Original art, art classes, plein air, Lake Saint Louis, MO

Today I thought I would blog a before and after piece.  I have been painting acrylic daily paintings of late, and this particular one I stopped at a point where I was not all that happy with it. I posted it on Facebook with a teaser that I was going to continue to work on it and repost. In all fairness, the photo of the original is not that great, but what I didn't like about it was that it was too stiff, particularly in the background,  and not enough paint on the surface for the amount of texture of the canvas. 

For the new work, I wanted to soften up the background and put in some highlights, as well as overall put on more paint.

To start with I wanted to be sure that my painting surface was good and wet, so I put on a fairly thick layer of mat medium over the entire surface and began in the background, to rewet/paint the hills and sky with fresh paint, working quickly before the paint would dry, I worked the brush work in a looser manner. The idea is to not have the hard edges and give it a more impressionist look.

 I also shortened up the left arm, and repainted the dress, as well as brighten up the foreground highlights in the poppies. In the middle ground I significantly lightened up the distant landscape, so that there would be more contrast between the figure and the landscape. 

I fairly happy with the end result.It feels a bit more like she is cautiously walking in the fields, rather than just standing there, as she actually was. The reference for this painting was taken in Spring of 2014.

5x7 Acrylic on Canvas....Check out the link to my daily paintworks site for auctions.

Don't you think that this last image has a softer look and has more feeling of movement in it? I can feel the wind blowing as it does out here.

Below is another I have been working on today. I started this one with the mat medium right away on the white canvas, so that paint moved on the canvas easier rather than soaking in to the surface, as acrylic does, drying out the paint faster. The mat medium gives me a bit more open time. This canvas also a smoother surface, which I prefer that has been painted on with two or three coats of gesso.

This one of the toddler in the field was pretty much all improv. The reference pose was of my grand daughter, Addy, but I completely changed the color of the hat and dress, and put some flowers in her hand that she would have just picked..I like the implied story this way. The rest is made up out of my head, with the two other poppy painting as inspiration. Not sure I will go back into the Picking Poppys painting, but for now, I will just share where it is at this point.

Pickin Poppies, 6x6 acrylic on panel. Check out my daily paintworks site for the coming auctions for these paintings.

I seem to be on a roll with the snow paintings. We got so many great reference photos on our trip to Tehachapi just after a snow fall.

Painting trees is difficult, but snow laden trees present a completely different challenge. Much of the same rules apply, get the darks in first, and work up to the lightest lights. On this one though, I wanted to make sure that I kept the trees in the back darker. I made sure that I kept even the snow on the trees, at least the shadow color and value, so that it pushed them way back, allowing my smaller, sunlit trees to POP in the forground. I have kept this piece mostly mid to dark value with a smaller bit of light, and a touch of a warm accent. This would be a cool painting.

I learn something on each of these mini paintings. Mostly, these are meant to be studies. Seems like that is all I feel like doing these days, small, quick paintings. I have been feeling a bit under the weather and don't know if allergies are getting me or some lingering something or other. So for now, more of these littles. There is another small snow scene at about half done on the easel out in the studio. Keep posted, and encourage your friends to join my blog feed.

Happy New Year!

To bid on this work, click here.

Ok, so far, day two of 2015 brings you another little one, a snowscene, 5x7 Acrylic on panel.

This work was inspired again by a snow day in Tehachapi. I was attracted to the warm tones on the tree trunks and the light shining through from behind. I like the contrast of the cool shadows, across the foreground, as a soft place for the eye to rest, then following the tiny footprints

into the brush. I like the implied story.

I am trying to concentrate when I paint. This one being cool with warm accents, and cool dominant. It does have a much more warm feeling than yesterday's painting. Yesterdays was definately a majority cool with a red scarf as the contrasting warm. This one today is about 75/20 The next painting I think I am going to go much warmer all the way around but still snow.

Watch for the next one...

Click here for the auction on this piece.

