Keeping it Reel

Yes, I know I said I was done with the whole fishing theme.  But I actually did this a couple of months ago, and had never gotten around to posting it.  As you can see, we have another reel.  This doesn't necessarily look all that old save the bakelite crank handle .

I had a bit of a had time trying to get several different colors and shades of grey or chrome.  I didn't want any one piece of chrome to look too much like any adjacent chrome.  Then I had to put a few shadows on.  I guess the jury is still out on how I did.  

I think the thing I still need to do on this is to paint or draw on some line and this one is done.  Hope you enjoy it.

Oh, My Blueberries

Well, I still don't have the color right with this scanner, but you get the idea of this picture.  Its a whole bunch of blueberries on a yellowish surface.

Firstly I will tell you that I am disappointed that the scan makes it look like i did this in purple, with purple and more purple.  I actually have a blend of 4 different blues, 3 different greens and two yellows to paint this picture.  Anyone who knows me, knows that I love blueberries.  I could eat them morning noon and night.  Mmmmmmmm sooo good.

Let't talk about the good things with this painting.  The berries really do look round,  You can just picture them laying on a yellow countertop.  I like the mixing of the colors, the reds, blues, yellows, and greens that make up the berries.  I like the blueberry crowns.  They look like they stand out just a bit from the round berry.  And I like that the countertop is much more pronounced in the front and much less in the distance.  I've said it before, but thats  a trick to get you to see some depth.  The darker the color in the front makes you think that its closer, especially when the top of the painting is very light.

I had painted the blueberries with all blue and red.  In my technique, I put on layer upon layer of paint.  It is great for giving depth to what you are painting, but you have to have durable paper.  Well, this paper isn't.  So I ended up with terrible white marks where I had scrubbed and rubbed.  Instead of having all the the highlights bright white, like the paper.  I threw a little yellow and green in there.  Just enough to give the hint of a bit of under color.  If you look closely, you can see where there is yellow on the berries, and which ones don't have any.

Well, at any rate, I loved painting this one.  Hope you enjoyed viewing it.

Taking Flight

We have had a bit of turnover at work.  We got a new ASC and she is into airplanes.  I thought it would be a good exercise to paint one.  This is a quick sketch of a plane that she likes.  Its called the Boomerang, and apparently is a prototype made by Burt Rutan.  I know its just all blue around the plane.  It's kind of like giving up on the background.  And I know that given the angle, you should be seeing ground under the plane instead of all sky.

Well, it's just a quick painting I did.  I didn't plan on spending a whole lot of time paint this, and therefore just wanted to block in some background.

Let me say one other thing.  I got some new software for my scanner.  Since I started using it, the pictures I have put up here have been terrible.  I don't know if it is all the scanners fault, or if it is something else, but when I post to blogger the color of the pictures goes all wonky.  If I look at them locally on my machine, they look great.  I'm going to get to the bottom of it, so please be patient while I work it out.  Thank you.

Pears on Table

Ok, so I put my shadowing the pears.  I think it came out pretty good.  As I was learning to put shadows on, I kept hearing how shadows are blue.  I would see people put pure blue on their paintings as shadow.  While from time to time it seemed to look ok, I never thought that was a good thing to do.  I did, however, follow suit with that.  As a result, I believe I have ruined some paintings that I thought were pretty good.

To me the shadow is not a color (like blue) on top of another color.  What it is is the lack of some light on an object.  Since there is less light, the color of the object should be darker.  The shadow should be the same, or nearly the same color as the object it is on.  In this painting the shadow on the pear in the back is green, and a little brown.  Those are exactly the same shades that are in the pear itself.  On the table the shadow color changes to a darker grey, similar to that of the table.  Notice that I am not saying the same.  Since I have really mixed the colors in the grey of the table, and the greens and browns of the pears, it is impossible to make the same color.

Maybe I have begun to crack the whole shadow thing, and maybe I don't have to be as afraid of painting them anymore.  Anyway, I hope you all enjoy the pears.

A Nice Pair

Ooops, did I spell that wrong.    Well, it will probably pull in a ton of visitors to Dabfly Arts.  So I have a challenge this month of painting fruit in a group of three.  So far, I drew three that I liked, and painted them the way I liked, and am generally happy with them.  The problem is that now I am going to have to do the thing that I hate the most.  I hate it because it seems I take a relatively good painting and make it a horrifically terrible painting by doing this.

Can you guess what it is?  I need to add shadows.  you can definitely see that one pear is behind the other two, but there are no shadows on any of the pears and none on the table.  What to do.  I really like the green and yellow and brown that I have going in this picture and really don't wanna ruin it, but in order to make the picture complete, I'm gonna have to.

The question I have (for myself) is how long do I stare at this picture before I go ahead and attempt the shadowing.  I will probably get to tomorrow and have the finished product ready for you for the weekend.    Be sure to check back soon to see how it turned out.

A Little Attitude?

I'm not quite done with this one, but  before I screw it up, I need to take a break fom it.  I like the way most of this has turned out. Of course the thing that needs the most help is the hair.  One day I'll be able to paint hair.   I don't really know when that will be, but based upon the look of the hair in this picture, it's gonna be quite a while.

Anyway, until it's done and you see it again, enjoy.

Pelican, Not Pelican't

Today I decided to use my watercolor pencils and crayons.  It's been a LONG time since I have tried them so I didn't really know what would happen.  In fact, I was so confident in my failure, like last weeks pelican, i just used old scrap paper.  And this is what I cam up with.

Here in Morro Bay we have two landmarks.  One is of course Morro Rock.  The other are the smoke stacks on the power plant.  Many people think they are an eyesore, but must admit that they, along with the rock are the first things people think about when they think of Morro Bay landmarks.  I've done a few paintings with the stacks in them.  Personally, I think that they are so integral to Morro Bay's history that they should always stand.

I'm also trying to get back to painting birds.  I thought I could get a little practice with both.  I found I was really shocked to see the colors jump off the page after I go the pencil lines wet.  Its like the painting was revealing itself to me for the first time, going from something dull and flat, to something vibrant.  Ok, the sky in this picture is a bit terrible.   I didn't remember that I would get such bad texture marks from the crayons.  But I really like the way the front wing on the bird worked out. And I really like the way the bird and the roof joist are clearly in front of the rest of the roof and the stacks.  I don't think the angle is quite right, but thats a different issue.

At any rate, this was a hoot to do and really quick.  I think I'll end up doing more of these quick pencil/crayon painting/drawings.