New Painting Value Study

This is a value study for a new painting  for my weekly class.  My instructor's teaching method is that we make a value study for every painting before we can start painting with color.  It's helpful to me for the drawing part.  I wiped off and redrew the nectarines twice before I got the placement right.  It's much easier to wipe off a value study than part of a painting, at least for me.  I don't have as much invested in it emotionally at that point.

Brr, it's cold.  I don't have enough clothes for this kind of weather.  My heavy sweaters are in a box somewhere in the garage because we are living with my daughter and in the process of building a house.  I didn't want to go out there and rummage around to find them.  I have on more layers than a street person!   Stay warm!

11" by 14" oil on canvas

Painting Challenge

I painted this in response to the painting challenge on Rookie Painter.   When I saw this challenge , I thought, oh boy apples!   I didn't really complete the vase as I ran out of time and I was trying to complete this in one afternoon.

 I didn't try to paint the old car that Carol Marine had posted for her Daily Paintworks challenge.   Somehow cars don't give me the same happy feeling that apples do.

8 inch X 8 inch oil on canvas panel.

Whatcha Doing?

I thought these apples looked like they are carrying on a conversation.

This is my first post in over a week.  I managed to produce two paintings while I was in Houston last week. However, I didn't get any pictures of them, as my daughter wanted to keep both of them to hang in her kitchen.

I really like the center apple in this one, but I'm not happy with the bowl.  I'll have to let it rest a bit to figure out what's wrong.  I think the reflected light at the bottom is too bright.   There's quite a glare on the photo also, but I just wanted to get something posted.

No Posts This Week

I'm in Houston this week with my daughter and her two children.  Her husband has a meeting in Chicago all week.  (Who was the scheduler for that?!!)  Since my daughter works, I help get the children off to school, help with homework, and do a little cooking.  They all love coming home to a house that smells of dinner on the table. 

I did bring my painting supplies, so I hope to be able to paint a little.  I'll still be visiting all your blogs though to see what you are doing.  Have a great week! 

Golden Apples

This is a little different from my last few posts.  Less fussy.  I'm still trying to figure out where I'm going.  Guess it will just evolve.

8 " X 8" oil on canvas panel

Re-use/ Recycle

I found this little creamer at the thrift store--my prop supply store.  I like finding little treasures that someone else no longer wants.  I wander up and down the aisles looking not for function, but for form.   I loved the form of this wide-mouthed little creamer.   I think it has lots more use in it as a prop.

I have been meaning to paint it since before Christmas but somehow it kept getting moved to the end of the line.  I didn't know what else to pair up with it.  Today I decided to put it on a linen napkin, and a lemon from the fridge seemed to fit with it nicely.

Today I was playing around with color.  One of my prior art teachers would be incensed--"there's no purple in that shadow!"  I know, but I like it like that.

I painted this on a recycled panel.  I do that a lot.  Since I'm getting a lot  of practice paintings lying around, I've been dividing them into "keepers" and ugh.   At the end of the day, I use the leftover paint on my palette to cover the uglies, put them in the garage to dry, and reuse the panel.

Lots of them are from when I first started to paint.  Not always.   But lately I have been keeping more of them than I did in the beginning.  It's funny too that as I gain more experience, paintings that I thought were pretty good get moved out of the "keepers" pile.

Apple Trio

I thought I'd have another go at the green apples.  I think the colors are better on this one.  I started out with a cadmium-yellow-medium mixture this time so the paint wasn't transparent.  I'm still not happy with  the painting though.  Too monochrome.  So I guess I'll have to do it again.

This is on an 8 inch by 8 inch canvas panel, my favorite size.  I got a new supply this week, so I'm set!

Green apples and pumpkin pie

I had these apples in a bowl on the kitchen counter, and I thought I'd channel my inner Carol Marine and paint apples.  She had such beautiful apple paintings in her show.

I really climbed the learning curve on this one.  Because the apples are such a light yellow green, I used my lightest yellow--cadmium yellow pale is the name.  That turned out to be a mistake, because it is a transparent yellow, and everything I tried mixing with it made a transparent color.  I was mushing paint around on the canvas for a couple of hours.  Finally I added cadmium yellow medium to the mix.  It is an opaque color, and even though it is a darker yellow, it made the apples brighter.  Go figure.


So I made a pumpkin pie.  It's my son-in-law's favorite.   I got some brownie points for the pie, as well as the satisfaction of success (unlike my apple painting).  When my SIL was about six or seven, he lived across the street from an elderly, white-haired lady.  She used to bake pumpkin pies for him, and he'd go visit and eat pie.  One of his favorite childhood memories.

