Just catching up on posting from the 30 Day Challenge! Here's last week's paintings...7 of them including today - Day 26. I'm still maintaining momentum. My week was thrown off -kilter with a sick son and over-stretching with some other projects....The next week is shaping up the same way, but I'm determined to FINISH the challenge...only FOUR paintings to GO! Enjoy!
It's been a busy week. I've been keeping up so far and even managed to get a bit ahead. But by Friday, I was starting to slow down. The 3rd winter Scene sketch below was Thursday's painting. I like it quite a bit and I think it took me considerable more time than any of the others and that is why my time felt compressed. That and all the other running around I do during the week!...There seemed an awful lot more of that. I can barely believe that tomorrow will be DAY 20! I have appreciated everyone's comments and I really am enjoying this challenge. I think I'm going to stick with landscapes for a bit more yet. As you can see, I can come up with a variety of landscape ideas AND painting and repeating a theme is actually a VERY valuable exercise. The grain elevators above are an attempt at value studies, but I do like the "graphic" nature of them as well!
Thanks again for all the comments and support. You guys rock! I have been painting daily, just not POSTING daily...I think I felt like I was spamming everyone so I stopped. I think posting them on FaceBook daily is more acceptable. I still want to keep my blog subscribers!! I love you guys!
So here they are...the last 5 days, most recent first! Please tell me what you think and which one(s) you like the best. Any feedback is always appreciated...even tell me about the ones you DON'T like too! I can take it! Enjoy! Here's my Day 8 painting. This is from a photo looking east of the Tansey farm. See the photo below. This painting is very sketchy and when I was working on it I just looked at it and said...NO MORE - STOP! I like it this way so I resisted overworking. I am going to paint another one using this photo though! Forganites...you know who you are...can you recognize where this is?? We had a big dump of snow again and all the roads leading across the interior of BC were closed for awhile for avalanche contral and just plain bad conditions! On the morning hike I noticed a strange bird call and looked up to see this puffed up fellow! He looks so dignified!
According to my Sibley Field Guide to Birds of Western North America, I believe he's a Northern Harrier, due to the "owl like facial disc" and his colouring and the strange call I heard! The magpies were really annoyed with him and staying clear! It's Day 7 and I've changed gears to practice clouds and prairie scenes. I grew up in the middle of the Saskatchewan "flat" prairie. People always think it is pancake flat , but not so! To get to my folks farm, one must travel down a small incline (fairly small!) and in the far distance you can see on the horizon, a blue line of hills called the Coteau Hills, part of the geographical formation called the Missouri Coteau, one of Saskatchewan's driest areas. I'm likely to continue on the landscape stream for the next week of the 30 day challenge. I really do need the practice. You can see the photo I used for my painting below. I'm still working on expressing colour and value to make my work "read" correctly. Mixing and painting interesting neutral colours is the key here, I think. I spent nearly 3 hours (yikes) shovelling snow yesterday just to keep the driveway cleared. Austin and I took a walk around the neightbourhood this morning and I took a photo of our local mountain Spion Kop, peaking through the clouds! This photo below is looking towards Wrinkly Face Provincial Park, east of our house. We'll be off snowshoeing here this weekend I bet! And its snowing as I write. In fact the Southern Interior of BC has a snow fall warning in effect. We are in for a BIG dump of the white stuff. Guess what I'll be doing in the morning, bright and early? Stay warm!
I have tons of mountain pictures I've taken over the years. The painting below is a combination of a few of those, plus one from a friend. Below is a cropped photo of the Crowfoot Glacier in the Rocky Mountains in Banff National Park, Alberta, Canada. I did a value sketch before hand and cropped and changed the horizon line and a bit of the viewing angle to make the painting "read" a bit better. I'm still working on getting values and colour temperature to read "right". Jerry Markham, an artist with whom I have taken a landscape workshop, recommended a book called Carlson's Guide to Landscape Painting. I don't have it yet...but it's inexpensive and full of great info...from what I've seen. The book I do have and recommend is this one... I purchased this book in Pasadena at the Pasadena Museum of California Art back in September when they had the Edgar Payne exhibit. Its a great book too...still haven't read it all though! That's today's painting. If you have any favourite art books on landscapes, post the name and share! I'll be sharing a couple more in the next few days! Time to go shovel snow!
I am still painting, just not posting everyday! I did get a little behind on Friday, but I feel caught up now! I'm finding it a challenge to post daily, usually due to the fact that by the time I finish my painting, its dark and I have to take the photos inside...the lighting in my studio area is still not that great, but it will have to do! I'm learning more about taking indoor painting photos! Here's my latest bunch of paintings from the last three days! My favourite of these three is the Lake Louise Sketch. I used a couple photos I had of Lake Louise plus a photo of a painting by California Impressionist painter Edgar Payne (1883-1947) of Lake Louise to get the colours and values. I enjoyed working on this one.
The palette knife painting of Mount Baker was a lot of fun to do. I need to do more palette knife. I find I enjoy the looseness, and the ability to blend thick paint gives me interesting paint effects! Which one do you like!?? Thanks for looking! This was inspired by the fall colour photos I took up the mountains on Beaver Lake Road just east of our house this autumn. I'm also trying to implement and remember the techniques and lessons I learned form the April workshop I took with Neil Patterson. I'm still having a hard time with making the colour work and with just laying on LOTS of paint. Maybe its because I'm feeling stingy after the Christmas frenzy??
Here's a couple photos that inspired today's painting... Enjoy! Happy New Year Everyone! Well, I am starting 2013 by participating in a 30 Paintings in 30 Days Challenge. Artist Leslie Saeta, whose workshop I attended in Pasadena in September, is hosting this challenge. She has over 250 participants doing this with her! I've signed up and will be posting a painting a day for January. Here's the first one: I've decided to focus on landscapes this week and use a limited palette. A limited palette for me is Cad. Yellow Light, Cad. Red Light, Perm. Alizarin Crimson, Ultramarine Blue and Pthalo Green (blue Shade) plus Titanium White. This will force me to focus on a couple things... one, mixing colours and two, planning colour schemes. Landscapes are also a challenge for me as I think I don't do them very well!! I tend to fiddle and I want to just lay on thick paint with less strokes. I have tons of landscape photos so I have lots of material to chose from! On the weekend I threw everyone's name from my last newsletter campaign signup into a hat and I drew two names for these paintings: Congratulations you guys! And thanks for signing up for the newsletter! I hope you'll join me and cheer me on in the 30 day painting challenge as well...I'll be posting here daily and those posts will be on FB too!!
I thought I would share this photo of this mis-placed winter resident! I was certain all the robins had flown the coop for balmier weather, but this fellow must love my mountain ash seeds too much! I hope the weather stays as mild as its been for him...I think he's a him...! |