drawings

These are some drawings from saturday's open draw. I love to draw the figure. I am a bit rusty but am getting better with practice. The last one is my least favorite but I put it on because it was a difficult position to draw and to get right. She was leaning back so much. Actaully the top one is my last one and the bottom was the first so you can see I get better with each pose.

Figure study 22 x 28 oil

This is the last painting we did in class. I finished this yesterday. It seems wierd to me to leave part of the canvas undone. The face was just a quick sketch. My instructor told me to stop and let it be before I overwork it. We will see. Someday I might go back and add to it but I will leave it for now. I do get why I need to leave it,  it is just different to me and to how I have been painting. I do really like this painting. I joined this class to push myself and go to the next level so I am open to this change.

quick figure drawing

This is just a quick 15 - 20 min drawing I did yesterday after painting the fugure above. I was happy with it. I feel as though I am getting better with practice. I LOVE getting back to the figure.

10 minute challenge

This is a little 10 minute challenge from www.dailypaintworks.com.  After dividing up your canvas you set up an object and paint it for 10 minutes.

pumpkins with pie vent 11 x 14

gloria

This is a recent painting from my figure painting class. 20 x 24

gourd 11 x 14 oil

I saw this beautiful gourd last week at whole foods. There was a pile of them and they looked like little green vases piled on one another. It was hard to pick just one. The cinderella pumpkins are gorgeous too. I plan on painting more of these. I started going downtown to the open draws and also had a figure painting class start last week. It felt great to be able to go. I had the feeling the days following.. hard to explain. It was kind of like i was telling myself... oh there you are ....if that makes sense. I haven't been able to paint the figure in 15 yrs. How do you go about getting a nude model? I always loved painting/drawing the figure. So to go back to that after so long was like a rediscovery.

pumpkins 11 x 14 oil

It is that time of year again. I love to paint pumpkins. The colors are so fun to paint. I plan on doing more of these. I have started going downtown to an open draw with a nude model. I am pretty rusty but it is so fun. Hopefully I will have some drawings to post on here. I start a painting class downtown this week too. A figure painting class. I am nervous. I met the teacher and her way of painting is very different from mine. After painting one way with one color palette for so many years it may be hard to do it differently but I will try. I tried to think of a way to describe how odd it will feel and the only thing I can think of is it will be as if someone is telling me I have to write left handed for a while. wish me luck.

mugs and creamer 10 x 8 oil

This was painted for another challenge posted on daily paintworks that was "paint your mug".  Here it is. Actually my 2nd attempt. The first one, a 5 x 7, was not pretty. A struggle really so I decided once again that painting small was not for me. I am happy with this painting though. The creamer is a little fiesta ware creamer I picked up at an Amish country store in Lamoni IA this summer.

waiting for the ball 16 x 20 oil

So yet again I painted Norman. He is fun to paint. I think I took about 30 pictures of him running around in the back yard. I wanted more of an action shot but I liked this pose.  This is the first painting I have done that has a more solid background. I didn't want it to look like he was floating in a sea of green.  I am happy with it.

My oldest goes back to school next week. It seems as though the summer has flown by. Hopefully I will get back to painting regularly.  My peschooler starts in september. I am thinking of taking a class downtown at art league houston. There is a figure painting class there and I haven't painted the figure for about 15 yrs. I have been wanting to get back to it.  Hopefully everything will work out.

stacked 11 x 14 oil

This is yet another challenge painting from http://www.dailypaintworks.com/  This one happens to be right up my alley. I have been painting teacups for years. My husband even calls my artwork teacups and fruit.  I was thinking back to what made me first want to paint teacups and I think it was back in '97 when I was going to Northern Michigan University and taking blacksmithing classes. My professor named Dale Wedig showed us slides of his work and he had made a sign for a restaurant using different objects for each letter. One of the letters had teacups and saucers stacked on top of each other and probably had a metal rod running through the middle and they formed a letter.  He also had a chair with the back of it being made of 2 long drill bits maybe almost 5 or 6 ft high and at the top he had a teacup with steam rising off the top that he had cast out of metal. He is a wonderful artist. A show of his I went to had so many great sculptures but one that stays in my mind is an old metal percolator he turned into a rooster. You can see some of his work online. He still teaches there. Now he is making beautiful fish out of different objects such as metal strainers, spoons, and pie tins. That university has a fabulous design program if you can stand the upper peninsula snow.

challenge painting 10 x 8 oil

This is a painting for a challenge on http://www.dailypaintworks.com/ It is an older challenge that I just got around to doing.

still life 16 x 20 oil

Sometimes I like to pile stuff up like this to give myself the challenge of getting it right. It is about solving the problem.  Getting what I see on the canvas accurately.