Sweet Success! 

Can You Say Fabulous?

My daughter and I attended Carol Marine's reception at the Nueva Street Gallery here in San Antonio last night.  Carol's works are fabulous.  Pictures don't begin to capture the luminous quality of her paintings.  The subject matter is relatively simple, but the paintings are beautifully complex.  She uses a large brush on these large canvases, and it looks as if each stroke was individually mixed and laid down.  I could have looked for hours.

I asked her permission to take some photos, and she graciously agreed.  Here are a few shots.

Carol in front of four of her paintings.

This is Susan Carlin, the owner of Nueva Street Gallery, talking with Carol.

The painting on the left had already sold that afternoon, before the reception.  It was my favorite.

The painting on the right is toned with a bright pink.  Carol allowed it to show through in many areas of the painting, particularly in the teapot.  It has an amazing glow.  The photo just doesn't show it off.

And of course, the obligatory photo of my daughter and me with Carol.   I hope we didn't invade her space too much.  If you aren't familiar with Carol's blog it's really worth a visit.

Apple and mug

I spent the last two days of painting time in my class working on a larger painting.  Usually I go only once a week, but I had a make-up class this week, so I got to go twice.  I'm not posting that yet.  It's still a WIP.  

This painting is a daily painting.  I needed to get back into the grove again after wiping off my last painting.  I'm not crazy about this one.  It's too tight, even though I was trying for a looser effect.  On the plus side, I managed to get the ellipse on the cup!  Ellipses are another thing I struggle with--along with values, colors, brush strokes, etc.  LOL!  

Tonight I am going to a CAROL MARINE gallery showing here in San Antonio.  My daughter, who is an art teacher, and I are going together.  She and I took a class from Carol about two summers ago.  I am excited about getting to see some of her work in person and not online.  I'm taking my camera, so if I get any good pictures, I'll post them.  

This is an 8 " X 8 " oil on canvas panel. 

I painted two hours this morning and then I wiped it all off!

I read that the way to become a good painter is first to paint a lot of bad paintings.  I can put a check mark by that one today.  Tried to paint a simple mug with a pear.  It was really really ugly.  So I'm going to go bake a cake.  That's creative, isn't it?

Nestled All Snug

I thought these lemons look as if they are snuggled all down in the towel. I painted this as a companion for the painting I did about three days ago.  My friend said that she would love to have one of my paintings, so I plan to give the pair to her to hang in her kitchen.

So I've improved enough over the past six months that I've attained one goal.  I always said I'd like to paint well enough that people would like to have my paintings.    At this point, at least now I can GIVE them away!  LOL.   It makes me happy to share them.

Work in Progress

I went to my art class on Tuesday and Wednesday, so I thought I'd give you a peek at what I've been working on.  It's a 16 X 20 inch canvas, and I've spent a lot of time just covering up the canvas!  Most of it is still underpainting, but I started to develop this section a little more yesterday.  I hope I haven't bitten off more than I can chew.

I scored a bargain at Michael's today.  I found some 8 inch x 8 inch black wood frames for $8.00 each!   They have glass and a back panel with little clasps.  When I remove the glass, my canvas panels fit perfectly, and the back panel holds everything in place.  I really like the 8 inch square size, so I'm going back and buy up a bunch of these frames.   If anyone is interested, this is what the frames look like.  Sorry about the glare.

Also today, I saw that Carol Marine will have a show here in San Antonio from January 13th through the 31st at the Nueva Street Gallery.   There will be a champagne reception the evening of the 13th.  I'm excited, and I'm planning to attend.  I follow Carol's blog, but I'm eager to see her works in person!

Wine Bottles

It's dreary and rainy here today, so I had to dodge raindrops as I took this outside to take a photo.

I liked this one.  I've painted these bottles once before here, but I like this one better.  The perspective was more of a challenge.  It actually isn't quite finished.  I didn't put the words on the label because I was afraid I'd mess it up!  So when it's really dry, I'll go back and try to finish the label.  Kim Rempel painted wine bottles too, and I like how she handled the label.

Melon Slices

This is one that doesn't make me happy, but I'm not sure what's wrong.  I think that it's because I don't have enough lighter values.  Everything seems sort of mid-range.  I wasn't able to rescue it, but I didn't want to wipe it off, either.  There's a lesson in here somewhere.  Maybe in a few months I'll look at it and be able to "see".

