow light, cad red light, black, and white.

This is my third time going on a paint out, and I can tell I'm getting a bit better. Trees are so incredibly hard to paint!

 Always love painting from life group on Wednesday nights! This was our model. She is getting married in two weeks so I don't know how she fit this in!

 I had a difficult time painting her but I was really proud of the pillow! Haha!

Yesterday I celebrated my ten year anniversary with this guy. So in celebration, I did a quick painting from this picture on our honeymoon.

I don't think I've attempted many self portraits, so it was a bit difficult to paint myself!

I don't do enough pencil sketches these days. I usually just jump right into painting without doing any drawing. I did this quickly today, and enjoyed working with a different medium so much! It's a study for a larger painting I plan to do.

I was needing some serious redemption after my latest "attempts" at painting, so tonight I thought I would try to paint something nice at our life painting group. My friend's daughter was the model, so I guess I just stacked up too much pressure to perform on myself!

 The group was packed so I ended up in the corner, so didn't have a good angle. I think I captured her likeness somewhat, but I also think I was a bit tired of painting after painting the two roses earlier. So I'm hoping she will model for the group again, because I would like another shot at painting that beautiful red hair!

I experimented with this, and really liked how it turned out. I have been reading Kintsler's "Painting Portraits" and his backgrounds are turpentine washes or vignettes - so I had to restrain myself but I tried to stay abstract on everything but the face. Even on the hands, I just used a few brush strokes to suggest them - rather than paint every detail (like I usually do).

I tried to make the focal point the face, but I think that making the doll lighter than the rest of the painting shifted the focus somewhat from the face. I am still pondering that.

 This was a rather large work for me - a 24" x 30". I started on it yesterday, and finished it today. I was working from a very tiny photo. I ran out and got a frame for it because the artist group I am in will be exhibiting at Folks Folly - a really nice restaurant here in Memphis starting tomorrow, so I wanted to put this in the exhibit. :)

Did this today - and was really happy with how it turned out. I was working from a black and white photo so made up the colors. Also in the photo her dress had a pattern and it I started to do it, but it was just too busy and competed with the scarf, so I tried to make the dress suede. This is a pretty large work (for me) - it's 18" x 24" on canvas.

  We had a new model at live painting class tonight. She has very beautiful features and lovely skin tones. I don't think I have the right side of her face dark enough. I think I'm still a little scared of going all out and actually painting what I see. Hopefully I will gain the courage to do it next time!

I was on a painting frenzy yesterday! Two paintings in one day! Love it! So first let me preface this by saying, this is not a moviestar! Haha! When I was painting it I was trying to reveal the emotion in her eyes.

Went to Ann's studio for painting from life last night - this was the result. I do have permission from the model to use the painting. You can't recognize her anyway because the face is so abstract. I really need to work on hands and feet. I think it will do me good to do some individual studies on hands and feet. I might do that some at these painting from life sessions. I have to say it's wonderful to get together with a group of artists each week. I learn so much from them.

So last night when I got home I decided to clean the sludge out of my mineral spirits, and I had (what I think) was a wonderful idea. I was pulling all this gray gunk out of the bottom of the glass, and thought - instead of finding a way to dispose of this, why don't I use it to tone my canvases? It was a lovely color of gray. So I just used a cotton cloth and rubbed the gray on my canvases. I had enough sludge to tone about 14 canvases. I think they turned out really well, and it's a wonderful way to recycle. I can't think of any reason NOT to do this. Here's how they look:

I have to say that I'm finding oil painting to be very eco-friendly. I hardly ever use mineral spirits while painting (thanks to getting good brands of paint) so I only use the spirits to clean up my brushes after I work, and now I've found a way to dispose of the used mineral spirits, so I end up with no waste whatsoever.

Oh, and just a note about the cotton cloth I use to wipe on the boards. I am storing those in a tin can outside, and let the mineral spirits evaporate out of them. I have read that I can burn them and that way there is no ill effect on the environment. I use paper towels when I am only wiping paint, because the paint only has oil in it and is fine to throw away, but when I am using mineral spirits, I use cotton rags.

And one more little tidbit because I am trying to be such a thrifty artist. I was actually looking for brushes on ebay, and came across the deal of the century. I just bought 25 40ml tubes of Rembrandt paint for $25 from someone who had just listed it for buy it now. My lucky day!

 

This is my effort from last nights painting from life. There are some glaring drawing mistakes here - the head is too small - the hands even though unfinished are too big - the arm on the left is too thin - etc etc. But I did what I could in two and a half hours and can't take a photo of the model because she is nude, so can't fix it when I get home. I think that's a good indication that I am not measuring enough (or at all!) in the beginning - so I must do better with that.

 There are some things I like about it though, in particular I think my flesh tone colors were better. I think I did a better job of sculpting the paint. I don't know how to describe it really - but what I mean is using the brush strokes to follow the contours of the body. She had a lot of reflected light and I tried to see it and capture it. It is a "study" after all, and so it's important to learn something each time I paint.

I have to call this heavenly! It was the look on my 14 year old son's face watching the gogo dancers at Heavenly Ski Resort. The expression on his face is so hard to capture - it's knowing, inquisitive and amused all at the same time. This is just a sketch - with pastels - not meant to be a final piece. Just trying to capture that look.