Wednesday, June 25, 2014

Daily #38 Don't Mess Around with a Yellow Car

Yellow Car

I get from time to time a gratitude newsletter from  Goodness Graciuos Me... This week there was a special video abou t HAPPINESS FOR WORRYWARTS  . A very good video and worth the 17 minutes. I have watched it 3 times already.... 

Decided I need a reminder to not mess with yellow cars.... hence this little painting I did in class.  Hope that this will help me not to dwell and explode on issues that I have little control over. 



30 x 25 cm
Oils on Cardboard

Daily #37 Little Bird

Little Bird

A few weeks ago we had a special sketch marathon lesson at our workshop... One of the images I did was of a small bird  which was a 5 minute charcoal sketch on newsprint. Thought it would make a nice painting so at our last class of the season I did this small painting,

Oils on cardboard with a painted background.  25 x 30 cm.  Wanted to keep the spontaneity of the brush strokes and the general gesture of the bird.


Oils on Cardboard 25 x 30 cm

5 Minute sketch 

Workshop Chinese Vase with Lantern Flowers

Chinese Vase with Lantern Flowers

This is another entry in Wetcanvas WDE event for May 9th hosted by Mary aka Missswiss.
I really loved this reference and took it to my weekly workshop class.

Oils on cardboard  47 x 32 cm  Used brushes  palette knife and sandpaper for texture effects.
Took some progress shots.





The final background is much lighter .. I may tweak the table to ground the vase.   The vase seems to be flouting.. Thinking of bringing back some of the darks.

Monday, June 16, 2014

Daily # 37 Yellow Poppies

Poppies with Gnome

Well not really a daily.... did it in the evening and next morning tweaked the statue... it was much to big..
This is from the WDE at wet canvas this weekend.

Used some leftover paints from the color charts for the backgrounds
Size 25 x 30 cm

 background

Statue not right!!! 

 Statue fixed and colors tweaked
First thought was to use crayons as under-painting.. used medium on the surface but then decided to stop... always a difficult decision... Enjoyed working on the oil background... but may tweak!!! 


Thursday, June 12, 2014

Workshop Historic House Dining-room

Historic House Dining-room


Many times I plan to take part in the WDE happenings on wet canvas but it just doesn't work out as   planned. I do however download interesting reference photos for further use. this was the case when Lisilk posted on event for May 2nd.  This is the interior of an historical house Li's description.
 The George Adderley House is a historic house on Marathon Key, Florida. It is best noted for being one of the oldest homes in all of the keys that are located outside Key West. Also known as the Bahamian House, the George Adderley House traces its roots back to the 1890s, when the Adderley family migrated to the United States from the Bahamas. The house was built by the father, George. It is made out of Tabby, which is a concrete-like material that is made of burned conch and other locally collected shell. The house was once a part of an early Bahamian settlement. Today, the George Adderley House is operated as a part of Crane Point as a historic house museum.
 Working again with  oils on pressed cardboard.  I did the whole interior plus a small close up of the table.


Oils on cardboard
37 x 52 cm

Oils on cardboard
30 x 24 cm

My New Table Easel


Invested in a new table easel. On the table some cut cardboard formats, some I have painted backgrounds using some of the paints left over from making my color charts



Wednesday, June 11, 2014

Sketch Marathon June 2014

2014 June Sketch Marathon

Heleni always has surprises up her sleeve to help us out of our creative boxes. Yesterday was no exception.
I usually take group photos of all participants in these challenges but in this time it was impossible because of the time factor.  Heleni collected photographs from various magazines and newspapers which she gave out and we were to do 10 minutes works in any size,format,and materials we wanted. After 10 minutes we passed the photo to our neighbor.  The only stipulation was that the works should be in a finished state.

 After the first round of about 5 sketches we had a break, need coffee and stuff. Then each chose 2 works for a quick general critique. Then we continued on to the next group. The last few were 5 minute sketches. I barely had time to photograph my own work let alone 20 others... These are definitely not works of art but I found this a very good exercise looking at shapes, tones and composition.   Most were photographed with the reference image.

I used mainly charcoal stick with chalk or wax crayons. Paper was regular news print divided into quarter sections 35 x 50 cm.

First Group










Second Group