I have been loving everyone's New Year's posts.  Carrie Waller, Crystal Cook, and Kim Rempel all posted their favorite ten paintings for 2010.  Pretty impressive, all three of them.  Carrie posted her goals for 2011--specific and written down, just as the experts say you should!

I started my blog in June 2010, and I noticed that I made 68 posts for those seven months.  That's about ten per month.  I didn't really have a goal when I started, other than a vague one that I wanted to learn to paint.  I've realized how much these studies have helped me improve, so I'm setting a goal of painting four times a week.  That would be over 200 paintings in 2011.  Kind of scares me to put it in writing!

Lemon Trio

I wanted to explore painting fabric, so I laid these three lemons on a white tea towel.  The background is the dark gray of my light box.

Claire Christinel said that in a workshop she learned that she should look at values not just relative to the object, but also relative to the values in the rest of the composition.  (You can click on her name to see her blog.)  

I was thinking about that today as I was painting.  The edges of the lemons looked very dark against the white cloth.   I also thought some of the shadows of the cloth looked almost as dark as the background.

I've painted lots of lemons (there are usually always some in the refrigerator).  When I compare this painting to the others, I realized that I painted all the lemons differently, with different colors of shadows and highlights.  They all look like lemons, though.   The values are more important than the colors.  People say that all the time, but when I lined up my lemon paintings I could really see it.

Lemons and pitcher

Arrrgh!  I haven't painted in several weeks, and I can tell!  I made mud in a couple of spots in this one.

I am beginning to learn something about values.  I have a tendency never to make my darks dark enough. Then I have to go back and adjust.  I did that on the grapes here.  Since they are pale green grapes, not the dark purple ones I painted last time,  I laid down what I thought was a dark color.  But then when I started painting in the lighter body colors, they were too close in value to each other.  Lesson learned.

I just dabbed on some highlights and quit.  I have to go out of town today, so I'm posting this.  I hope to get back to a regular schedule of painting now that most of the festivities are over.

Thanks to everyone who has visited me and commented over the Christmas holidays.  It is so great to see the generous comments from some really terrific painters out there.  Thanks again!  You guys rock!

I'm saying this one is finished.

Yesterday afternoon I worked on my painting in my art class. This morning I tweaked it a little, but I think it's done.    This is my attempt to paint sort of like David  Leffel.  It's not a copy, but my interpretation, as Lorraine called it.  There's a lot more of me in this than there is of him!

I'm happy with it, though.    My little camera doesn't show the richness of the paint colors, but you can get some idea of it.  I hope some of the looseness carries over into my paintings.

I think next I'm going to paint a snowman.  I've been enjoying everyone's Christmas paintings.  Since it never snows here, I'll have to use artistic license!

Click on the painting to view larger.

12" x 16" oil on canvas

Work in Progress

Like most everyone,  I find these days very hectic.  Shopping and decorating and baking take up lots of time.  In addition, we are in the house-building phase, so I've been spending lots of time meeting with workmen and on making choices for paint colors, light fixtures, flooring, etc.

So not much time for painting this week.  I am working on a larger painting for my weekly class.  I bought a book about David Leffel, called "Oil Painting Secrets from a Master".  I find his paintings a little dark for my taste, but I do like the looseness of his brush strokes.  So I am trying to learn by painting a copy of one of the illustrations in the book.  

 This is just a corner of the canvas.  Maybe I won't get arrested.  I'm not trying to sell this or pass it off as my own.  Just trying to learn a new technique.   It's all I have to show for this week.

You Say Tomato

This one wasn't as easy as the bottles.  I liked the colors as I was painting, but at the end of the session I decided I had been too timid with the highlights and too "vigorous" with the stems and leaves.   So the next day I worked on those areas, increasing the highlights and painting over some leaves.   I like it better now, but I'm not in love with it.

I did learn something.  I used cad red and viridian green and then added titanium white to create a grayed highlight.  The green and red I also used to create some of the shadow areas on the tomatoes.

I think I probably should work on more than one painting at once, because I find that I am painting in blocks of color that become the underpainting.  Then I add more paint the next day.   It's hard for me to finish a painting in one day.  If I had two going, maybe I could alternate drying days.

8" X 8" oil on canvas panel

Thanksgiving Leftovers

As you can see, all that was left were the bottles after Thanksgiving.  My husband even asks me now if I want to keep a bottle before he throws it out.  

This painting was fun today, and I was surprised that I completed it in about an hour and a half.  I kept trying to remember to paint "shapes" not objects.   Now that I've photographed it, I can see the drawing errors, but I still like this one.   I plan to paint these again.  

