Fig Party, 30 in 30 - Day 5

I painted this awhile ago but wasn't happy with the background.  It was too dark and too warm so I changed the background and touched up the figs for day 5's painting.  It feels good to be done already and I'm about 3/4 done with tomorrow's painting.  Maybe I'm getting the hang of this painting a day challenge.

Fig Party
Image Size 6" x 12"
Oil

Chiaroscuro Onion II, 30 in 30 - Day 4

This should look familiar to you.  It's the same onion I painted a couple of days ago.  The first one was painted using pastels and this one is done in oils.  It's really hard to get a good representation of the painting with the dark colors used.  The green background is not this light.  There is a strong reflection because the paint is wet.

I painted this on a panel that I had gessoed using black gesso.  That made it really easy to get the rich looking background.  I think painting the same subject a couple of days apart kills the spontaneity of the second painting, even though I used different mediums.  I think my heart just wasn't into this one as much.

So tomorrow I'll be doing something different!

Chiaroscuro Onion II
Image Size 8" x 10"
Oil

Budding Plumeria, 30 in 30 - Day 3

Today was a frustrating painting day.  I started a different painting and thought it was finished and then decided that I didn't like it so I painted this one.  I'm not crazy about it either.  It doesn't have the glow that I was trying to achieve, but it is finished so I guess that's good.

January is beginning to look like a very long month.  It's only day three and already I'm spending way too much time each day trying to decide what to paint.  I knew that picking a subject was going to be hard, but I didn't think it would be this hard.

I really like to paint large paintings so picking something to paint small is frustrating.  Looks like tomorrow's painting will be another vegetable or fruit.

Budding Plumeria
Image Size 7.5" x 9"
Watercolor

Chiaroscuro Onion, 30 in 30 - Day 2

It's only the second day of the '30 paintings in 30 days' challenge and I've already resorted to painting a vegetable!  I knew it would happen but I didn't think it would happen so quickly.  I loved the chiaroscuro effect in the reference photo and it was begging me to paint it.  How could I say no?

I was mentioning to my friend Ellen that deciding on a subject to paint would be the hardest part of this challenge and she suggested painting the same subject using several different mediums which I think is an incredible idea.  You will be seeing this again (and maybe again) during the month.  I'm especially excited to try this in oils.

This was done in pastels.  I put pumice gel on a black panel which made it an uneven gray/black color.  Then, I layered dark blue, dark green and brown in the background and blended it using water and it turned a nice, smooth, rich black.  The under colors of the onion were handled the same way but I wanted it to have more texture so I layered additional color on top without using water to blend.  The green was stumbled on the background and I added a few strokes of rust to indicate the surface on which the onion was sitting.  I added the swish of the lighter color to lead the viewer's eyes back into the picture.

Chiaroscuro Onion
Image Size 8" x 10"
Pastel

On The Beach, 30 in 30 - Day 1

With the new year comes new resolutions and challenges.  I've decided to start the year off with a challenge of a painting a day for 30 days led by Leslie Saeta.  She's done this before and in the past I've never participated.  I usually have a hard enough time finishing one painting each week but I decided to take advantage of the motivation I'm feeling with the start of the new year.  I know plenty of artists routinely finish a painting each day.  For me, the hardest part of this challenge will be picking what to paint.  I'm pretty sure that you are going to see a lot of fruits and vegetables sitting on a table.  : )

This painting happens to be fairly large but most of them will probably be small.  This took me more than one day to paint.  The beach where the photo for this was taken is dangerous for swimming but it's very beautiful.  The waves really do break right on the sand like this so swimmers would get slammed if they chose to swim here.  Sometimes the waves are so forceful that when they break, it sounds like a shotgun firing and the buildings shake.  Mother Nature knows how to get our attention, that's for sure.

Happy New Year everyone and thanks for looking at my paintings.  Your interest and comments mean a lot to me.

On The Beach
Image Size 12" x 30"
Acrylic

Wild Spray

Well, this was a fun experiment!  I have a lot of pieces of plexiglass that are long and narrow that wouldn't work for framing my watercolor paintings but I couldn't bring myself to get rid of them because they seemed like they could be used for something.

I decided to try painting one side with acrylic and use the unpainted side as the 'glass' to protect the painting when framed.  To have this work, I had to paint "backwards", meaning that the details in the foreground of the picture needed to be painted first, which was the spray and foam, and progress toward the colors behind.

I wasn't expecting much but I'm really happy with the result.  I'm sure I will be trying this technique again.

Wild Spray
Image size 8.5" x 29"
Acrylic on Plexiglass

Mixed Media Waterlilies

This started out as an interesting experiment.  Several other watercolor artists and I get together once a month to paint and this month we decided to play musical easels.  We each arrived with a drawing on a quarter sheet of watercolor paper.  We started painting on our own painting and every 10 minutes or so we would rotate to the next painting.  We didn't look at the photo references so we didn't know what the original artist intended.  We just added whatever we felt the painting needed.

Unfortunately for my painting, I chose a piece of paper that had lost its sizing….again.  I wonder how many more pieces of bad watercolor paper I have in my stockpile.  Anyway, everyone was challenged when working on my painting because the paint just soaked in and couldn't be blended or controlled.

After we decided that all of the paintings were finished as much as they could be, I covered my painting with gesso using the technique that I learned from Kathleen Conover.  I knew that the paper needed to be sealed before the painting could move forward.  After the gesso dried, I proceeded to overwork the poor painting to the point of no return.

This will go in my pile of non-successful paintings but I know that if the paper had been normal, it would have been a very cool painting created by my very talented friends.

Here is how it looked before I added the gesso and gobs of paint:

It looks better in this photo than I remember it looking in person.  It was pretty washed out as I recall.

Here are the other paintings that we worked on during our painting day.

Peggy Moore's painting

Peggy Minger-McCants' painting

Sue Foat's painting

Susan Gale's painting

Usually when we get together each month, we each bring paintings that we are working on and we share our opinions and try to help and encourage each other.  It was fun to pick a project that we could do together and we all really enjoyed the experience.

I want to wish you a very Merry Christmas and thank all of you that support me by visiting my blog and commenting on my paintings.  It means a lot to me.

Colimilla Dock

The reference photo for this was taken in Colimilla, Mexico.  I loved the way the sun bleached out the wood and cast the interesting shadow.  I've painted this dock before but it had more detail in the painting.

Colimilla Dock
image size 15" x 22"
Watercolor

Here is the first painting of this dock:

This one was done as a poured watercolor where I applied resist, poured paint, applied more resist, poured paint, etc.  It gives a totally different look and, of course, this first painting has a lot more going on in it.

Palm Trio

It's always relaxing to think of palm trees on a secluded beach during cold weather.   I know the weather we are having isn't considered to be cold by most standards but I'm freezing!  Painting this scene made me feel warmer.

The craziness of the holiday season has kept me from painting very much but I was able to finish this small oil this week.  Hopefully, I will be able to paint more this coming week.

Palm Trio
Image size 6" x 12"
Oil

Autumn Sky

Here's a small study of clouds.  I want to paint a series of cloudy skies using different mediums.  I think I will probably do some large ones in oil but I thought I would start small.  I want the sky to be the center of attention so I just painted a sliver of ground with some loosely painted trees changing color.

Autumn Sky
Image Size 4.5" x 11"
Watercolor