Tag Archives: oil painting

Painting #11 Yellow Lilies

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For my next painting I decided to channel friend Helen Gallagher with some BIG flowers, painted from life from a bouquet a friend sent me for Mother’s Day.  Haven’t ever done any large scale, straight-on flowers.  I don’t think I captured the color of the shadows very well.  I’m also not crazy about the composition, but it was a good experiment.  I used the palette knife a fair amount, but not for everything. . . .

I painted from life rather than the photo below — which I snapped to record what I was generally looking at while painting.

Yellow Lilies. Oil on Primed Arches Oil Paper. 8×10.

Reference Photo

Painting #9 – Flag Irises from the Garden

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One of my grandsons and I harvested some flag irises from the garden on Sunday to decorate our Mother’s Day table.  I decided to paint those from life for my Monday painting.  I didn’t like the outcome – especially the background, which was pretty awful, so I tweaked it later in the day — and then tweaked it again today!!  I’m including the first and second ‘drafts’, which illustrate my changes in scale as I reworked the thing.

#9 Flag Irises. Oil on Primed Arches Oil Paper. 8″x10″.

#9 Irises from the Garden. Oil on Primed Arches Oil Paper. 8×10

Initial Composition

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Painting #8 — Under the Sky and Water (More Koi)!

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This is what I did yesterday — Mother’s Day.  I’m very proud that I managed to do this AND have a celebratory brunch with Pat, Will, Mariam and grand babes Will and Maya.  AND have a crab imperial supper courtesy of Pat.  AND a nap!  Woohoo!  Hope you can tell that that light blue is pond water reflecting the pale blue sky, accented with the dark shadows of nearby leaves, which allowed us to glimpse the true colors under the murk. . . .  Hmmm, looking at it again this morning, I probably should have darkened hat blue a bit more.  Oh well.

Koi #3. Oil on Primed Arches Oil Paper. 8″x10″

Reference for Koi #3.

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Painting #7 – More Koi. A Better Green on the Palette

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I’m behind on posting (but not painting!) — here’s the one I did on Saturday.  Another koi — I think of this one as ‘the beauties and the beast!, because that fish looks like a torpedo or something lethal.

As for mixing the greens, I decided to slightly increase the odds of good leaf color by adding chromium oxide green to my palette for this one.

#7 – Koi #2 Oil on Primed Arches Oil Paper. 10″x8″

Koi with Water Lilies

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Painting #6 – Get Me Outta Shepherdstown (For Now)! Sick of Mixing Greens! Give Me Koi!!

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My plan to overdose on Shepherdstown scenes must pause.  I’m tired of the greens there — and the extreme difficulty of mixing them from my limited palette.  I need to do some off-painting experimentation to see if I can develop some better mixes.

In the meantime, here are some koi, which I’ve been wanting to try for years. I like it, though the composition is too lopsided to the left, isn’t it?  I didn’t want to include the reference’s departing duck sailing at lower right.  Should I add a baby koi down there?  Or would that be too ‘coy’?  Should I preserve the area as the tranquil spot where the eyes can rest??  And dang – more green issues!  A problem for the future.

#6 Koi Without Duck. Oil on Paper. 10″x8″.

Koi with Duck.

Painting #4 – Potomac River at Shepherdstown

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Here’s yesterday’s painting, along with its reference.  I feel like I’m on a marathon and am ALREADY huffing and puffing!!

Potomac River at Shepherdstown WV – #4. Oil on Paper. 8″x10″.

Potomac River at Shepherdstown WV .

 

Painting #3 – Resting at Shepherdstown

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Here’s my third of the 100 painting project — still on the Shepherdstown WV subject matter.  This one was simple compared to those other two!

The painting & the reference.

Shepherdstown boaters, resting. Oil on Paper. 8″x10″. 2018.

Photo of Shepherdstown boaters.

One study down and ninety-nine to go!

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At our recent workshop, Marc Hanson suggested we do a quick painting a day for 100 days and we would see a big improvement in our skills.  Number small panels 1 to 100 and put each away as it’s finished,  When you’re done with all of them, line ’em up in order and you’ll be surprised at what you’ve learned and how much better you’ve become.  And start the next 100.

I’ve started the process.  ‘Quasi-daily’ painting also ought to produce good change, right??

Here’s #1 — based on a reference photo I took on a hot summer day by the Potomac River bridge (new +  old fragments) at Shepherdstown, WV.  In the noonday sun, folks were swimming and kayaking on the still water and walking their dogs in the rocky shallows.  My hubby and I were enjoying the cool shadowed woods along the bank.  Heaven.  The painting is too busy — should have simplified more, but it does ‘bring me back’!

Study #1, Potomac at Shepherdstown. Oil on Paper. 8×10. 2018.

The reference.

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Painting Without Pressure

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Over the last few weeks I’ve been working on portraits of my three grandchildren — a task much less ‘fraught’ than the commissioned portrait I showed you last time.  Here’s the one that’s farthest along, after about eight hours of work.  I see lots of ‘issues’ still to be resolved, but it’s in a much better place than the other one ever reached.  Can’t wait to see how it turns out!

Four Months. Oil on Linen. 9 x 12. 2018.

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Performance Anxiety in a Portrait Painter!

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I spent a helluva lot of hours on this grandmother/grandson portrait.  It took me over a year and a half(!!) — though most of that time was spent dreading painting, rather than putting brush to linen.  It was commissioned by a friend and based on her photos from years earlier, rather than observation — never a great thing.

Grandmother and grandson, with hydrangeas. Oil on linen.

My next post will show a portrait that I did in a weekend  ~~ things work (and look) much better without anxiety!