I have been lax on the blog posting of late. I do appologize to those who are looking forward to a post from me now and then. I had not realized I had not posted since we were unpacking, and now it is time for New Years Resolutions! Ofcourse, as usual, my resolution is to be more dedicated to my art and paint every day. This year was rough, with the move, and some major family issues, ie illness, death, drama etc, that I won't go into on this blog. Just lets say that life definately got in the way this year, and until after the first of the year, will continue to do so. At least I have given myself permission to focus on the holidays and family "stuff" for now.  I do however hope to get back to the daily painting, after the new year, at least for a while.

Daily painting, is a good thing. There are artists that say, "I don't need to do"daily painting" because I am dedicated to do my painting every single day. I say, "well, that is great for you!" For me, it is not that simple. I am a wife, a mom, and Oma. Life gets in the way, and making a commitment to paint at least a small something every day, keeps me focused during some of those, tough to focus times. As with many of you, I fall off the wagon, and lose inspiration, get painters block or what ever, and just let time go by with out even going into the studio.  I feel guilt, and even sometimes lose confidence. You know, that "white canvas syndrome" sets in. Every now and then, I have to kick myself in the butt, and remind myself, that even if I don't have "inspiration" at that moment, it will come from going out there and pushing paint around, not by waiting for inspiration to hit. 

Don't get me wrong, I have been painting since the move out here to the high desert in August. I have done at least a dozen plein air paintings, joined a life drawing open studio group, and painted some small pieces, if only to keep my sanity, so it is not like I am rotting out here, which is what I thought would happen....LOL. I have been lax mostly at the promotion end of things. I have given myself permission to just do what I can, and not worry about the rest for now. If you are interested in seeing some of my work, you can go to my facebook, the personal one...The art one, well, remember I said I gave myself permission right? New stuff is not on there either.  I will be posting some of my plein air pieces to my Daily Paintworks site, soon.

Here are a couple pieces I have done while I have been "hanging out" here in the So Cal High Desert:

This one is 6x8 oil on Panel Painted plein air in Valyermo CA click here for DWP Auction on this painting

This one is 8x 10 oil on panel painted in Leona Valley, CA Plein air

I have been busy this week making panels out of masonite, and canvas, as wekk as gessoed panels, so have not been posting as much.

I decided though to post the work I did for my students in oil painting class on Wed. Each week I present a challenge to them to meet during the warm up period at the front end of the class. They can continue throughout the whole class or just give it a shot and move on to their own work.
This week's challenge was to quickly draw the items I had for them to work from, from life, in this case, there were Tangerines, onto their canvas.  Then loading their 1/2 inch or larger brush (depending on the size of canvas they chose, mine was 6x6 so half inch), they were to apply one stroke. Then remix new color, and apply, one stroke. Then again, applying only one stroke each time they altered the color  and applying more paint to the painting, until they completed the painting. The idea is to THINK about what stroke they were going to make.
It looked easy, until they did it themselves...There was lots of moaning, but it was good for them. I sent them home with instructions to do a daily painting with this technique to engrain  it in their head. One student said it was like driving a nail into her skull...Haha. funny, Chris.

I hope you like the piece I did for them.

Click here for my DailyPaint works auction of this piece.

I am excited to post this link finally to my first timelapse photography video attempt. I learned a lot from this experience.

1. I can paint fast if I know that the battery might die before I finish,

2. Put the camera on the left side, not the right side.

3. I am going to have to learn to be comfortable in front of a camera, because the video could use some more input.

4. My husband is a sweetie for helping me put this together, and I am happy to say, he says he will do it again.

Now, the bits that might interest you:

I used an app on my Ipad called, Timelapse. It made it easy to do, but I am not sure how to change the settings on it, and completely took a gamble that I would have something useable. There is supposed to be some "editing" capabilities within the app, but didn't use them, since my husband has his own editing program he prefers.  I do know that I don't think there was a way to zoom in before starting to get a close up, and it was awkward working with the ipad so close. Although setting it up on the other side is a definate for the next time.

I got a tripod mount for my Ipad and attached it to the tripod, but the tripod I had was a bit flimsy, so I set it on the table next to me. Next time I will have a sturdier one on the left side. Also, I am thinking at some point I will have to figure out how to use my actual camera to do the job with so that I can mess with the settings on it, to avoid the flicker that I got from the different light conditions during each shot. If my hand was in the way, it influenced the shot, and when my hand was down, again, so there is some flickering going on. Anyway, I will do it again, and update you with what I learn on the next attempt.

