Step Eight

I cover the remainder of the white canvas now with thin mixes of mostly burnt sienna (the orange you see here is b.s. thinned up) keeping the coverage even thinner where I'll have lighter colors over top. The burnt sienna sometimes shows through the green foliage and makes a nice complement. This coat can dry quickly and then I can paint the mid ground.

Step Nine

The greyed background, the road edges and the road are all pretty much done. I'm working my finishing from the background forward here. I finish up the trees (birches) on the left side of the road top. I work from the edge towards the left side, blending from the dark into the light. Then I'll do finishing work on the middle ground and the foreground.

Step Ten

Using a rigger brush, I put in the treetops of the birches, then daub some of the road color into the lines, just lightly. This is done right on the dry canvas (actually it should have been toned first, but...) Over the sky the lines would have lost their thin darkness. This way I can go back in and paint the sky holes right up to the colors and lines.

Step Eleven

Refining the Middle Ground. Adding swashes of green overtop what's already there. Some turquoise to cool the middle ground but give it some shapes. Further definition of the greens in the foreground. What I've found with oils is that you can plan on the layers. You know that you'll have a leaf clump in a certain spot. You can first put a mid or a dark down thin for the lighter leaf clump to sit on top of.

Finishing Touches

I can put in the hard edged groups of top layer leaves now, and some little touches of white and tiny dots of red and orange. A few branches with the rigger brush, and adding color here and there for balance. And this one's done!

New Painting

This painting has posted in it's finished form on my Nel's Everyday Painting blog, but I took some progression shots of it as I was painting. This is not actually the beginning. I've painted in the drawing pretty loosely, and started with the arms. Pencil work for the lines, where they need to be straight. Originally I had her glasses on, but left them out for the rest of the painting (by Alex my granddaughter's request.) There are some drawing problems which will be addressed: the tilt of the ear, the length of the forward leg, the height of the back shoulder. The size is 18" x 18", done of my granddaughter. Photos taken on the front porch yesterday morning, while she was having her cereal. Progression photos follow. Thanks for looking.

Pretty early in the painting. The drawing feels pretty good, except for the back shoulder being too high, and the leg being too short, which I can't see at this stage. I'll fix it later when I spot it. Still really drawing with paint here, working on the face.

Close Up. Sometime I'd like to be brave enough to stop right here, and call it done. Isn't there something so compelling about an unfinished piece?

Shirt and pajama bottoms here. The ear needs fixing.

Working the Figure. Back and forth, pajamas and shirt. You can see a late stage drawing correction in the closest leg. It wasn't long enough, so when I turned the painting and the photo upside down, I could see where the new line should be. I've started painting in all the lines in the background. Basically working from the figure outwards.

Final Steps

Last steps. Using a rigger brush, I've done some fine strokes for the hair, and in the background, added the hostas. I've also lightened the white edge of the bowl. I think it's done, for now anyway.

Watercolors in Tandem

Two watercolors at a time. Seems to me that it's the way to go. Even then, you spend more time waiting for the paper to dry than you do painting. (Or at least I do.) The sunset is from our stay at Harbor Island, South Carolina, where I took some really nice photos. It may wind up on the selling blog tomorrow, but I actually did it for myself and for a friend whom I'm online-mentoring in watercolors. It's 12" x 18", and the little hydrangea my grandson picked for me to paint, so I did. It has that mauvy, sienna pinkish yellowish greenish color to it. YOU know the color I mean, LOL. It's a small 7" x 9", and it could be sold as well, for a tiny corner somewhere. Thanks for looking.

Fruit Bowl and Bananas

Two little watercolors done at the dining room table with the kids. Pen and ink first, so the lines are there, and you just have to leave them. The bowl is out of whack, and the pear is funky, but this was for fun, so it doesn't matter. Aren't bananas fun to do? They just seem so cooperative. It's been so long since I've posted to this blog, that it feels good to just do something for the sheer fun of it. I really want to get outdoors with the watercolors now too, and play with those as well as the oils. Happy Spring, everyone!

