Bookworm

11 x 14 "

pastel on toned paper

This is a piece I did about two years ago. I would have posted a drawing, but didn't have photos of any that haven't already posted. I'm posting this because I already had a photoof it on my computer. As I look at it now, I can see some things I would change.

I can't post my latest painting because the gizmo that lets me transfer photos to the computer suddenly stopped working. I really like the painting, too. I will be sure to put it up when I can get the photos that are currently stuck in my camera out. The company is replacing the gizmo (don't know the real name of it) but it will be several days, and since we are leaving for the east coast at the beginning of the week, this may be my last post until after Memorial Day. I don't do much in pastel anymore. After the last workshop I took in pastels, my husband told me the day after it ended that I was wheezing in my sleep. This has happened before. I myself probably would not produce enough pastel dust to be a problem, but a roomful of people apparently do. So, on to oil painting, which I like more and more all the time.

Two Limes

6 x 8 "

oil painting on linen panel

Okay, lesson learned. On very small paintings, keep the subject simple. After spending several hours yesterday painting a porcelain rose on a 6 x 6" panel berfore giving up, today I settled on the simplest of subjects and compositions and still have time for another. My husband said he liked the rose, but he is loyal and supportive. I don't like it and it will not survive. I also went back to linen on this one and rubbed a whisper thin coat of medium on the surface before starting to paint. I remember Richard Schmid mentioning this approach in doing his beautiful monotone portraits. Even though the medium is likely "fat", if you are painting immediately into it and finishing in one sitting, it's not a violation of fat over lean, since it's only one layer of paint. It gave the surface such a lovely feel to paint into, just as though you are painting wet into wet from the first brush stroke.

A Glass of Orchid

9 x 12 "

oil painting on panel

Getting more mileage of the orchid plant. As you can see, this is not planted in a pot. That's because when returning the plant to it's proper place in the window, I broke off a piece. That piece is what's in this glass vase. This time, instead of trying to copy exactly each petal, I just tried to get the feeling of the orchidness of the flower. That's unlikely to be a word. I also set the vase on a piece of glass and used backlighting. The photo seems bluer than the painting, although the color temperature of the piece is cool, probably because of the backlighting and the transparency of the flower. I may take another photo to see if I can tell what happened on the lighting of the shot.

Pitcher in Blue and White

8 x 10"

oil on panel

The really useful thing about photos of work viewed this way is that it's so much easier to spot weaknesses in the piece. This is the same piece I posted on Monday when I mentioned I didn't like the foreground. Instead of painting something new today, I went back and rearranged the setup and reworked the foreground on this one. This is better, but I'm not sure it couldn't be better yet, which might be true of all paintings. I'm going to leave it for now, with a new title.

Apple and Cup

6 x 6"

oil painting on panel

I had one small panel left before I recieve my next shipment. I don't know why composing a very small piece is so much harder than one just a little larger, or a lot larger. I gues it's because the slightest misjudgement is amplified beyond what it would be on a larger painting. It's good practice for that reason among others.

Bob's Orchid

9 x 12 "

oil on panel

I see these in my bedroom every morning when I wake up. These are my husband's and they are blooming for the second time since he bought the plant last fall. I thought they would make a great subject for a painting but I wondered how hard it would be to paint them, as the blossoms are somewhat complex and since I've not painted many flowers. Now I know, they weren't easy. I need practice with the leaves. Overall, I think I like it.

Striped Pitcher

8 x 10 "

oil on panel

This pitcher was a gift from a good friend in Maryland many years ago. I've always liked it and wanted to do a painting of it. I'm fairly pleased with it except for the foreground which could be better. Too much folded fabric, I think. I may go back and change that one day.

Rose

10 x 16"

pastel on paper

Some days just do not go well. This last painting session included a complete wipe off of a great deal of paint from one panel, an attempt to salvage another upon which I will withhold judgement until another day and an oil sketch from a head study on paper that I will probably discard. So here is a drawing from a little over a year ago that I've always liked. The title could refer to the model's name (which it doesn't) or to the flower she was holding.

If, in fact, we do learn the most from our mistakes, I must have learned a great deal today. Here's to a better day tomorrow.

Hot House Tomatoes

8 x 10"

oil on panel

My husband bought these hot house tomatoes still on the vine from Sam's Club. They were actually decent, considering this is May 1 in Wisconsin. There were originally more of them but they went into salads.

What I meant to do here was do a piece in values and variations of grays and neutrals, with the tomatoes being the only bright color. It's surprising how different a piece looks in a photo than on the easel. Strengths and weaknesses in the piece become more clear. I guess it's the distance the photo imposes.

Spilled River Rocks

8 x 8"

oil on panel

Okay, doing something a little different. Instead of just sticking something up there and painting it, I tried a conscious arrangement to maximize value contrasts and create a composition using light and shadow. This was interesting, maybe I'll do more like this to get better at it. These are smooth river rocks my husband collected somewhere in Oregon or thereabouts along a river and he keeps them in this little decorative bowl. There were tons of them there and we spent awhile trying to skip rocks on the water.

Two Daily Servings

6 x 6"
oil painting on panel

Well I'm back, after many distractions last week. I decided to start with something small, although I'm having a bit of a problem with the very small format. It's been said, for drawing at least, if you can't draw, work large but if you can, work small. Does that go for painting as well?

