Sun Shade

Sun Shade

Image size 22" x 15"

Watercolor

Last week's painting was painted on a paper parasol from my niece's wedding.  This week's painting is of another niece at that same wedding using one of the parasols.  I guess it would have made more sense chronologically to post this one with the unpainted parasol and then the painted parasol but I didn't think about that until right now.

I haven't painted a portrait for almost two decades and even back then, I think I only painted three or four and they weren't very good. Painting a portrait is very stressful for me and I'm not really very happy with this one.  First, it looks nothing like my niece (she's so much prettier) and it's also very tight.  I was able to start to relax as I painted it by telling myself "it's only a piece of paper" over and over and in the end, I was enjoying the process.  I am looking forward to trying another portrait soon.

Napa

Napa

Image size 31" diameter

Oil

I did finish one of the paintings I mentioned last week.  I started this one a long time ago.  Our niece was married in Napa in September two years ago.  The small wedding was perfect.  It was a beautiful, sunny day, not too hot, and the venue was beautiful.  The grapes were almost ready for harvest and our niece and her groom looked gorgeous in this wonderful setting.  My sister had these paper parasols for all of the guests and I knew that I wanted to paint a vineyard scene on one as soon as I saw them.

I started this painting in acrylic but didn't like the way it looked so I decided to switch to oil.  I painted the sky in oil and then some other project distracted me so this sat unfinished for a very long time.  It feels good to finally finish it.

I tried taking a picture of it with a white background but it didn't work very well so I placed it on the grass instead.  I think the grass gives a nice textural background.