Kate's Online Class

Been awhile since I posted here, been so busy fretting about a major move and keeping up with the daily painting. Did sign up for Kate's online watercolor class (Kate Johnson, for those of you not in EDM) and it's made me jealous to work in watercolors. So last night, after I finished the painting for the day, I got out the watercolors and had some fun. It is a touchy medium, but when you get a good result, it's such a joy. I had a student once who always said "Even a blind squirrel gets a nut once in awhile!" so there's the mantra for doing watercolors.

Thanks for looking.

All Done with Cherry Pie Painting

This is a small "tutorial" of sorts, to show the process I mostly use for a still life painting with a set up. I couldn't think backwards, so you'll have to scroll down to the post that says, Beginning, and then go in reverse order to actually see the progression. Sorry about that. Now that I see this posted, I can tell that I still need to blend in that small spot of reflected orange light in the green shadow. For the rest though, I will call it done. The highlights on the cherries are added, and the blending is completed. Thanks for looking, hope you enjoy the mini explanation.

Filling Next

Blending and defining. I have finished the filling block in, so now I can start refining, which is another word for fixing, LOL. Putting in more yellow where the crust seems too cool, adding darks into the filling where the crust needs to be highlighted more. I have also fixed the shape of the left side of the pie where it looked too fat. I also did some corrections in the shadow shapes in the interior curve of the plate. It's getting there.

Crust Painting

I've blended some in the plate, and started correcting the drawing problem in the top curve of the right side of the plate. I get up often and walk away so that I can get a better overall look, spotting the problesm that way. There is a shadow behind the pie crust, but I overshot it here and will have to pull it back, more to the left, with that dark green color. I see a small bit of reflected light in the pie shadow falling on the plate, so I put that in. Just laying in the colors of the crust, and starting to put in the reds of the filling.

More Plate and Background

Filling in the plate colors and the little wood color table edges. Now the plate really shows up lopsided, and I'll need to fix that soon. Some of the shadows in the plate are more defined here also.

Plate and Background, another Easy Shape

To see the plate shape even better, and because the background is another pretty easy shape, I paint in the red background. I chose the red paper in the background to go with the cherry fillling and because it is the complement of the green in the plate.

Start with the Easiest Shape and Color

Since I have the plate colors already pre mixed, and it's pretty easy to "see" those colors and shapes, I start filling them in. Without worrying about blending, I just pick up paint, lay it in, and if I'm switching colors, I wipe my brush between strokes, to keep the color clean. See how the plate drawing errors are now visible (on the right) ?

Start with the Darks

While the tone is drying, I pre mix some of the colors I see. Here I have a green for the base color of the plate, some blue green for the shadows on the plate, and a more yellowish green mix for the very light spots on the plate. When the tone is dry, I start with the darks. This is mostly a mix of alizarin and sienna and ultramarine. The really dark darks are the most fragile, they get diluted the most quickly and then lost, so I paint them first, and try to be as accurate as possible. Some of the other deep darks are alizarin and pthalo green, which is almost a black.

Tone the Canvas

With a very diluted mix of OMS (Odorless Mineral Spirits) and some burnt sienna paint, I brush on a tone to get rid of the white of the canvas. You can use ochre, or red. Rub with a paper towel or rag to spread the tone evenly. You can see that the pencil sketch still shows through. The purpose of the tone is to give you a midtone color, which you can then judge your colors against, more easily than white. Also if you miss a spot here or there, you still have a midtone underneath.

Beginning a Painting

Beginning a small painting. Still life set up with light for shadows and highlights. I am going for the strong values, so a light helps. Using a small canvas (8" x 10" here) I draw out the set up, as carefully as I can. Struggle with the drawing. Richard Schmid says that this is critical as a backbone, that many painting problems are actually drawing problems. I won't be able to actualyy "see" many of the drawing problems until the masses get on the canvas, but I try for a good drawing. I just use pencil, then spray (outside) with a workable fixative to avoid getting the graphite into the paint.

