More of England

After I quit painting my wild and crazy version of Cambridge, I decided to go wild with brushwork but stay truer to color with a painting of Windsor Castle. The goal was to show a soft view of the castle but not too fairy-tale. It is 8x12, and I ran out of time in class, so this is what one hour produced:

I under painted each block of color in its complementary color. So the castle was a yellow, the front tree was purple, and the green tree was red. My overall color scheme would be considered purple/yellow although it almost goes purple, green, orange.

Sometimes It Just Doesn't Work

I was working on the painting of the canal that I posted earlier, but despite help from my teacher, it is one of my fails.

There are a lot of things that worked for it: the composition led the eye pleasantly, the colors provided  movement and contrast, and there were a lot of areas of complementary color. I also think the brushwork to the right of the paining was pretty good. But there was a lot that just didn't work for me. I could have kept working it, but I gave myself permission to give up. Maybe one day I will go back and start over with looser brushwork.

I have to admit it was fun to colorize Cambridge, UK! There was not a day of good sunshine when I visited, so if I want color, I have to invent it.

Impressionist...Maybe

In my last post, I talked about how I tend to consider my art impressionist or realistic abstract. But I'm not following any rules of a style (there is enough struggle with rules of composition, value, color, etc.). So I'd probably name the two seascapes below as realistic abstract and the following as impressionist (because I tend to get the "Oh, it looks much better from a distance" comment on these). 

 How do you classify these or your own art styles?

Impressionism...Color

When asked what kind of art I like, I usually say impressionist, or as time goes on realistic abstract. Both to me mean that the art will be something recognizable, but not realistic. Painting, to me, is an opportunity to edit the colors to create the feeling of the place because I often find that photographs are much duller than the feelings of happiness or beauty that I feel at the time.

That works sometimes, but sometimes that it difficult to do. I sometimes have trouble seeing the possibilities, so I decided to use Photoshop to colorize the photo I'm working from and SEE the underlying colors.

This photo was taken in Cambridge, UK, so you know that the colors were nothing like this! But I've found it helps me see the undertones. It also helps me see the color of the light.

Painting as Meditation

I'm getting ready to move, and my house has been full of craziness. To rest my brain from this stress, I've been burying myself in painting.

I'm still painting some bluebonnets. So let me clear the air about a myth...There is a myth that it is illegal to pick bluebonnets, but it is just a myth. Don't believe me, see here. DPS says it is legal, as long as you don't pick so many that it is defacing public property and that you don't trespass onto private property. So, I consider my 4 bluebonnets okay. (P.S. They last a long time. 1 week later, and they are still happy in the pot. They just slowly leach the blue out. Now they are a pale sky blue.)

They look quite dark for bluebonnets, but I painted these from real life, and when I squint down, these are the colors I see. (The picture washes out the lighter portions too much for good balance.)

Also, I worked on a large size ocean abstract that is very calming for me to paint. And I started some more ballerinas. (These are unfinished, but you get the idea.)

This last one is the one I am most proud of how it came out. Painted it from a picture on the Internet, but modified it a bit. (I prefer not facing people, so I keep a look out for backs of people.)

Light in the Dark--Value

This week, I worked on a portrait of my son. I took the reference photo with my iPhone, but it took it when it was dark with just the table lamp shining on his face. It obscured most of his face and left fun shadows to play with.

I've really got to do my research on taking better photos of art! But anyway, this piece is a good example of value changes and contrast creating excitement.

Part of me really wanted to define more facial features on the left, but it was so dark that they weren't really apparent. I think it gives it some appearance of mystery.

Now, a problem I did run across is that I worked with a lot of glazes. I also didn't use white in the darker areas of the painting. This meant that most of the colors were very transparent, leaving the work streaker than I wanted. To correct this, I spent some time an arms length away using a long brush to add touches of thick, opaque color. I even had to borrow some better art supplies from my teacher because my student-grade (I'm only buying professional grade as I run out) burnt sienna and burnt umber were too transparent.

It's Not What You See

"What screws us up the most is the picture in our mind of what its supposed to be."

Good advice for life and art.

That was the theme of my art this week. I was attempting to paint the bridge in Little Rock that is historical, sitting in front of the modern Clinton library. The only problem is that we visited during spring break, and although the daffodils were blooming around Arkansas, the plants near the bridge weren't. Add that to a cold, gray day, and I didn't have much to go on.

It provided me an excellent opportunity to experiment with kicking all the colors up a notch. I was going for full-on colorist approach. Nothing was going to be realistic.

Okay, so it looks better in person. The photo also cuts off the bottom which repeats the orange. And I put that wonderful quote there too!

Cobalt Turquoise, Magenta, and Orange do wonders for making this bridge exciting. My class enjoyed seeing me break out of the normal. I'll probably try again down the road with some more muted tones. We'll see!