Cherries coming to a close

Here is my final cherry painting.

I have a private class on Monday so we shall see what she suggests.

I don't want to over-work this so I need to leave it alone for now.

Working on Darks - Lights next

The background trees took longer than I anticipated. They are still not completely accurate but I needed the values to be more on spot because the initial colors are so very imporatant to me.

I want to see the greens and blues and purples and oranges.

I look forward to covering the canvas.

A girlfriend came over and interrupted my afternoon art session. She found it curious how I start my paintings. Made me a bit self-conscious..... sigh........

I look forward to tomorrow. It should look much better with the values down by then.

tight and loose

testing difference in getting picture from computer vs. flickr ... flickr copy below

Progress so far with stupid class picture. I am using this as an experiment.

Finally no glare but terrible quality with blogger upload.

I am taking a private lesson on Monday and am anxious to hear her input on my many canvases in progress.

I look forward to working on the rocking chairs tomorrow.

Wet Paint

This is the first time that I have worked so much on so many different canvases. My teacher told me to do that a long time ago, set stuff aside and start on something new.

I still need to finish off my large red apple and my sunflowers.

My cherries and bottles need more work and now I am starting a new painting.

I love wetcanvas.com for their reference photos. I wanted some rocking chairs on a porch and found this lovely gem of a painting on wetcanvas (i need to search for artists name):Unfortunately, I cannot find it anymore but the person made reference to the photographer so I did a search of her to find the picture. Her name is Loretta Humble and I found some of her photographs. At first, I had a difficult time locating this one in particular and then noticed an inverted photo:

PHOTO BY LORETTA HUMBLE

I do rather like the inverted version so I switched it up:

This reminds me of an old country porch in South Carolina and my goal is to punch up color and go for it.

In searching my many canvases, this one was way more vertical than I needed but I decided to add to the sky and porch so that it fits. I didn't want to wait to drive 30 minutes to the art supply store so I used what I had on hand. I am just trying to block in and using negative space, I am trying to get the dimensions. I use liquin and raw umber to sketch. I learned a huge lesson with my charcoal on my sunflowers. I thought I would NEVER get the dirty look covered up. The problem with sketching this way, is I have no eraser other than a paper towel, I just have to go fast and block it in.

Next, I will work on darks and lights. I tried to circle the highlights and will continue to paint in the darker areas:

I can't wait to cover the canvas. I will try to work fast getting the initial colors down and then spend time fine tuning. I would love to do this in two different fashions: one tight and one loose. We'll see how the first comes along before I start on another.

ETA: The artist's name is Krysta Hinternish who painted the original rocking chairs that I absolutely adore! Thank you Krysta!!!!

My Stupid Class

I have group oil lessons on the first Monday of every month. For some reason, I continue to purchase groups of threes and then get pissed because I have to continue to go.

I love my teacher, and am rather afraid that some fluke will occur and she will find this blog and get her feelings hurt. I hate my group lesson subject matters so have a difficult time getting motivated. She has started painting for the first 45 minutes of each 3 hour class and she wants us to watch her. Well, she has a friggin' television show so if people want to watch her paint, they should tune into her show. So, for the past several lessons, I have patiently watched HER and then only have 2 hours to work on my own piece. Last class, there were 5 of us and three of the students didn't want her to stop painting so she said she would paint for an hour and a half - this leaves me about an hour to work on my own. I was so aggravated. Another lady and I went to our own stations and started sketching while everyone else was watching her. She continued to paint so I started my on my own.

Things I think are important for her to know but would never have the nerve to tell her:

:: her reference photos are too complicated for most students

:: students want to leave feeling talented and proud

:: when many people say they have never gone back to canvases worked in class, something is wrong

:: we are there to learn to paint but that can be accomplished with a simple study

:: the quality of the reference photos always SUCKS

:: if one is not loving the photo, one will not be excited

:: keep it simple for 3 hour class

:: we are not there to watch someone paint

Believe it or not, two of the five students in the last class NEVER, EVER picked up a paint brush. I don't like other students walking around and watching me work and commenting AND my teacher painted her painting the ENTIRE CLASS! I was so pissed.

I work much better on my own and I still adore my private lessons with my teacher. I have one more public class paid for and I hope I remember not to pay for another series when asked.

Here is the subject matter from the last class:

Ugly picture, hate the cut off bottle look and find olive oil tag huge and ugly. WAY too complicated for a 3 hour class and especially so when actual paint to canvas time is a little over an hour.

