Smoke 'em If You Got 'em

I am beginning a series of paintings of everyday things.  I think it an interesting challenge to elevate the things you see around on a daily basis to works of art. This is my first attempt.

While this picture was on my easel, I thought it was done.  Looking at it after it has been scanned, I think I am going to revisit it a bit, so you may see this one reposted at some time in the future.

 I walk through a courtyard, between the two buildings I work in, everyday.  With this being California, there aren't too many places to smoke anymore, but the students have found a spot, and squirreled away an ashtray next to a bench in a little nook.  Usually the whole tray is filled up with butts, but this day it had, as you can see a cup and some packs in it too.  I don't know what drew me to it, but I couldn't help but take a picture of it and paint it.

I really think it turned out great.  I'm looking forward to painting more in this series.  Hope you all enjoy it.

Santorini Doorway

So, I had this picture painted.  I was ready to call it good, but it was totally blah.  It didn't look bad, but it didn't look good either.  I had some shading on it, and the flowers were there, but it was just so so.  So..... I pulled a trick that I did on the last painting.  I pulled out the colored pencils.

Using them, it was easy to brighten up the flowers, and to bring out more distinction between the gate and the shutter doors.  I like the painting.  I think it turned out really nice.  Hope you all enjoy it.

Ellie

Here is my final painting of Ellie.  I tried something new with this painting.  I'm always having trouble with fine lines around eyes.  Seems like I either don't get the color I want on my brush or I don't get the intensity right, or more usually, I don't get the thickness of the lines right.  Well, in this painting I tried using colored pencil to do the detail work.  You know what?  It works.  I've watches lots and lots of videos of people doing it, and kind of thought to myself, I should try it.  But like using masking or white paint for highlights, I have so far resisted.

Well, I thought with some of the hairs on Ellies snout and geting the lines of her eyes right, that I would give it a shot.  As it turns out, it works great.  Why not use watercolor pencils you ask?  Well the answer is simple.  Watercolor pencil color runs a bit when it gets wet.  Regular colored pencils don't.  You can see in some of her whiskers that straight lines are easy.   If I had tried to put on the white whiskers with white gouache, I would have had a horrible time with it. How runny do I make it?  Do I even try to thin it at all?  How long a stroke can I make with it.  With the pencils, one stroke and done.  Brilliant.  I am definitely gonna use colored pencils in the future.

Well, I hope you all enjoy this painting.  I really liked doing this one and the sketches of her previously.

Angel Looking to the Heavens

SOLD!!

I had a challenge to paint a statue this month.  I looked at what seemed like several hundred pictures of statues and this one kind of stood out to me.  The original picture was really a lot larger and the figure has wings that extend off the right.  I wanted the face to be kind of what your focus was drawn to so I shifted the picture a bit (meaning I had to lose the wings).  I don't really think it matters. I like that you can really see that this person is hanging on a cross, and you can just imaging the robes hanging down from his/her arm.

Finding the reference photo was a bit of work, but once I found it, I immediately knew how I was gonna paint it.  I had a great time painting it and hope you had a great time viewing it.

Senorita

This painting for sale.  Watercolor 9x12.  $30

Ok, even after a little hiatus, I think I might still be stuck on portraits.  I saw this picture and knew I had to try to paint it.  I think it turned out pretty good, considering.  Considering, I'm still trying to figure out hair, and eyes give me fits.  Oh, and mouths, an noses aren't easy.  Heck, lets just throw the whole head in there as not being easy.  Then, I suppose we could talk a bout clothes, and flowers.... but wait a second.  Im Looking at this painting along side some others that I have done, and I think I am miles ahead of where I was even a few months ago.

I'm proud of this painting, and it is gonna hang in my office for a while.  I've taken down all my previous paintings, and made room for everything I am going to paint over the summer.  This is a great start to the wall.  I'll probably do some more portraits, at least until I feel I've mastered eyes, and lips and hair.  I'm working on more pictures of Ellie, and I want to start a series of everyday things.  Be sure to watch out for them

Hope you enjoy the painting.  I enjoyed painting it.  Thank you.

Practice Painting Ellie

Just a couple of pictures of Ellie.  I tried this first one with just watercolor pencils.  I don't use them much and as a result, I get stuff that looks like this.

This on is a quick sketch.  Only had a few minutes at lunch today to do any painting.  I think its better than the first, but still have a long way to go.