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 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 ( =
Well this painting was a good application of all those grays that I practiced the other day. I really like paintings with lots of light/dark contrast like this. It is always a challenge to get the values right. There are only a couple small spots of colors without any gray in them here. It is quite something to start graying down, say a green for instance. As you put red into it to gray it on your pallet, your eye may tell you that it is no longer green. But when you put it onto your canvas your eye tells you that it is a green. Remember that this is only going to be true if you get the tone and value correct. Otherwise it will look like dreaded mud!
(These are those little lanterns that miners used to wear on their heads. They are pretty cool and practical. My husband has a nice collection of them)
Art with my Coffee 