Had many problems with the photo, primarily getting the computer to recognize the memory stick from the camera. Nothing to do with painting, just over an hour of frustration. Then, it just worked, did nothing different than the previous million tries. Also the color isn't as close as I would like, the apple is more red. Aside from that this was fun. I was on the verge of overworking this, something I find easy to do, so I just stopped and ate the grapes. That ended that.

Barbara

Barbara
8 x 10 "
pastel on tinted paper

Barbara
apx 8 x 10"
oil sketch on gessoed paper

The top piece is a pastel drawing of a model from the life drawing group where I used to live. She was an excellent model, curly red hair and freckles (which you won't see here). I like doing these kinds of drawings on toned paper and just a touch of white. I've always wanted to be able to paint from these drawings, but it's easier to paint from life and I always like the drawings better than any of the paintings I made from them. Since I have a lot of these drawings and not so many models these days (which is why I'm doing more still lifes), I thought I would occasionally use them as a resource for a small piece, painting directly on gessoed paper, making it more like a sketch. I'll see how this works out.

Copper French Press

8 x 10"

oil on panel

I decided I needed to practice painting reflections and this french press, which makes excellent coffee by the way, was a subject that I thought would do that. This was one of the hardest subjects I've ever painted. What color is copper, anyway? Between the glass and the copper and the reflections on the table, it seemed like there were more reflections than not. I wanted to show the reflections and shadows and still keep the piece painterly. I think I sort of succeeded, if not wonderfully so. Perhaps too shiny?

Blue and Orange

6 x 6"
oil painting on panel

This is not just the same orange pepper that I posted on Monday, it's the same painting of the same orange pepper. After I posted it on Monday, I looked at it awhile and thought this thing looks like it's about to go up in flames. It was all the same color temperature. I had painted what I saw, but did not take care when setting up to have either color or temperature contrasts. To be unoriginal, painting is like herding cats, so many things to think of simultaneously. Value, edges, composition, color, color temperature, focal point. Have I left anything out? Yes, drawing. Anyway, it seems too easy to lose one of those cats. Oops, there goes the edges cat. Or, in this case, the temperature cat.

So, since the piece was largely dry, I decided to simply paint over just about the whole thing using a near complement for the background. Now the pepper actually looks orange. I'm leaving the orginal up for comparison. It will keep me humble. The original looks really dull and dreary sitting there. There are very few darks on the pepper itself when the light comes from the side. It's translucent and glows from within. Maybe someday I will be able to paint that.

That's all the painting I'm going to do today, as I really have to straighten and organize my studio. Then I'm going to run across town and put down a deposit on a June workshop being taught by M Kathryn Massey. I should be able to learn something about still life painting from her. Check out her website at http://www.masseyfineart.com/

Two Bowls

8 x 8"

oil painting on panel

These are part of a set of bowls that I bought just because of the color. They are terra cotta in color but have a finished shiny surface for use in the kitchen. I tried to show the shiny surface, but I guess I need practice at that.

I used a slightly larger panel for this one with a gray green tinted ground. The light from the side made the shadows and reflections more interesting to paint

Orange Pepper

6 x 6"

oil painting on panel

Well, I did finish a painting today. With all of the running around I had to do, I wasn't sure I would. I picked up this lovely orange bell pepper while at the grocery store, not with the intent of using it for cooking, but with the idea that it would easily work with the small square format and I might have time to finish a painting today after all. So, a very simple piece. Just a sketch really, and fun to do.

I spent part of the weekend preparing several panels to work from. The panels I've been buying are primed and ready to go, but I think they are too absorbent. So I added another coat of acrylic gesso. I also tinted the gesso before applying it with dry pigment, of which I had several jars. I now have a number of surfaces ready to go. This one was tinted with a gray blue.

Bridget

6 x 6"

oil on panel

Bridget was a model at a local life session. She was so graceful, able to hold what looked like an uncomfortable pose like this one without effort. This was painted from a drawing I did that evening. I usually don't try to paint figures in such a small format as it can be difficult and time consuming. I probably should not have tried for the features at this size, but I thought I would give it a shot. Except for that, this was a fun painting

Crabapples in the Snow

8 x 10"

oil on panel

This was easier to photo as it wasn't wet. No glare. I picked this to post because I was anticipating having to spend time getting the photo.

So, I didn't do this today. Our new house in Wisconsin has a crabapple tree. I knew nothing about crabapple trees. I learned that they don't lose their fruit in the winter. In fact, my husband picked branches at Christmas and sprayed them with lacquer or varnish or whatever to put in a big vase. Looked spectacular. I should have painted from those. Nevertheless, this one is crabapples with a bit of snow, of which we had plenty this winter. Snowed day before yesterday and maybe tommorrow, too. This was just before dusk, late afternoon. I tried to paint each crabapple cluster as just one shape, adding small distinguishing strokes later. So, again, a simple piece.

Red Olive Jar with Scoop

9 x 12"

oil on panel

Okay, getting the photo was more of a challenge than I thought it would be. Obviously I will get more practice at that.
This was an olive jar that I bought on sale at a store going out of business. I didn't know they came with scoops for the olives. I had to ask what it was. I was concentrating on get the beautiful highly saturated color , something I don't usually do, at the same time as putting in the darks and lights to create dimensionality. I see now I could have paid more attention to composition. I loved working with that red. But I still have the jar, I can always paint it again. It is a beautiful jar. I am reasonably satisfied with this for my first piece here.