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!