8 " X 8" oil on canvas panel 

Bowl of lemons

Yea!  Something to take the place of those peppers.  I was getting really tired of them.

This painting evolved.  I started with the bowl of lemons, and I thought, I don't want to put them right in the middle of the canvas, so I moved them a little to the side.  I was liking how it was going until I stepped back and realized the painting looked too off center. But I had too much invested in those lemons to wipe it and start over!

My granddaughter came the day before Thanksgiving (that's how long ago I started this!)  and she said, "Nana it looks like it's falling out of the painting."

So I added the lemon on the table this weekend to give it balance, and today, I tweaked the painting a little more, adding more blue to the background.  So I am thoroughly tired of this one, too!

Here's what my grandchildren and I did before I started cooking...we made pilgrims and Indians out of toilet paper rolls and construction paper.   If you click on the photo you can see it better.

Beer and peppers

My husband has been asking me to paint some peppers.  So I did this one for him.  I thought a cold beer would be just the thing to go with them.

It's getting close to Thanksgiving!  I'll be doing the cooking this year, so like most everyone, I won't be having much time to paint.  I'm working on a painting right now, so maybe I'll get that finished before I have to fire up the oven!

oil on canvas

Pears and urn

This was an experiment.  I was looking at a painting yesterday that I really liked.  The artist explained that she had cut out pictures of dishes from various magazines, assembled them in an arrangement she liked and painted it.

I thought, that sounds easy!    I'd just gotten a food magazine with a picture of two pears that I liked.  I found a picture of an urn in another magazine and decided that would make a nice arrangement.  I made a sketch and started painting.

I was having a great time and was about 2/3 finished when I realized  the lighting on the urn came from one direction and the lighting on the pears came from another!   I decided it would be easier to leave the urn as is, so I changed the lighting on the pears.  I think I really prefer painting from a set up rather than from a photo, at least until I gain more experience.

I Got a New Book Today

I've been looking at painting blogs for about three years, long before I decided to take the plunge myself.   One artist whose work I admire is Elizabeth Floyd (no kin to me).  She started by posting simple studies of fruits and vegetables and over the years she has become an incredible artist.  You can see an example of one of her paintings here.

Last week she blogged about buying a new book and posted some photos from the book.  It was so beautiful,  I had to buy a copy from Amazon.  It's called "Painting the Still Life" by Olga Zaferatos.   It came today, and it's like eating a box of chocolates.  I love it!

Does anyone else have a book they love and recommend?

Apples with Leaves

I feel the same way that Lorraine Shirkus expressed it earlier this week.  I am desperate to post a painting.  I have painted and wiped this week, and nothing seems to work.

So I here's the last thing I did.  I worked and worked on this, trying to adjust the values on the apples, but I just didn't get it.  To me, they don't "read" as apples.  They are some mysterious unidentifiable fruit!  LOL!

There is, however, one leaf that I'm thinking....hmm, that isn't too bad.  Sigh.  Maybe tomorrow.

I actually painted this as a challenge from a reference photo at Studio Atlier .  You can see the challenge photo and what others have painted at this link.  Check it out.

Red Bell Peppers

I rummaged around in the refrigerator and found these bell peppers to paint. I was working on painting various values and colors in the reds.  I think I have made some progress, but I will work on this some more.

I was the first person up in my household this morning.  My body didn't know about daylight savings time. I wandered into the kitchen and made a loaf of orange-cranberry bread. It made the house smell great, and was good with our morning coffee.

Pear trio

Pears are very forgiving.  You'll never hear one say,  "That doesn't look like me".  Or, "You made my butt look too big."  Which I probably did.   Pears are just easy going and fun to paint.

8 " X 10" oil on canvas panel

Bottle of red

I love painting wine bottles.  There is so much color in the glass that isn't obvious at first glance.  I decided that it was time I tried to paint fabric, so I added that to my set up.

It's chilly today.  I poured the glass of wine back into the bottle & corked it.  We may have that along with our dinner tonight!

7" by 9" oil on canvas panel

Glass jar and wildflowers

I've been wanting to paint glass, so this morning on my walk I picked a few wildflowers still blooming merrily by the road.  I brought them home and put them in a little jar of water.  I was pleased with the glass, but not with the flowers.  I haven't figured out how to paint values in flowers yet.  I think these look amateurish.  Which I am of course, but I have high aspirations!

7" X 9 " oil on canvas panel