Lonely Palm

I had so much fun painting this one.  I used black gesso on the canvas before I started painting.  I love the matte finish of the black gesso and hope that when the oil paints dry on this one, the black bits peeking through will be a contrast with the shiny oils.  Of course, some oils dry flat, not shiny so I'll have to wait and see.

This was painted entirely with a palette knife.  I don't know why I don't do more palette knife paintings.  They are so different in the finished look and the feeling while I'm painting.

Along with leaving bits of black peeking through the paint throughout the painting, I left a black line between all of the major elements.  With my background making stained glass windows for so many years, I am still attracted to this look.

Lonely Palm
Image size 12" x 12"
Oil

Silverado II

I've worked on this painting some more and I like it better.  I may still work on the water some more but not right now.  I think I'm in danger of overworking it so I'm going to step back for now.

I poured some more color on the trees in the middle and right side and darkened them.  I also added some more to the water and darkened the reflections.

Silverado

I painted another poured painting this week.  Looking at it in the photo, I realize that I have a bit more I want to do on this one.  I think I will do another pour with the resist off to add more color.  I like the red but think I need more.  I also want to darken parts of the trees and add more detail and work on the water some more.  For now though, I will tape it to the wall and study it for a few days to decide exactly what to add.

The photo I used for this painting was taken in the canyons not too far from our house.  I've painted this before and plan to try it in oil and possibly pastel in the future.  It's fun to see the different results with each medium.  The first time I painted this, I used watercolor and painted almost exclusively wet into wet. The poured painting was also painted very wet but is a very tight, graphic painting since resist was added after each layer of paint.  So even though the same medium was used, they look totally differnt.  Below is the first painting I did of this scene so you can see the different effects.

So far, I like this first one better but hopefully, when I make the changes to the poured painting, I will like it equally.

Silverado

Image Size 22" x 30"

Watercolor

Laguna - Poured Painting

I haven't done a poured watercolor painting for a long time so I decided to do one this week.  Poured paintings have a very graphic quality, which I really like.  Each time a layer of paint is poured and dries, another layer of resist is added to areas that don't need to be any darker to save those values from future pours.

This is a large painting, 22" x 30", and doing each pour was a bit messy.  I ended up with a lot of the paint on my shoes.  I haven't quite learned how to keep the paint on the paper while I'm blending the colors together.  I think I might be using too much paint.

I didn't stretch the paper because I have been told that the paper can be manipulated better if it's not stretched and can be bent to make the paint go where you want.  This paper, Arches #150, dried with big vertical ripples in it which made subsequent pours very difficult.  I think I'll try the next poured painting on stretched paper and see how that works or maybe I'll use a thicker paper.

By the time a poured painting is done, it is almost completely covered with resist so it's hard to know what it is going to look like when the resist is removed.  Taking the resist off is like opening a package.  You don't know what you're going to find.  It's really fun!

Laguna
Image size 22" x 30"
Watercolor

Foam

I'm still playing with the sea.  It's so weird that I'm so into these seascapes.  I've never had any desire to paint them before.

I've always loved how the foam remains after a wave has swept onto shore so I thought I would try to paint that.  I'm pretty happy with this but I want to paint more versions of this so I get to know it and hopefully get better at them.

Foam
Image Size 6" x 12"
Oil

Tropics

I'm back to playing with the palette knife.  I've been having so much fun painting beach scenes that I wanted to try it with another tool.  I'm not sure how successful the palm trees are but they sure were fun to paint.

Tropics
6" x 6"
Oil

Secret Bay

Well, the waves certainly weren't very exciting on this day but I thought they looked very serene.  I was surprised to see a surfer walking out to sea across the rocks with his board (a little farther down from here....lots and lots of rocks).  The waves didn't look like they would be very much fun to surf but I guess this guy was determined.  The combination of rocks and flat surf made surfing seem like a bad idea to me.

Flat
Image Size 6" x 6"
Oil

The Wave

I'm really enjoying painting these wave pictures.  You'll probably be seeing many more in the coming weeks.  I may even try painting some in watercolor although I think the ones in oil are probably easier.  This one is also painted on a 6" x 6" piece of 3/4" wood that's been textured with gesso.  I have several more of these supports ready to paint and the finished paintings look really good displayed on a small easel so there's no need to frame them.

The Wave
Image size 6" x 6"
Oil

Sunset

I'm still in a tropical mood even though it is feeling like winter here.  I took a lot of photos of waves crashing while we were in Mexico and am planning to do a series of them.  This one is done on wood that has been gessoed using textured brushstrokes.  Even though this is oil, I worked the medium thinned down more like watercolor.  Some days, I just can't stand that thick dragging feeling of oil paints so I'm glad I had the underlying texture on the wood to give the painting some extra interest.

Sunset
Image size 6" x 6"
Oil

Mexican Birds Diptych

We just came back from Mexico so it seemed fitting to paint some tropical flowers.  I've always loved Birds of Paradise.  They remind me of my childhood.  

Sorry about the crooked picture.  This is a diptych, two paintings that are painted as if they are one.  I painted them to hang one inch apart but a person's eyes will complete the picture through that one inch space.  I think it makes the painting a little more interesting because it's different.

Mexican Birds Diptych

Image size  24" x 12"

Acrylic