Flower Stand

This idea came from the Daily Paintworks site. They post painting challenges and I liked this one so I gave it a try - this challenge came from Carol Marine, one of my favorite artists.

Lots of fun to paint!

Flower Stand
12x12 Acrylic on Canvas

The 10 MInute Challenge

Almost two years ago (wow - I can't believe it was two years ago) I took a workshop from Carol Marine. I had no clue who she was, or what I was getting into and I'd only been painting for about 8 months or so. I signed up because I saw it listed in my local community center flyer and I thought "cool - something remotely interesting is happening in Westford". It was a great experience because I learned a lot, although I was a neurotic basketcase because it was way over my head. I didn't even know I had learned so much at the time, but even now dribs and drabs of what she taught come back to me.

I've been following her ever since. She recently started a weekly painting challenge on dailypainterworks.com where she posts a photo or challenge and a bunch of painters take the challenge. I just found out about it and its already on its 3rd week, but I'm really excited to try it every week.

Four Yellow Cups
8x10 Oil on Canvas

This painting was my first challenge. These were the rules: "Get a timer. Divide your canvas or canvases (I used 2 - 6x6in Raymar canvases) into 8 or so small squares (or rectangles). They should be smallish – a couple or 3 inches square or thereabouts – they don’t have to be perfect. Now choose ONE object. Just one. Set your timer for 10 minutes. Paint your object in the first square. When the timer goes off – stop! I mean it. Repeat until you are done. You can rotate your object and/or change the light for each new square."

I didn't do 8 - I took an 8x10 and broke it into 4. I actually did two of these exercises on Sunday because I liked it so much, but the other photo was too blurry to post. 10 minutes is SO short, but it really helped me loosen up and it just isn't enough time for neurosis to set in.  I just have to paint the color, shapes and light and STOP.

Lemon Slice

I'm starting to get what Carol Marine was trying to say during the workshop I took with her last fall. The goal is to think about the colors and the paint BEFORE you put it on the canvas. I'm finally able to start doing that more and more.

Coincidentally - I heard from some of my workshop classmates this weekend and I've added their blogs to my blog roll. Check out Lisa Daria's Painting a Day and

Laurie G. Miller's Painting Patter.

We're all artists trying to paint the best we can.

I'm so happy with this painting - it is one of those "breakthrough" moments. I do see something I have to fix though - the lower right hand side of the bowl opening is off a bit :).

The Lonely Shaker

I tried to follow Carol Marine here - didn't really do it, beyond the small format (6x8) but this is probably one of the better paintings I've done. The shaker top is a bit warped looking, but other than that it worked well. This was one of those times that I pushed through the doubt and left it alone for about a week. I came back and added just few things - the red bits of color, the shimmer in the shadow, and a few other things.

A big challenge on this painting was the silver shaker top against the black background. My brain told me that the black background was much darker than the silver top, but if I really looked I realized that, in reality, this wasn't true. This happens a lot in painting - the battle between your intellect telling you how things are supposed to be, and your eyes seeing what really is.

The Backlog - need to catch up

I'm going to post a couple of paintings at once since I'm posting stuff that I've done over the past year. These two paintings were independent studies I did for class - the first in February and second in March. They are both about 16x20. The first one isn't finished - I got bored with it. The little white things are marbles that I didn't complete. I really should finish it I guess. My favorite part is the pink vase because I like the way I applied the color and the paint strokes. Least favorite is the red cloth background and the pewter vase.

The second one is better. I like the warm glow. The coffee cup is a bit distorted and I broke it before I finished the painting. I'm just going to leave this alone, flaws and all. But I think that there is definitely progress between the first and second. One of the reasons I think for the improvement was a workshop I took in March from Carol Marine - I'll post something about that tomorrow or later today. Hopefully I'll catch up soon :)