This is what I did in an hour and a half in class:

I had to sketch FAST and put paint down at record speed. It made me work loose so that was good.

After working on my cherries more, I decided to pick up the class canvas again and thought "abstract and loose and fun" while painting. I had also had a couple of glasses of wine and thought it is coming along brilliantly - surprising me greatly!

Here was my drunken addition:

I was actually working with large brushes and thinking more negative space than usual while painting.My first water drop! I suppose it is oil because it is an olive oil bottle but still....

I want to continue to punch up the color a bit and finish off the center bottle metal pieces - I am rather liking how it is coming along (HUGE SURPRISE!!!!) and I have always shied away from metal, glass, water drops.

This reminds me of another stupid bottle picture from another stupid class.

I hated this so much that I even threw away the reference photo. I did this in about 2.5 hours in class. We said we wanted to paint wine bottles so she gave us this! Why does she always cut off bottles? sigh..........

Next up, my current WIP.

Cherry lesson

I have still been piddling with my cherry painting. I am learning so much. I still want them to be more reflective and I want the bowl to come more alive. I was amazed at how different each side of the bowl was when I isolated my reference photo - I still don't have it quite right and there was one progression picture that showed drastic contrast in the sides of the bowl and in retrospect, that looked better.

I am going to a private lesson soon with all of my works: red apple palette knife exercise, sunflowers and cherries, I have also been working on two other canvases so it is getting a bit much.

My teacher is fantastic with helping me finish off. I am anxious to see what she says about each of my works.

Here is my cherry painting to date, I need to leave it alone and hear what my teacher has to say. It definitely needs cleaner lines but that will come in the very end:

I am still struggling with getting decent pictures of my works, how do all of these artists take such clean, glareless pictures?

Oh well, that will come.

Next up, what I am working on now.

Trouble In Cherridise

My next painting is a bowl of cherries. I love wetcanvas.com for their reference photos. That is where I got the sunflower picture and also this wonderful bowl of cherries:

I wanted to paint this on a large square canvas as I don't particularly care for the right side of the picture. I couldn't find the exact canvas that I desired but it will be suffice.

I am having a difficult time with the bowl and the past couple of days, I have been working it too much. I need to set it aside for awhile lest I start getting muddy colors.

The stems ended up being okay after thinning them out, they looked a bit like trunks at first but at least that allowed me to get the color differences. I am really struggling with the bowl, the colors are SO much darker on the right side than the left and using my color isolater has been helping me sort it out. I also worked a bit with it upside down.

I'm not as worried about the cherries yet, I am letting them dry a bit more before I brighten them up and smooth out the transitions. The table will come along later, it doesn't bother me so much at the moment.

Here is the progression of the painting. I am anxious to see it all together because I feel that I am making the bowl worse with time. Here is the weekly progression, let's see if I am correct:

Okay, now I will publish this progression to see if I am making any improvements with all of adjustments.

Catching Up

I have started painting again and am learning a ton. I still take my once a month oil class and still hate the subject matter that she continues to choose but I always learn something there and so I trudge through.

Our last class was about palette knife painting and it was the first time that I never ever used a paint brush on my canvas. I rather liked it and it was also a lesson in working fast - this is what I did in the 3 hour class:

There are some details I would like to fine tune and then glaze it but it is nice and thick and textured and different than anything I have ever painted.

In other news, I have FINALLY! finished my sunflower painting, well, that is, until I go to my private lesson and see if she thinks it should be tweaked anymore. I glazed this time on my own and absolutely love how alive the flowers became. This was also my first time being pleased with my glass container. I do need to sharpen my lines after it dries more, some fine lines need to be more concise. Here is the progression:

This is where I learned NEVER to use my charcoal pencils to sketch EVER AGAIN! I thought I would never get clean paint on the canvas. It kept picking up the charcoal, no matter how much I tried to erase or rub down. I learned that some people use crimson diluted to go over charcoal to stop it from bleeding out.

This is how far I came on my own and rather liked it but the flowers needed to be more alive. I glazed the center flower first with indian yellow and liquin, I also glazed the table and vase, I later glazed the background with purple and liquin to blend it more. The window behind the flowers ended up being too "showey" so the glazing helped it to blend in better. Glazing in progress:

The glare doesn't do it justice but there is the gist of it. I finished off the glass vase in the final picture, it needed more highlights.

I will post my next painting soon!

I love painting again!