This is a view from my home. There is a mountain that goes straight up just across from us. The way the sun hits it in the evening amazes me. the colors are so strong. I’m not sure how this reads to someone not familiar with the view. But it is supposed to be a patch of the mountainside just catching the sun between the dense foggy patches.
I love painted trees! I need to practice them close up because they are very tricky to paint. So in this I combined the tree practice with the strong warm light practice. It is just a small 5×7, but I think it has good impact. When studying a subject close up, the things you learn can be easily applied to a more suggestive painting later on. This is another thing that I need to remember.
This is the second little 5×7 study of the warm light effects on a subject. In this case it made a nice backdrop for the interesting foreground. I thought it was interesting that the fog looked so warm compared to the cool, shaded trees. I really wish that we had more sunny days here so I could get outside and paint!
This is a little (5×7) study that I did to practice the color, temperature and value of the light.The sun hits the mountain peaks like this in the winter here in Juneau. (on one of the maybe 10 sunny days we get) It is so beautiful! I want to be able to capture the extreme impact that it has. I think this is quite close to how it looks. I’m am going to do several more this week. It will be my focus.
This is a little 5×7 painting. It is the second time that I have done this picture.I believe that it is much cleaner and much less overworked as well. I must say that I don’t generally enjoy doing a picture more than once, but I am learning the value of doing so. The first time I did this, it was quite a struggle to capture the sunny light. But this time it took less than half the time. It was a real pleasure to work on! From now on I am going to make it a practice to do certain paintings more than once, and even in different colors or value patterns. I think it will increase my learning significantly.
This is a small painting of a farm in Corinth, Maine. It is set way back from the road and has all its pasture up front. I like to see who is in the fields when I go by. Often there are horses and colts out there. I think this car has been there as long as I can remember. This was my first successful attempt at painting a car. I was pretty happy with it. Usually they do not look at all like a car.
This is another effort to employ the looser style of painting that I like so much. I really tried to go about this in a more reckless abandon fashion. I did not want to be fussy with detail but wanted to focus on the larger value differences. About mid way through I almost tossed it, but in the end I think it came out rather well.
This is a collection of 4×4 paintings that I did this week. They are copies of larger paintings by a friend who’s work I particularly like. His brush strokes are quick and sketchy and his paint is quite thick and textural. Another thing I like about it is his color choices. He uses a few different colors than I was using and I enjoyed adding these to my pallet. (the new ones were sap green, cad orange light, and yellow ochre)
I really enjoyed these little studies. I got a feel for the look and light, as well as a bit more texture. I think this was very helpful.
So these are 2 of the paintings I did as I struggled this week. When I edited the colored one and looked at it in black and white it was not too far off from this one on the left that I painted in one color. I have yet to be successfull with this painting, but I thought I would show you where I am coming from. I will continue to try capturing this to my satisfaction, but probably not today ( =
This week has been one big struggle when it comes to my painting! I took a photo of a beautiful spot last fall. The setting is of a waterfront area early in the morning. There was bright, warm, low sun shining on the shoreline making the dried grasses glow in the warmth. In contrast, the shadows were a beautiful cool blue.
I have been eager to put this into a painting and be able to capture that wonderful contrast. So this week I have painted that one scene no less than 10 times, perhaps more. Each one has been dreadfully unsuccessful! I tried everything, from quick little sketchy paintings, to full blown effort, all with no success. Finally I decided to take a step back and do a value study using a single color. (Almost like a black and white). This proved to be helpful in showing how close the colors were in value, but it did not help me to get the colors correct. I guess I will just have to go back to it another day and try again.
Art with my Coffee 