Horsha Painting # 2

This painting was based on Sketch # 2 of Leslie's 30 x 30 challenge this past September. I will be doing a series of paintings from my little gray sketch book.

Oils on Cut Canvas

30 x 22 cm

Palette Knife

I did photograph some of the stages, Looking back the first stage was doing OK until I messed it up making the blotches way too dark. I then opened them up by adding a new layer of varying grays. I don't seem to have saved the reference which wasn't of the Horsha near my home,

Stage 1

Stage 2

Charcoal Sketch

What works in one medium doesn't automatically work in another! 

September 30 x 30 Collage

This month flew by. Time to show off with the collage and tell a little about the experience and what I have gained. First I have gained a whole month of productivity.  This summer has been a difficult time for various medical problems, nothing serious, but still restrictive. This creativity greatly improved my mood and confidence in myself.

I chose to focus the challenge using a small gray-papered sketchbook using charcoal and pastels in monochromatic sketches.  My references were my own photos taken in a small wooded area near my home. I used PS to edit the images into B&W. I also used topaz filters.

Click to Enlarge

One more very important thing that I learned during this challenge was to use my smartphone more efficiently. I use the app "opencamera", which allowed me to take the photo, crop, resize, rename and paste it into a blog post. This took about 5 minutes. In the computer, I added text,tags etc. My photos are automatically backed up in google photos so I could then download them to my computer. Now how COOL is that!!!

September 30 x 30 Day 30

Final day of the challenge. This month has really flown by. I really enjoyed my exploration of using charcoal and pastels in a fairly dark gray sketch book. This is another sketch of the wall with all its light patterns and foliage behind. Foliage and shadows mixing in together. At first it eluded me and luckily with a rag wiped down to an almost clean slate, but in the end I am fairly happy with the result. 

Click to enlarge

Charcoal and pastels

6 x 8"

Gray-paper