Spring at Kelleher Pond (Painting as of Jan. 29, 2024)

Here is my painting as it looked on January 29th.  I began to introduce oil bar, using a new set of colors that I bought last year.  I had to do some experimenting to see what each of the oil bars would do.  Some are transparent, some opaque, and some translucent, and none an exact match with the colors on the canvas. You can apply oil bar over acrylic but you cannot apply acrylic over oil bar, so in a way, there was no going back.  (And I was trying to make a deadline.) But I decided to live dangerously.  I started by applying some pale yellow and translucent white to the yellow patches on the path, and that toned things down a bit.  I used a dark blue color as a neutral to blend in the purple shadows.  I also used it to sharpen some of the dark lines.  I was trying to apply oil bar where it would be helpful, but not everywhere because I wanted the bright colors of the acrylic paint to show through.  To be continued. . . .

Two Paintings in Galatea's Member Show

Yesterday, we braved the weather to pick up two of my paintings at Galatea Fine Arts in Boston.  My paintings had been part of the annual members show.  This was also my first chance to see the show, and it was great! As always, it put a big smile on my face to see so many talented artists at Galatea!  After my little tour of the display,  I took this photo of my paintings, and it then was time to hit the road.  We got back to Beverly just as the wintry mix was turning to ice.  The paintings are "Near Vail in Summer" (left) and "Above Dillon Lake" (right).

Spring at Kelleher Pond (Painting as of January 27, 2024)

Here is my painting as it looked on January 27th.  That day the main thing I had worked on with this image was modifying some of the shapes of the shadows on the path.  I also repainted the sky. The rest of my time was spent on some tasks that I would usually due after a painting is finished. But because I was working with a close deadline in mind, I reversed the order of some tasks.  I installed wire on the back of the painting, and then started sealing the edges with brown acrylic paint.  I did this first while I was still working with just acrylic.  I am going to add oil bar, which dries more slowly, and I don't want to have to wait for it to dry to before I can seal the edges and add wire.  These tasks are not "artistic", but are certainly part of making art, and part of the calculation in figuring out how to make a deadline. To be continued. . . .

Spring at Kelleher Pond (Painting as of January 26, 2024)

This is my painting as of January 26th.  I continued working in acrylics, but my plan was to folllow with oil bar.  This would be my first attempt at combining the two, and this was the perfect time to try, because I wanted to have this painting complete and DRY in time to submit it to an art show in early February.  Beginning with acrylics would certainly speed things up, especially drying time, because I could use less oil bar.  chose colors based on my reference photo, and it was easy to find good matches because acrylic paint offers some very bright colors, like the sky blue and hot pink seen here.  I liked the contrast of the purple and yellow to create light and shadow on the path, but I was already planning to tone those colors down a bit with the oil bar.  To be continued. . .

Spring at Kelleher Pond (Painting as of January 25, 2024)

Here is my painting as it looked on January 25th.  I used acrylic paint to set out the composition in blue, purple, and white.  This is going to be painted a combination of acrylic and oil bar, a first for me.

Celina with Flowers (Photo Reference for Portrait)

One of my next projects is a portrait, and I will be working from this digitally modified version of the original family photo, showing the lovely Celina standing in a field of flowers, somewhere in Brazil.  This looks like rows of roses to me -- maybe a rose farm -- but I am not sure.  In any case, I really like this image. I did a little cropping of the existing image, but then for the sake of the composition, I needed to add space at the top, which I did by using the Painter program to add some blank space, which I then filled in with some "placeholder" shapes to suggest a background (trees, clouds,). Right now the background looks very different from the rest of the image, but when I paint the portrait, I will make the background "match" the rest of the image. I also added some space to the bottom of the image, and filled in with a bit of cut-and-paste.  I sharpened the contrast just a bit, and then printed this out to use when I paint.

Kellerher Pond, Reference for Painting

This is the painting reference for the second painting project I am working on.  Back in late March of 2021, I took some photos during a walk around Kelleher Pond, a small pond in our neighborhood.  I was longing for a little more spring color, so I added a Prisma filter.  I recently decided to use this image as the basis for a painting, hoping to submit it to a local art show with the theme of "Beverly Color" if I can finish in time. (Deadline coming right up!)  Let's see what happens. It will be fun to paint in any case. Because I wanted a square format, I cropped the image. Then I was ready to print it out to use as a painting reference

Ocean Sunrise (Digital Drawing)

This digital drawing of an ocean sunrise is the last frame of the little animation I posted yesterday, created by the Procreate app as I drew.  I am sending this out to wish everyone hope, peace, and joy in 2024.