New painting

Stream landscape pencil

first acrylic layer

After my trip to Boise, I decided to go back to the acrylics. Once again, a British tv show has inspired me. I have been watching “Fake or Fortune” from the BBC on Youtube. They take paintings suspected of being by famous artists and try to get authentication for them. Quite interesting to see and I recommend watching at least a few.

For this painting, I am using a photo from 20-30 years ago and have no idea where I took it.  Still, I found the meandering stream in the woods scene engaging enough to take the picture.  Next session will be to add depth.

Finished

Inked in

Finished pastel

I was visiting with family in Idaho for the last 10 days so there was no delay on finishing this one the beginning of the month.  I had a problem with uploading the final photo before I left on the 9th, so it had to sit until I got back and could try to fix it.  Miracle of miracles, everything is fine now.  

This was hard from the standpoint of the fence in front.  The space in between the verticals was really too small for a great deal of pastel work, so I put down a base layer with some watercolors.  It turned out to be a good way to handle it.  

Then the photos showed a little bit of a discrepancy on the green board and batten on the second floor.  Some photos showed it to be more of a yellow green and in others, it was more teal green.  I made it more teal as that was the most common in the pics.  I asked for verification of the color and she said it was more yellow.  What to do.  I put a light layer of yellow colored pencil over it and when I took it in, she said it was perfect  What a relief.  

New Home Portrait Commission at Last

Two story home

I started work on a new home portrait commission over the weekend.  It is so nice to be able to do something new – and 14×9 too boot!  Lots of detail in this one.  Stone first story and board and batted upper, along with a cream picket fence all across the front.  No flowers, but nicely colored trees and shrubs, along with flags for the fourth.

Nash

Nash the French bulldog

It took 5 sessions, but I finally finished Nash the French bulldog’s portrait.  He has a rather complicated pattern of coloring on his face, I guess to make up for the fact that his body is all white.  That raccoon mask gives him a rather distinguished look, don’t you think?  Anyway, he is off to his new home this week.

Nash, Trip’s new little brother

Nash the French bulldog

Trip the French bulldog got little brother recently. As often occurs, there might be a bit of sibling rivalry going on just yet.  You will love his little bandit mask face.

Finishing the architectural streetscape

Final

This painting went through a few odd twists. After several days of adding detail that I wasn’t exactly overwhelmed with, I decided to switch gears and paint it up side down.  The painting, not me.  LOL  This would totally change my perspective and I could concentrate on the colors and not be so obsessed with the details. It actually worked pretty well.  I feel like I balanced the composition better.  Not perfect, but certainly better than the barn ended up being.

Streetscape

Layout

The first layer

Whoops, I forgot to post yesterday!  All of my days are running together now.  I was planting in my garden since the weatherman has assured me that the frosty weather is over and I just lost track.  I am super sad though because it looks like my lovely Japanese maples are going to succumb to the hard freeze we had recently.  We had planted them when we move in here and the two of them were getting large and nicely shaped.

I decided to try another architectural painting.  I haven’t done one in several years since the catastrophe of the stone barn, but that tree painting gave me some confidence in slapping the old paint on for buildings.  Also, an art video company has been showing hour long segments on youtube from their catalogue of painters and I have learned quite a lot from them.  This is a streetscape from Washington DC when we where there for a memorial service some time ago.

The second day on the tree

Heart tree

After I got the courage to take up the brushes again and add some more paint, this is what turned out.  I really had moments of hesitation over what to do next and spent a lot of time just looking.  I have worked on it several times since that last photo and am not quite sure it is done, particularly in the lower right area, but I am pretty pleased with the results, probably more than with any landscape that I have done so far.

Back to painting

Base coat

Day one

I decided to go back to painting after I binge watched watched “Portrait Artist of the Year 2020” last week on youtube.  If you get the chance to do so, I highly recommend seeing this series as well as the landscape ones.  Both are so inspiring to me (with a minimal amount of envy, truth be told.)

I had this photo I took about 30 years ago at a timber framers conference outing stuck in my files. I loved the heart shape at the base of the tree and always thought I’d have a print made of it.  Maybe too late now as I only have a negative and a print and how would that work now in this digital age.

Anyway, I was very happy with the first day’s work.  Enough so that I was intimidated to work more lest I “ruin” it.  No fear, I have done more, but it took me two days to pick up the brushes again.

Two more gelli mosaics

Koi pond

French bulldog

Since I like the way the last paper mosaic came out, I decided to try again.  These two are the result.  I am not as fond of these as I am of the first one, but I am not unhappy with them either.

I think the koi pond lacks enough depth, but I was only working with the failed gelli prints that I had.  I am not sure I want to go to the task of printing up some darker plates.  Still, I do like the composition and the water effect.  The French bulldog was just fun.  I am not really happy with the background.  When I chose it, I thought it would be a nice contrast, but now I see it is too close in tonal quality.  Live and learn.  Back to painting this week.