Blue Table

Finally a painting. It's been a while. I was sick for a bit with bronchitis and was also struggling with my painting. I went on vacation last week and feel rejuvenated.

I was in Maine and didn't do any painting but took hundreds of photos (actually over a thousand but I deleted half after reviewing them all). My photography has really improved over the past year and I think it has to do with painting - both because I take thousands of photos now and because painting has made me more attuned to composition.

This is a painting inspired by the back patio at the cottage I stayed in. It was a sweet little cottage.

Blue Table
8x8 Oil on Canvas

Summer Shack

I am almost finished with the painting that I started two weekends ago. I worked on it last weekend a bit, and this weekend I only had one day to paint and I painted non-stop for 8 hours (after I did my required 1.5 hour procrastination). That is what is so great about painting - I get totally lost in what I'm doing and time goes by unnoticed. Impossible for me to think about anything but what I'm working on.

My So Called House
Oil on 9x12 Canvas

There are a few things I still want to do - break up the cast shadow in the foreground so it doesn't look like a big triangle, darken the front shadow on the house, straighten the basement door and do a couple of things on the trees in the upper left. I also think I'm going to connect the light sections of the leafy tree on the right. I may put the rungs in the porch railing - I needed it to dry a little so it didn't get all muddy.

Working from one side of the painting to the other worked well for me because I was able to keep control of the color and not get all confused like I usually do. I'm pretty excited about this painting because I finally "got" some stuff that I've been trying to do for so long - simplifying the color shapes, minimal blending, and capturing light.  I also left out stuff that I didn't think worked in the composition. That was one of the things my painting teacher kept telling me last year - just because its there, doesn't mean you have to paint it.

The giant palette was really fun - (in the previous post I talked about Karin Jurick's recommendations). My favorites were radiant lemon, radiant white, indigo blue, portland grey medium, violet grey, horizon blue - the coolest colors that really made a difference for me. Also used cobalt blue for the first time which is an awesome color and one that I see on lots of other artist's palettes.

A new approach - Karin Jurick style

I'm taking a workshop in May and I received the supply list a couple of weeks ago. The artist teaching the class, Karen Jurick, has a list of paints that must be at least 30 tubes. I was missing many of the colors she requires so I ordered a whole bunch of new paint that came on Friday - 24 tubes.

This weekend I decided to try to use some of the new, very cool colors. Colors like "radiant lemon" and "violet grey". I was nervous because normally I keep my palette very small so I don't get confused. For example last week's raft painting used only 5 colors and I mixed what I needed from those. I found a video where she lays out her palette and it is amazing how many colors she uses.

This is an example from her Painting a Day blog :

Everything she does breaks all the rules from all the books I've read, and from what I was taught in last year's painting class. Not only does almost every book say use a limited palette - red, blue, yellow, white - with 2 of each (warm and cool) and a couple of earth tones - I've also been taught that you should  work the entire painting evenly. The rule is to move all over the canvas and not focus in one area.

Karin breaks those rules. I found a demo of her painting technique .She sketched out her scene and then began filling it in. Her sense of color and light is incredible and she seems to just understand the value she needs automatically. If you're interested take a look at her from the link above- I love her brush work and color.

This weekend I used a big palette and tried her method of painting from one side of the canvas to the other. I didn't sketch out the whole composition first, I just focused on making sure that the cottage was accurately drawn because of the perspective challenge. I also didn't paint on a dark ground as she does - I'll try that on the next one.

So far so good. I thought all the colors and the method of painting from one side to the other would screw me up, but it is working out pretty well. This is a painting of my house and is about 9x12. I'm only half-way done but I like where its going. The only negative is that I wanted to keep painting and I have to go to work tomorrow! The photo makes the colors a little too yellow and the contrast is too severe,  but otherwise it is pretty accurate. I will finish covering the canvas and then I will go back to deal with the light and shadow.

Summer Cottage

Here's another painting of the cottage I stayed in this summer in Maine. For some reason I find this cottage very "paintable", this is the third painting I've done from that vacation.  This is a small 6x6 painting that I did pretty quickly. I've started to time myself - the first day I only worked on it for an hour, and then another 2 hours yesterday. I'm trying to force myself to stop (I actually have a timer) because too often I just keep going until I ruin the painting or I get so frustrated that I wipe it off. I did that to the last painting I posted - the one of the little syrup pitcher - I ended up wiping the whole thing and then hurling it in the trash. Not the best painting day I've had.

I really liked this little cottage. Wouldn't it be great to have a spot like this to get away to? It was so cute and just the right size and I could walk to everything - the beach, dinner, coffee, shops. When I say 'get away' I don't mean some secluded spot in the woods where I take lots of long solitary walks communing with the flora and fauna,  I'd be bored out of my mind in about 15 minutes. My idea of vacation always includes good food, good wine, people watching, art, beach, funky shops, and a perfect spot like this to relax in.

The Shack

All the photos that I took last year are kind of funky. They look a little distorted because of the angle.

This is my house, painted last August. I spent a loooong time on this, and did it from a photo. The angles and perspective were tough. The background trees are my favorite part, and that was what I was the most nervous about and saved it for last. Just shows you that you can't let your fear take over.

The part that really sucks is the road-that-looks-like-a-badly-painted-stream.

But I still like this painting - it was one of my first and I like the bright colors and the lounge chair.