First Avenue Painting Finished!

It's taken me forever, but I'm finally done with this painting - or at least 99% done. I think there are a few minor tweaks that I'll do after taking some time away from it. There was much backtracking, as I wiped down and re-painted passages that I didn't like, but I guess that's a learning experience.

3-10-12 The first image I posted, although I had carefully edited it, looked different once I posted. So I went back and shot another photo of the painting and posted it here.

More of the First Ave. WIP

I never got the time to go back and get another photo of the previous posted image of this painting, but here it is in its current incarnation...

Again, the photo is a little off, but this one is far better. There are some flaws in the painting still, but I'm thinking I won't try to correct much more, although I will finish the areas that are still incomplete.

I am really enjoying painting this...

A Spring Afternoon on First Avenue

I haven't forgotten about my Pike Place Market painting, but I want to take more photos. In the meantime, this is what I'm working on now, a work-in-progress from a photo taken not far from Pike Place Market.

This is an 8x10, and I think I should have used a larger format, as this scale seemed to result in difficulties with necessary details. Live and learn. I also need a mahlstick. But I'm pretty happy with the values and the color scheme so far.

(This particular image seems to have colors that are washed out just a little - I may come back and repost a better image.)

Plant It. Paint It. Eat It.

This is a painting of a delicata squash (a winter squash) that I grew this past season. It's a lot smaller than the ones I've grown in the past because it was a horrible growing season with a lot of rain and gray skies. I seem to be painting a lot of vegetables and other edibles, which I suppose is because I'm a gardener too, and find them very beautiful. It's a 6x8 on canvas paper (actually, I think it's actual canvas in a pad format). As always, I struggled with this (maybe painting is just like that???) and probably should have quit before I did. I'm thinking I may try to mount some of these on board, so I can frame them and hang them in my kitchen. I plan to roast this squash and have it for dinner.

Here's a photo of the actual squash (can you see why I found this pretty tricky?):


















And here's my painting...

Another tiny painting

I got waylaid by the holidays, and only picked up a brush again this weekend. Here's my latest tiny painting...

A new painting in the works...

I'm starting a new painting, and this time I'm going very slow and being very careful to get everything worked out beforehand. My previous method of thinking I could correct drawing errors as I painted just was not working out for me!

I'm working from a photo of Pike Place Market in Seattle that I took quite some time ago.
















First, I cropped the photo for a better composition. I moved the two figures to the left over so they would fit in the new composition and added a simple grid to make it easier to draw.











Then I did a value sketch thumbnail - it's about 3x4 inches. I simplified the scene a bit as well.













And after that, I traced the value sketch so that I would have a line drawing that I could use both for doing a color study, and also for transferring the image to the canvas. When I did the line drawing I discovered a drawing error along the side of the building (at the right) - the windows and brick areas did not line up properly with the front face of the building - so I was able to correct that. Looking at this now, I think I will have to readjust some lines in the sketch that are a little skewed.









Then, I took a scan of the line drawing, blew it up to 8x10, and created a jpg file of it. I then opened the jpg in a graphics program I have on my computer (it was free!) called "ArtRage 2" and started applying color. I'm still working on the color study, as I see a few things that need adjustment.

I added the touch of red to the man's jacket in order to keep the eye moving throughout the painting. I'm also wondering if perhaps I should have reduced the scale of the two figure on the right just slightly. Somehow they look too big to me in relation to the figures to the right. I'll need to correct the color on the green kiosk (just to the left of and beyond the two figures on the right). I'm also wondering if the tall building in the distance (upper right) would be better left out, with only sky showing there instead. It wouldn't be entirely accurate to do so, but don't think a viewer of the painting would be very likely to notice, and since this was a very sunny day, a view of the sky might work better to convey that.

I'm really eager to continue work on this, but the holidays seem to be getting in the way...

Another onion...

I truly am a decidedly UN-prolific artist in the first place, but it's especially difficult to find the time to paint during the holidays. I'm not very happy with this one, but am posting it anyway, with the thought I might work more on it and have a "before and after."