Flowers in Haste

I am very excited, Richard Schmid's Alla Prima book just came in the mail a few seconds after I squeezed out the paints onto my palette. 

So I hurried. 

It sounds kind of silly, that I would rush through a painting just so I could go read about painting.

Apple with Half a Kettle

I attempted the Rookie Painter challenge today, and what do you know, the composition contained an apple.  For those of you who have also done this challenge, you will notice that I simplified the kettle down to a vase.  Hence, half a kettle.  I didn't want to spend any more time on this - I'm just happy I carried it through to somewhat of a finish instead of abandoning it as another wiper.

Qiang's Apple

Aren't you surprised to see another apple?!   At least this one has company!  Since I'm basically trying to teach myself and don't know what I'm doing, I find it helpful to study works by artists that I admire.  This one is a quick study of Qiang's apple, I like how his brush strokes are deliberate yet loose, almost like calligraphy.  I don't know how he does it, but I had fun trying to figure it out.

By the way, if you haven't gone there yet, check out Neher's blog and his "You be the Judge" contest to see some wonderful paintings.  Or maybe even consider entering the contest yourself!

Valentine's Day Strawberry

We almost always have strawberries in our house but I have been too timid to try and paint one.  They look so complicated with all those different shades of red and those tiny little seeds.  But I finally gave it a go - so here it is, my very first strawberry painting!  Happy Valentine's Day everyone.

The Last Cherry

"The Last Cherry," 6x6 Acrylic on board

One thing about painting fruit is that they are edible props.  Which means (especially with a family of six) if you buy a bag of cherries to paint and then go looking for them when you're ready to paint, you may not find them.  Fortunately, I was able to find the cherry eater just in time to salvage the last cherry.

20 Apples

"20 Apples" must seem a strange title for this since there are only two apples.  However, beneath these 2 okay apples are the 18 other bad apples I have painted to get here.  I was pleased when I finished this because my painting finally looked okay, but it does not look very good in this picture.  Well, I will keep trying, maybe my next painting will be called "40 Apples."  I hope I do not have to get to "A Thousand Apples" before I am finally comfortable painting them.

Rose, Daffodils, Apple

I thought I would post those daffodils that I said I was battling with.  A lot more can be done with it but I currently don't know how.  Also, my first quick sketch/rose study, looking at a rose from above.  And then a very, very basic apple painting - spherical objects give me trouble so I need to practice, practice! I only posted it here because I will probably paint another apple on top of this one, so this will be the only record of this apple's existence!

Reflection

It's been a little over a month since I first picked up a paintbrush.  This past weekend I decided to try a challenge painting of daffodils.  I battled my painting for so long that my hand actually got cramped with no worthwhile results.

So I took a step back and reflected on my journey so far.  With Sovek exercises, speed painting landscape tutorials, challenge paintings, figure drawings ... I realized I have quite simply been all over the place, which is okay since I have just discovered the world of art.  But now it's time to settle down and focus.  Many artists I admire have been painting since childhood, or at least for five or more years before sharing their work on their blogs.  I don't mind showing my struggles, it will be nice to be able to see these fumbling beginning attempts and compare them to my works several years from now (I hope I will have improved by then)!

I know I need a better understanding of color and would also like to have more expressive brush strokes.  So, rather than frantically jumping from one thing to another, I am currently working on making color charts and plan on working more on my brush strokes with smaller studies of things, like apples, rather than trying to produce some "finished product."  Quite frankly, I'm a lot happier.

Wildflowers

These are two versions of the Artistic Sentiments monthly project.  This one on the left was my second attempt.  I like the background trees more on this one and it has a softer feel to it than the first try which is below.  I liked my first version better but there were  about ten other paintings lying underneath it, so all those paint layers created ridges on the board which made it hard to paint on.  And the mountains were an afterthought - it had too much sky - adding them ruined my tree line (looks worse in real life than in the picture). 

Mountains and Trees

Another day has gone by and I have no finished product to post.  I have been painting, it's just that all I have managed to produce are reject paintings.  This one on the left was supposed to end with stunning wildflowers in the foreground, however, the style of the clouds, distant mountains and foreground mountain didn't seem to belong together in the same painting so I abandoned this work. 





This one on the left was for the Wilderness Challenge.  When I saw the original picture, I thought it was perfect to attempt palette knife painting, which is what I did.  Unfortunately, what I had in mind and what ended up on the canvas were two separate things.

Oh well, I will keep on trying!

Peppers, Cabbage and Cottage

It was a nice change of pace after so many Painting with Len landscapes to do a value study with vegetables.  Of course, I completely failed at this value study as the middle pepper ought to be darker than the others.  On the other hand, I am happy that the finished product actually resembles peppers and cabbage at all (at least I hope they do).

Tea and Landscape

Yet another Sovek exercise.  Probably the best exercise I've done so far, I spent a lot more time on it and I think it shows. There was a cloth backdrop but I had to paint it out as it looked nothing like cloth at all (another thing I need to practice). 






And this was just a practice landscape, just a generic path.  I'm sure it's obvious that I painted without any reference photo.  It was just nice to paint something without knowing what I was going to paint beforehand.

Sovek Exercise 3

I did another Sovek exercise today and am much happier with the outcome.  I know my bottle is deformed but I painted fairly quickly, trying to develop a looser painting style.  I also did another "Painting with Len" lesson.  I feel silly when I do those, but they are really helping me learn the different tools and the effects I can create with them.

And, YAAAAY, I finally got new batteries for my old Canon Rebel and am happy to be able to take better pictures again.  Here's a few of my photos.

 

Sketches

I took a break from painting today and opted for pencils and sketchpad instead.  I've never drawn faces before and wondered how I would do.

I threw in one figure drawing for practice as I seem to have difficulty keeping proportions. 

And today I finally purchased a fan brush (never had one of those before) and a tube of titanium white.  A very large tube.  I seem to go through white like crazy.