Olives

The "lead in" to this small 6" x 6" painting were too unclear...shot with my now old camera. I now have a new one that I hope will allow me to show more demos that come out clearly. Doing small paintings can be very instructive in learning to be expressive in both color and brushstrokes. I know, this painting needed the martini glass!

Foggy Cows

Also a little different for me. I was drawn to the cows emerging from the early morning fog.

Something Different

Well, something different for me. I was attracted to the abstractness and uniformity of color of this scene. I "finished" (the version with more windows) and decided that with my somewhat wacky perspective, I needed to get back to the more abstract look of it. So, I took out a lot of the windows which I felt gave too much detail and started to transform it into too much of a "scene" and I also softened a lot of the edges. Not sure I have accomplished my goal, but here it is.

Winter Horses Final Painting

As promised, here is the final version of the painting, Winter Horses. I realized when uploading the images on the previous blog, that I liked an earlier version and that when I added the snow beneath the rocks, it took away from the horses...my heros of the painting. I also saw that the painting was "too warm" in color and needed cooling down. I added some white to punch up the horses as well.

In Process

This is a piece I am in the process of painting. You can see the beginning which is just a value sketch and then the subsequent application of paint. It make look finished, but I see that the wall conflicts with the horses and I want the horses to be the main interest. I will rework it and post it when it's finished.

I want to post a series of nudes. I have said before that I love to do nudes because of the possibilities for inventive color and composition. In each of these nudes I have tried to create a pastel painting that is more about the composition and color than just about a figure. I play with negative spaces, try to create areas of emphasis and layer warm and cool colors to create interesting "grays"

Winter Scene

I had started this painting in my studio and was having some difficulty resolving the color balance. I brought it to my class and thought it might be a good lesson in resolving the difficult last parts of a painting in color and brushstrokes. I reduced some of the more intense blue of the pond and added the reeds to leed the eye into the painting. I softened the yellow of the sky as well.