Today I felt like I needed to put down on canvas all the variations of gray I can mix. In actuality, this isn’t even a fraction, but I wanted an assortment of grays leaning towards another color, like a gray purple, or gray green. Gray is really just any color that has some amount of all 3 primaries. This is a valuable lesson to grasp! I think it is one of the things I have found most helpful in my progress. I still need work here.
This is a painting of our ski area in Juneau called Eagle Crest. It is a beautiful place to hike. I love the warm colors and the reflections in the water. I wanted the dark area in the distance to look more shaded from the sun than it does, I need to work on that. But this was a fun painting to do. (It is 8×10)
Today I decided to divert from my little studies and do a winter scene that really appealed to me. I love the little bit of sun peaking through the trees. I did try to work loosely on this and felt like I had some success not being too fussy.
Can you guess which of these took 15-20 minutes, and which one took almost a full day? Well, I wanted to do this to prove that a painting can be done quickly and effectively. In this I wanted to capture the essence of the scene; like the light vs. darks and the general layout, and perhaps notes of color. The larger one took most of a day. It really is not that much more detailed than the other. They both capture the scene. I could work on the smaller one more, but this is all I needed it to tell me right now. I think this is a very valuable skill to learn well. I will be doing much more of this quickk study to see what I can do with it. I would not consider the larger one a complete painting, but I was at a point of overworking it and decided I had messed with it enough. I will try it again another day.
Well after scraping off several attempts at painting pears with fewer and more deliberate brush strokes, I think I finally had some progress and success. In this group I decided to begin with a black and white to help me determine the values that I was struggling with. This seemed to help out quite a bit in the long run. The first 4 of these only took me about 10-15 minutes each. That is my goal with these quick studies. The last one I played with a bit longer. I want to do this same sort of study with another subject. It has been very helpful.
My objective in t
his study, was to get to the point where I could put down brush strokes with confidence. I did not want to overwork these things. My first 4 were horrible. They took me about 1 hour each and I’m not even sure that at that point they looked enough like pears to suit me. I actually scraped off the next several attempts. Ugh!
These are my first attempts at painting a white coffee cup. One of the exercises in The Daily Painting book, suggested doing 4 paintings that consisted of a cup and a couple different pieces of colored papers. These each took about an hour a piece and I tried not to be too fussy or to go back over them after my time was up. Overall I think there is progress. So I’m going to call it good!
2015 is moving forward and I guess I have to start somewhere. I recently purchased a book by artist Carol Marine called “Daily Painting“. There are so many wonderful things about this book! I enjoyed her telling how she overcame her struggles to become a successful full time artist. I also love her painting style and enjoyed her sharing about her process of painting. She has lots of teaching experience and included lots of great tips. Lastly she included lots of information on websites, blogs and networking with other artists. All very clearly explained and well written. Very helpful! I’m sure I will reread it many times over as well as do the exercises she includes.
This year I think this book is going to help me accomplish my goals which are to try to improve as an artist and to develop this blog that will grow a network and hopefully bring some exposure to potential customers.
I would love for you to join me on this journey!
Art with my Coffee 