Happy Halloween!

Halloween this year was a great time.  It was the return of Bumble-Rat and Ladybug Rat.  The cool thing about having white rats is you can paint them with airbrush markers.

I carried Ali around for Trick or Treating.  People gave them chocolate and their very favorite treat, Swedish Fish.

Daya also had a great time.  She was Cinderella this year.

 

Twilight (after Bouguereau)- Finally Finished!

After seven months this painting is finally done!
I started in March and finished the underpainting in July.
It needs to be scanned instead of photographed but it is too wet right now.

I am not doing anymore grisaille/glazing for the foreseeable future; this is not how i enjoy working.

View progress shots here.

10x20 oil on canvas

Another photo with different light:

 

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I bought the cutest little gourds at the store the other day so I could paint them. For the past few days I have been wanting to paint a gourd with my Maimeri Italian Earth paints... so as a reward to myself for finally finishing Twilight, and also for the Feat of Extreme Discipline for not starting another painting until Twilight was finished, I painted a little gourd.

The Italian Earth paints are fascinating... they are actual earth pigments from different regions in Italy. They are low chroma and transparent, and although I find I can't push them the way I can with other pigments, I still love them. especially the greens.

I do think I'll do better with them when they aren't the only colors in the palette, but as accents to a more well-rounded selection. I like the earthiness and somewhat grittiness of them, and also like thinking of what the old masters did with such limited materials.

8x10 oil on canvas panel, an hour and a half.

Plein Air 35 and 36

I took a plein air workshop today with the wonderful Danielle Hatherley.  Since Daya is usually with me when I am not at work, it's rare to have a child-free full day of painting outdoors.  I have been wanting to take a workshop for a while and this was a great experience, something I'll definitely do again. It was great to spend lots of time on each painting.

We painted at the Boat basin in Riverside Park. Palette: Alizarin, Cadmium Red Light, Indian Yellow, Cadmium Yellow Light, Maganese Blue, French Ultramarine, and white.

Both are 9x12 oil on panel

Plein Air 33 and 34

Since I had to go to Daya's school this morning, I just took the whole day off to make the already-long weekend extra long.

Of course I went out painting.  I have been having trouble getting into the painting zone lately, and I had trouble today even though I was excited to be out.  These two are not really great paintings... but I read the other day on Wet Canvas that even some professional plein air painters admit a good percentage of the work they do in the field isn't great.  Plein air painting sure is hard.

I used the palette I'll be using for my upcoming plein air workshop on the 21st:  Alizarin crimson, Cadmium red light, Indian yellow, Cadmium yellow light, French Ultramarine, and Maganese Blue.  Oh, and white.  I am having trouble mixing my darkest values with this palette- they all come out looking like really dark purple or some sort of indefinable brown.

My setup for the first painting:

#33, 8x10 oil on panel  ( I really have trouble with pine trees) one hour

For the second painting, I found a tree that was literally growing out of a huge rock.  I thought I had a good start with this one but am not quite sure what happened.

6x8 oil on panel one hour, maybe I spent too long on it.  Oh well, next time.

Plein Air 32

We spent the day in Central Park and had a wonderful time. I did a little painting while Daya played in the grass.

For today's painting I used 2 new colors- Indian Yellow and Maganese blue. I like them very, very much but also think the addition of cadmium yellow would have made more variations in the greens.  I was really trying to go for masses and impression over details.

Alizarin crimson, Indian yellow, Maganese blue, French Ultramarine, and Titanium white.

6x8 oil on panel

Daya got her face painted:

Retro or Antique?

I've been goofing off with oil paint this week... .  Here is a copied image from 1992...anyone out there recognize it?
Next week I'll get back to serious study (maybe ;) ) and plein air.

8x10 oil on panel

Note: I am sure the original source image is still under copyright by Sierra Online.

WN Titanium White

I can't believe I haven't painted in three weeks! (I don't count last weekend... it wasn't oil paint! :) )

I am a little rusty...

This is another in the Paint Tube series... WN Titanium White
6x8 oil on panel, maybe 35 minutes or so.