onions 10 x 8

This is another challenge from daily paintworks. I am not sure if I am really feeling it, I kept thinking it was feeling flat for some reason.  I need to get to painting more since these challenges seem to be the only thing time I am painting lately.  It just seems so busy now with the kids finishing up school. My littlest one only has 2 more days of preschool. This next weekend I am in a competition in Conroe. I think there will be a lot of artists there. It should be great.

oh lighten up! 8 x 10

I haven't painted myself in about 6 yrs. I had been thinking of doing a self potrait for a while so the challenge from daily paintworks and the fact that I am stuck home while people are tearing out and replacing my kitchen floor made me commit.  I think I need more color in my painting and more practice for sure. April flew by so fast and I didn't get to paint too much. At least this painting didn't turn out kermit the froggish as some of my older self portraits.  It was great practice.

german landscape 8 x 10 oil

This painting is from a challenge on http://www.dailypaintworks.com/ .  This is actually my first landscape. I have tried a few times to paint landscapes but that was while standing outside instead of using a photo. It was a swarm of some kind of bugs that wouldn't leave me alone or the sun beating down on me while sweat dripped down my face that made me quit.  I am okay with using a photo. In my younger, more strongly opinionated days I used to argue that using a photo was cheating because you weren't out there on feeling the wind on your face.  I apologize to those that I argued with.  I started using photos for my dog paintings about 4 or 5 yrs ago. 

red wine 11 x 14 oil

red and white 11 x 14 oil

pinot grigio 11 x 14 oil

 

I had enjoyed my last wine bottle painting and thought about what I would do next. I actually dreamed of painting this one.  I like the simplicity of it.  I think that the challenge painting I did helped me to loosen up a little bit. I need to do more of those.  In school we had to do a painting with our palette knives.  That is something I should try again.

clementines 5 x 7 oil reworked challenge painting

I decided to add to my challenge painting. I posted it on the challenge website so now I could tweak it to my liking using a smaller brush.  I like it but I also like the simplicity of it the other way too. While painting this I found myself saying "keep it simple stupid" I posted it so that you could see the process and I post everything I paint anyway. I can't say I love the painting. I do like it but that is not what my blog is about. It is not just about showing the pretty little paintings. It is about the good, the bad and the ugly.  The process of my on going quest for growth. 

clementines 5 x 7 oil

So this painting was a one stroke challenge posted on the daily paintworks website. The challenge was to mix a new color for each stroke and use a brush at least 1/2" wide.  The paint color part was not too much of a challenge. That was how I was trained. "putting color next to color"  was how it was put for us.  The challenge for me was using the wider brush. It was hard for me not to go in and add the finer lines especially on such a small painting.  It was also freeing to me. It was all about the color and not defining the objects. It is almost abstract.

wine bottles 16 x 20 oil

This is one I painted last week. I donated it to my son's school for thier silent auction.  That scares me a little. Who knows what it will go for. I am hoping it is at least over a hundred dollars but oh well, it is out of my hands.  So if anyone is going to the summerwood carnival this weekend check it out. I think I will be too nervous about it to see.  

oranges and simosas 11 x 14 oil

I realize I would rather paint colorful paintings. Frankly I was bored with the last painting. I am very happy with this one and I like the "roughness" of it or as my mom and painting professor would call it "Painterly".  It is easy to get STUCK in the details. I am not about the details. If I was I would be doing photography instead which would be much quicker. What I try to capture is the beauty of color. I love the simosas reflecting in the bowl and on the fabric.  The oranges inside the bowl changed the color of the bowl's interior.  So there you have it. So I didn't paint ducks. We will see if I ever do. Carol Marine is an artist I respect and admire and she has a ten minute challenge where you paint an object for 10 minutes and do this many times. That is a great exercise. I need to do that. I feel like I run out of time some days so hopefully I will get around to doing that soon.

11 x 14 oil Tea time

It has been a while since I painted a still life. I decided to donate a painting to my son's elementary school for an auction and thought maybe I should do a painting that may appeal to more people.  I am not sure. I like this but it will look much better with a pretty silver frame. I think I will do a couple more and let someone else pick out what they think will work best. We have a duck pond here and I have some photos I took when we first moved here of the ducks.  That may appeal to the people who live around here. We will see.

Just waiting on you 16 x 20 oil

Finally another painting done. I had taken this picture a while ago. I am hoping I am finished but you never know. Sometimes it is hard not to keep working on it. I am still thinking of selling on Etsy.  I might sell this one. It takes about 2 to 3 weeks for oil paint to dry, depending on the paint, so I have a little time to think about that.