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.

A different direction for a bit

A paper mosaic

I wanted to do something different right now because I have a little bit of time for experimentation. Commissions and on line sales are on the low end right now due to the virus shut down. So, for my next trick, I decided to do something with the gelli plate fails.

I had a plant photo that I liked and decided that the gelli prints might make a good basis for a paper mosaic.  Out came the scissors and I proceeded to salvage what I could from the bad gelli prints.  I played around with the various pieces and came up with this.  I kind of like it.  How about you.  I am thinking of using it as an Instagram give away.

Maybe it’s finished

Foothills

Here is what probably is the final for this painting.  I have played around with it for several sessions trying to figure out what it needed.  I ended up using some glazing to help define the shadows rather than more paint and I am fairly happy with that decision.  Once this pandemic is over I will be listing the recent work for sale.

Another Idaho landscape

Preliminary layout

Another day in

I’ve tried another one.  No sky here.  I wanted to play with the landscape more without the distraction of the sky.  The vista is still dominated by the far landscape, but I am able to concentrate more on the foreground shrubs and trees.  It has more of a red cast than the blue of the last.  We’ll see how that works out.