African Faces

These are large, at least for me, 60 x 80 cm canvases that were painted in 1912.. my first beginnings using the palette knife... to loosen up and get out the graphic mode...

The inspiration came from the book,Natural Fashion: Tribal Decoration from Africa by  Hans Silvester, that my artist friend Lillie brought to class.

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There are lots of photography bloggers that have posted about Silvester's work and I even found another artist that did paintings using his book.  Here is one blog North Goes South  that I particularly liked.

White Jerusalem - Almond Blossoms

A beautiful walk in the hills surrounding Ora and Aminadav 

A bit of Photography

Wednesday... the day  I go to Jerusalem to visit and help my daughter and 2 small boys, Noam 7 and Uri 3.... After we picked them up from school and kindergarten we took a little outing in valley at the base of their Moshav, Aminadav..  Since Tu'Bishvat, Jerusalem hills are covered with a new white... the almond trees are in full blossom. 

Its been a while since I really did a photo shoot of more than a few images... but I was overwhelmed at the beauty of these forgotten trees..the weather was perfect... bright skies...can't wait till I download the images from the camera.. hoping that my computer will work....

Will be posting more on my flickr photostream.

Crayon Sketches- Eggplants Little Girl Cat

Still having "puter" problems...yesterday worked on my daughters Asus lap/book a real miniature,17 x 26 cm, but really helped me be connected... download some images from the latest wde  .... was hard to use the images as reference on the small screen... so downloaded them on a disk on key and put them in my dvd and voila on my TV... so while my husband fiddled with the computer did some sketching....  since I knew I wouldn't have Photoshop to edit I took pictures under my spot lamp in web resolution, and even found a way to edit on the little laptop..and save to post on the site..... but I had taken a a regular photo that was in MY computer... that I had not edited cause my computer kept crashing...  so this morning... cross fingers edited and posted here.  Will have to take photos of the two other sketches as soon as there is enough light out there.....

This is a small still life of two eggplants... a favorite food here.... even though Tom , my brother-in-law has a different opinion!!!! Done in less than an hour using  Caran d ache neocolor I oil and wax crayons. My set is really on its last legs and not many art supply stores carry them.. my main purpose was to have a color sketch for a possible oil painting. Loved the contrasts and the different shapes...Size is 20 x 20 cm and was done in less than an hour.....

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These are the ones I took at night.... low resolution... wow what a difference...

Was quite pleased with the little girl... got a reasonable likeness... on scale from 1 -10 [10 the best] got about an 8+.... 

here is the last crayon sketch of a cat on a wall... Crayon Caran d'ache Neocolor I

22 x 27 cm on plain brown paper....

By the Sea

First I am having real bad computer problems... haven't been able to use the computer for more than 30 minutes... may have to do a complete reformat of my C drive and build up the computer from scratch... not something that I look forward to....but what the heck... there are worse things....

This is the first of maybe a series of seascapes... these are my two small grandsons player at the sea in Crete this past August.  Oils and palette knife with a little brush work on the figures.

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 May do some tweaking on the figures... had problem when I had to re-work the background... this took several sittings... when will I be able to paint on one sitting????

Trees

In the later part of November Heleni , our workshop instructor, mentor, and friend suggested that we try painting outdoors.  The weather has cooled down and the cold of winter had yet set in.  So a few of us lugged our easels and tables outside to the roofed area at the entrance to our community center. This also corresponded to renovations that were started in the auditorium which forced us out of the main room to a much smaller room or outside...luckily the weather during December was mild and only once did we have to rush inside because of a sudden rain!!!! It was during this time that I did these tree studies...the closest thing for me for plein-air painting. All were done in oils on cloth covered cutting board, or kappa board or massonite. All were done using the palette knife!

Two studies of the HUGE Eucalyptus tree near the parking lot and library. 30 x 40 cm

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One study of the Chinese Flame tree that lines many of our the streets. 34 x 48 cm

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Two of some Palm Date trees and Washingtonia. One 34 x 48 cm and one 30 x 40 cm

Date Tree

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Washingtonia

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Uri the Footballer

High Kick

Here is a little oil sketch of my grandson Uri. Done on a gesso-ed  corrugated cardboard. I find using odd pieces of cardboard, matte boards and other recycled stuff lets me be less constricted.   This was done from a photo taken a year ago when he was three and half.  Link to picassa album.

Portrait of Asha

A new beginning... I will be blogging in only one blog.... and hopefully keep it more active.... I have also changed the title from  My 120 Painting   A Journey to just  My Journey...It will contain what ever I am doing whether its a WDE  work... daily painting... photography...  sketches.. WIP [works in progress] .... workshop paintings....  no more numbering.... I was finding it too difficult to keep track..

This January I decided to try again to do a portrait of my sister Asha [Susan] who passed away 4 years ago at 61.  I had started a portrait 4 years ago, which was not successful and was scraped off. I had tried since but never really got the likeness and the personality.... I am pretty happy with the results... I will take a better photo but in the meantime here it is..