Drawing for the Sake of Drawing

After a long break between semesters, our life drawing sessions started up again today. We had a great model, and since I was late, I took the odd back space behind the lights. It turned out to be a wonderful spot, I got some great poses, and worked in my Raffine sketchbook (which is terrific). I have tried using gesture and mass drawing, but I seem to return again and again to contour drawing. It seems the most intimate to me, touching all those wonderful lines with your pencil, and if you don't get it right, you just make a new line. There wasn't enough time for shading, so it's just pencil and line, 15 minute poses. It felt soooo good to just draw again. Thanks for looking.

Lakeside Painter

Oil on Canvasboard
8" x 10".
This is my first landscape attempt from yesterday, not quite good enough for the Everyday Painting blog. So I put it away and started over, got a painting good enough to be posted there. Something about the foliage is really evading me right now, so I'll just plug away at it, and hopefully do a couple of sketches of my fruits and veggies too. Thanks for popping in. Any critical comments are welcome, hints and helps for painting trees?

Colored Pencil Drawings

A lot of the EDMers are working right now in colored pencil. I mentioned to my little support group that I had done some dogs and cats in colored pencil some years back for a company named Pratt and Austin, located in Holyoke, Massachusetts. And they wanted to see. So the following several posts are some photos of the work I did. I tried here to show the detail in the pencil work, and how little strokes can be built up. Thanks for looking.

Red Kitten with Detail

Red Kitten in Colored Pencil. The detail shows the pencil strokes.

Puppies

A couple of pencil drawings of puppies. I tried to include a close-up, so that the pencil strokes can be seen. Thanks for looking.

Colored Pencil Work

Dogs in colored pencil.

Challenge 101 Burt's Bees

Our EDM challenge this week is "soap."

I love the Burt's Bees product line, their shampoos and lotions, shower gels and soaps. All nice stuff. So this was a good excuse to pick up a couple of their little soaps from the sample bins at CVS. Pen and Ink with Watercolor in the new Raffine sketchbook. Thanks for looking.

Raffine Sketches

A little deviation from the fruits and veggies. My future DIL was feeling poorly enough to warrant a trip to the E-room last night, and I brought along my new Raffines, anticipating the usual waiting time. (They couldn't find anything seriously wrong, she still isn't feeling well, so home today from work.) There were a few other folks waiting, and I tried some sketches with both the Kuratke brush pen, which is wonderful, if a bit scarey, so much committment, and the water soluble graphite pencil. Brought water brushes along, so was able to swish these a little. There were others, but here's a sampling. I'm very, very happy with the Raffines. The paper is heavy, but toothy, enough of a surface to make them delightful for wet media, or dry. I'm definitely hooked. Worth a try, if you're an EDMer. Thanks for checking in.

Red Onions Walnut Ink

Since I was doing red onions in oil, I decided for fruit and veggie sketching to use the same onions for a quick pen and ink drawing. Walnut ink is such a great color; added some water, using a reed pen here, along with a drawing nib, and a watercolor brush. Thanks for popping in.

Swiss Chard Watercolor

More January fruits and veggies. Does anyone eat swiss chard? What is it anyway? I bought a bunch because of the lovely magenta veins in those magnificant leaves, but never have tasted it, or known anyone who cooks it. Hmmm. Done in a very loose watercolor style, with new Daler Rowney watercolor pencils and big brushes. A little white gouache to bring up the white veins. Thanks for looking.

Challenge 100 Landscape

Oils on canvasboard, 12" x 16"
Butler's Orchard, November

Our plein air group was scattering fast, as the clouds rolled in and the wind picked up. I was packing up, but decided to snap a few pictures before calling it quits. Pulled out the photo today, and went at it. I didn't capture the lacy quality of these trees, but I think I got some of the feeling of the "lowering" sky and darkening day. Thanks for stopping.

Beets Two

January fruits and veggies. I hope you don't get sick of them, by the end of the month. Another version of the beets, which are now in the oven, since my cookbook tells me they are best baked, covered and in a little water. Don't you love the color of the stems on fresh beets? Beautiful leaves also, with those purple veins in them. Anyway, another stand up, and use a big brush painting, going for the shapes of the veggie. Watercolor on cold press 140 lb paper. Thanks for looking.