Weekend Sketching

I love reading books.  I've probably read 30 or so already this year, and the latest was a watercolor book.  In it, like in all books of this sort, the artist tells you how to paint a myriad of different things and different techniques in which to accomplish this.

So, I decided to take this particular artist and author up on his challenge and started painting a few of the paintings from the book.  To the left is the second version of this painting.  It's not quite like his, but its not bad for a quick weekend sketch.

The second painting is my first attempt at the same scene.  Not bad, but not nearly in the league as the top one.

This last one is just one more that I took from him.  Again, not bad for a quick sketch.

I should say that these are all on my sketch paper, which is very similar to mixed media paper in texture.  That is, its smooth and almost a little waxy.  I got it so that I could easily take it with me and paint on location.  The air here is super dry and when I venture outside to paint, I find that I often have trouble keeping moisture on the paper.  Thus this paper.

Anyway, enjoy.

I've Got Crabs

Ok, I have only one crab.  I attempted this for a challenge to paint sea life.  I had a few pictures I could have chosen from, and this guy seemed like he'd be fun to paint.

He came out a bit darker than I thought.  I was trying to leave some highlights, but somehow they got covered or were never there.  I am happy with the reflection.

Well, its been a long day, and I'm tired.  My head is spinning and I'm not sure what else to type right now.  Hope you enjoy it.

State Park Marina

SOLD

If you ever stop by Morro Bay, California and by the State Park Marina, you will see a sight like this. The marina has about 8 slips to lease out.  Standing on the north shore, facing south, you could see a similar  view repeated on each of the 5 docks.   I've had the idea to paint this for quite a while now.  The kids and I go to the state park every so often.  On the south side the park system has installed a wooden boardwalk  that circles the peninsula.  Its a great walk if you have an hour or so.

Those of you who have been following my painting since the beginning will recognize that many of the first paintings I did were boats, and I always knew I would make my way back to them.

I've been getting to "tight" with my painting recently, and I purposely painted this one more quickly that ones I have done recently.  Sans drawing, this painting took me about 40 minutes start to finish.  Not bad, that still gave me time to eat my lunch at a leisurely pace.  I like this one, and hope you do too.

The Eyes Have It

So I learned that eyes aren't just almond shapes.  I also learned that iris' aren't solid colors, the whites of your eyes aren't white, and your lid folds into a slot called and eye fold.  All these together make an eye kind of a tricky thing to paint.

Noses on the other hand have two dark ovals (the actual nostrils, and a rounded point.  The outside of the nostrils get shading to give them definition, even if when you look at someone you don't necessarily see it.

I tried to take what I have learned in the past two weeks and paint a better pair of eyes and a nose.  I think I am making definite progress.

Why the big push for learning eyes?  Well, since I've been trying to paint faces, I've learned that if the eyes look good, the painting looks good.  If the eyes look bad, the painting looks bad.  So, if I learn to paint eyes, regardless of what I do with the rest of the painting, the painting will look good.  (at least thats the theory)

Oh, the base for these eyes are green because I was painting a different picture and already had green on my palette and didn't feel the need to mix new.  Enjoy.

Not This One, The Otter One

SOLD

This is a little change from the norm for me.  When I started painting, just about all I did was wildlife in and around my town of Morro Bay.  Then at some point, I got away from it and started painting all sorts of other things, recently its been cars and trucks.  Well, this one brings me right back home.

I found this picture on line.  An otter all wrapped up in kelp.  For those of you who have never seen them do it, the love to.  I don't know what benefit they get from it, but they love to wrap themselves up in it.

Here is the picture I started with.  Just a basic outline of the otter in the water.  (apologies for the darkness of the photo, the flash on my iphone was on, but must not be quite bright enough. )

The next step was to add fur and kelp.  I kept the kelp really yellow at this point.  I wanted it to really stand out when you saw it on the finished painting.  To do that I make it really bright to start with, and then add more colors over top.  Blues, reds and browns will make the final colors of the kelp.

The real challenge is to paint the fur without making it all run together   I chose to make the feet a little darker, and the face a little lighter.  Hopefully it all worked out.

As you can see the finished product has water around the otter and just a bit of reflection.  

I hope you all enjoy this painting.  I really had fun painting it.

A Return To Nature

This painting currently for sale.

Today, I present to you two pictures.  The bluebird was a lot of fun to paint.  I am still trying hard to get the layering on this right.  Did a the whole sheet with wet paint, then set it off to dry.  A second layer added color depth to the paining.  The third is only details.  The details on this painting are all the feathers, the eye and feet.  I'm really happy with the way this one turned out.  I especially like his head. The tail maybe will get a bit better in the next go round.

Painting measures 7 x 9











These frogs were fun. When I saw the picture of them, I wasn't sure if I would be able to do them justice. They were I think right eye of the right frog is a little wonky, but the painting was fun to do, and they look funny.  I really even kind of like the reflection on the water.    Painting measures 4 x 9

This painting currently for sale

Catching up with some things

I haven't done much painting lately because work has been so busy.  I am desperately trying to  reclaim my lunch hour and painting.  I thought I would step back and do something simple to start back up, so I did the orange door.  It, of course, didn't turn out like I wanted.  But I still like it, there are some good elements there.  Then I did the little boat, and again, good and bad.  I've been wanting to do some different kinds of paintings for some time, and my friend Carrie was nice enough to volunteer for this painting.  Let me know what you think of these.

Alaska

Well, I thought I had a great handle on this one. I was painting great, or thought so, until I got to the grass and plants in around the lake. At that point i think i got a little to literal for this painting. I had what I though was a really nice painting going. Some really nice mountains, some nice pine forrest in front of them then the train, and, blammo. I don't know what happened. I just got way to literal. Well, I still like this one. I't trying to push mysel to paint more loosely and just have to keep at it. Hope you all enjoy it.