The green comes too much forward. Thanks for looking. 
Ahhh, brown paper bags filled with flavored ground coffee; scoop up those nice fragrant beans and grind them into these cute little bags, a nice occasional treat. Usually it's whatever happens to be on sale at the Giant. But hey, I needed to draw brown paper bags anyway, right? French Vanilla and Chocolate Almond anyone? This one was done with pastel pencil on toned charcoal paper with a small spotlight to bring up some highlights. All the midtones are just the paper color. Worked out pretty well. Thanks for looking.
Three watercolors of apples, all sorts of apples. I think it's Roma, Delicious and Granny Smith. The trouble with these kinds of watercolors is the "background" or what to do with all that negative space behind and in front of your items, whatever they are. In these little studies, I have not done much of anything, but my professor suggested looking at the work of Charles Demuth, who did a sort of fade away drapery in some of his still lives. Worth a look. I think I'm most happy with the one above, the Romas, they had the most interesting markings, and I think the shadows work better than the other two below. The purple shadows seem too strong to me. The shadows in the Romas (the yellow and red apples) are more subtle, using a grey brown color, with a small touch of purple, just a touch. 
Thanks much for stopping by.
Linda suggested using Picassa, and their Blog This feature for uploading photos, so I'll give it a try. I have not been happy with the way my great camera and its high resolution photos wind up looking so mushy on the blog. Do you think it could be operator error, LOL? Anyone with suggestions on how to post really nice photos to blogger, please chime right in. Thank you, thank you.
Working in oils is a challenge and a pleasure, entirely different from watercolors, and just as much fun. I love both, but have to really scratch my head when I switch back and forth. This photo is pretty blurry, but it does show the idea of trying to think in terms of shapes, values and color notes, a la Kevin Macpherson. His new book about oil painting looks just terrific, Landscape Painting Inside and Out. Can't wait to get into it reading and studying.
This has been a gorgeous and longish fall for me, starting in Massachusetts and then enjoying the peak all over again in Maryland. Our November colors are so rich with wonderful grays and purples, deep beautiful browns and reds. The plein air class I'm taking has me frantic to paint, all I want is more time, more time, more time. Here are a couple of the oils I've been working on. There are a dozen more, all unfinished of course.
Been going on Saturdays to our local college, and participating in a life drawing session. It's a great opportunity to work on drawing skills, intense and absorbing. Most of the time it's so quiet, everyone concentrating fiercely, you can hear the scritching of the pencils and vine charcoal going. Most of my drawings are badly out of proportion, head too big, shoulders too big, arms too long, off kilter, but every once in awhile, it feels almost right. Posting a couple of those. This lady had her forearm stretched, and the back calf is deformed, but I am amazed at how hard it is in ten minutes to get it right.
Thanks to Casey from EDM, I got excited about trying pastels again. Dragged out some pastel pencils and found a sheet of charcoal paper, and purchased brown eggs. The color of the eggs is so wonderful, a cross between sienna and ochre, yummy. However, I remember now why I don't work with these much, the pencils need to be sharpened with an exacto knife, and you just can't get a good point, mostly the pigment drops off in the middle of a sharpen, and you get to start all over carving wood. Then you've got this coarse, chunky stump of color to work with, and the work is crude at best. The upside is the wow color you can get with the pastels. Anyone ever found a good way to sharpen these, beside using sand paper and blade?
Visiting at my daughter's in Massachusetts, helping out with the four grands while her DH is out of state for work training. Gorgeous fall colors, maples all firey orange, reds and yellows. But had to do a quick watercolor pencil drawing of city monkey, my grandson Max's second best monkey. Country monkey was taking a nap with Max, so not available for posing. The oils are on hold while I'm away from home, but have been doing some artwork with the grands, and loving just being with them. Did bring my camera and some watercolors, so I'll see what I can do. Thanks for looking.
My clever daughter! Besides being a terrific Mom to her four little ones (my gorgeous and always well-behaved grandkids, LOL), she has managed to start, grow and develop a quite successful home based business. Her products are all natural and she makes them in her kitchen, sells them at the local farmer's market on Saturdays, and totes them to local fairs as well. I really must brag on her here, now that her web site is a little less under construction than last time I checked. Check it out at: http://lotionsbymieke.com/ and you'll be just as impressed as I am. Oh, and since I get a really good Mom discount (read free), I can vouch that the stuff she makes is really good, and smells great, especially Ocean Rain and Lavender, my two favorites.
In the style of Karin Jurick, who does gorgeous paintings, here's a small cherry pie slice done in oils on masonite. It's only 6" by 8", so I'd consider it a quickie painting, but it's one of my best so far, I think. The nice thing about working so small is that you can have your model right in front of you, and lay the masonite right on the drafting table in front of the model. So close you can smell the cherries, and really stick your nose in the colors and shadows. I will definitely do more of these small, quick studies.
Waiting for a nice homemade peach cobbler to bake, I was able to get my friend Robert to sit still long enough to draw his ear. This is done with carbon pencils in the Moleskine. Seems the paper in the Moleskine is particularly happy with carbon pencil, and I'll have to take advantage. There are other media which aren't as pleased with the paper, so here's a tip for everyone who uses a Moley and hasn't been happy with the watercolor or graphite work. Use carbon pencils! (Ink and marker are also good, so we adapt.) Thanks for looking.
What was meant to be a quick and easy oil painting took a bit longer than I had anticipated, with all it's details. But it was fun to do, trying to look, look again, study, squint, what color IS that shadow anyway, and see as many colors as i could. I did it in pencil on the canvas first, and spray fixed the drawing to avoid the graphite smudges, which worked well. I'm not sure about the bright background; I might still change that, maybe something duller? Any ideas? Thanks for stopping by.
Draw something cold! This one is a bit silly, a slice of lemon meringue pie to go with all the cold beverages everyone has been doing this week. Nice, cold, tart, sweet lemony pie right out of the fridge. Yum! Same goes for key lime. With a nice buttery, flakey crust and melt-in-your-mouth meringue. Done in the Mary Lou's Sketchpad (see next photo) on Lanaquarelle paper in watercolors.
This is a photo of the cover and inside (small one) of the Marylou Sketchbooks. The inside cover has the list of all the types of paper in the pad, and then you just put your numbers on each page. http://www.marylouswatercolor.com/index.htm I love these guys. The lemon meringue was done on one of the pages in the larger book, on page 15, which is the Lanaquarelle paper, cold press. Wonderful paper, but it still doesn't match the Twinrocker. That's still the best, in my opinion.
Larger than life watercolor of a dragonfly who has been sitting in Press and Seal for a year on my bulletin board, waiting for me to draw him. Done in the Moleskine watercolor sketchbook with pen and ink and watercolors. The wings are actually more delicate than this, but I couldn't find an ink pen fine enough. Used some irridescent medium for the sheen on the wings, but I don't think it showed up in the photo.