As to the painting, I did it with a limited pallet, working from thin to thick on the paint, and staying away from adding white as long as possible. The piece is 6x8 and is available on Daily Paint works for a low bidding price if you are interested.

I forgot to add the link to the video.. click the Freekin Chicken below to go to the Utube link.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bONRBgDdzFw

For the last couple years, I was able to go to a paint out in Lone Pine, the Henry Fukahara Plein air Workshop. I like to go a bit before the workshop to "do my own thing" as the workshop is not at all what people would consider to be "my thing". I go to push myself and try new things. It is a challenge to be as loose as those painters are...cuz they are REALLY loose. Tough for me.

This little work was done from a photo reference taken while camping in the Alabama Hills, just before that four day Manzanar workshop that I stretch out to 10. Scott was with me the first weekend. Perhaps you can make him out loosely painted sitting there, reading.. It was taken late in the day, as the sun was going down. I had my back to the sun, and the shadow from the Mountains behind me, darkened the rocks behind my camper. The hills in the distance, took on a warm glow. This only lasted a few minutes. I was able to do a watercolor pen and ink before the sun went down after shooting this shot. In the reference, there was a bird sitting up on the rock. I left him out, as he would have been a confusing speck. Just cuz it is in the photo, doesn't mean it has to be in the painting. He was probably trying to figure out what we were all about. I think he was a hawk or a very large crow.

This work got too tight, and more like earlier work that I have done, rather than the recent work, that is a bit looser. I need to stop being so tight, but this one seemed to want to be tighter. This one was for the "scampers" and all the mini trailer crowd out there. I hope you like it!

This work is an 8x8 oil on canvas. If you have some cool photos of your camping adventures, that you would like to capture on canvas, shoot me an email. I can work from your photograph. If I paint on a wrap canvas, I can paint around the edges and you won't need a frame. They are nice and light that way.

This painting makes me laugh out loud. After a long day yesterday on the computer, doing the marketing thing, {MyDailyPaintworks, facebook, FineArtAmerica.com, and puttting together some paperwork and manifest for my one woman show at the Grace Mellman Library tomorrow morning hhhhh, breath),  I just had to spend at least a few minutes at the easel before hitting the sack. When that feeling strikes, at the least, I do a small painting, Tonight, I felt like a pig. The title for this one, "Pig in the Pokey" came after some making fun with the painting with my husband

The small paintings, I have in a category on my website, called "Daily Paintings". Now mind you, I paint almost daily, but don't every day do a "daily painting".  I have the Daily Painting Works website but I am sorry to say, don't manage to post something daily on it. I will promise to be better, but life/business,  seems to get in the way. Maybe I am ADD, but I tend to bounce around, from oil, to watercolor, to acrylic, etc, depending on my mood. I know it is the wrong thing to do business/branding  wize, but let's just say then, for the heck of it, that it is "art for art's sake" and leave it at that for now...and not all works are meant to share. Yes, I have those too!

The recent effort/distraction, was cleaning up, and purging in the studio, which, for now, has slowed somewhat, due to meare exaustion on my part. I am back to teaching an oil painting class a week, where we will be doing a "warm up' excersize, which will be come, that day's "daily painting"...unles I totally fall on my face with it, which does happen..and then, they become wipers, frizbees, or targets.

I am using these smaller works to challenge myself in some way. This Pig, started out as a painting useing purple, cad orange, and viridian, but I quickly caved, to ad alizarin crimson, and cad yellow,..oh ok..and a little indanthrene blue...(pretty much cool primaries, which brought me nearly back to a full pallet of warm and cool of each..so shoot me..Who cares anyway?)

Anyway, my goal as always was to try to keep it loose and fresh..and what ever it is, right or wrong, good or bad, it makes me smile, and my husband liked it..and he is like Mikey, he doesn't like anything! Enjoy!

Keep the brushes wet..

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