A Rose is A Rose is A Rose

A nice loose rose for the weekend.  I had a little spare time and I decided to paint a few things.  You can see a painting so close to this that I couldn't crop it out.

I don't know if I like painting flowers or if I think I am good at painting flowers, but.... since I think I do them better than most other things I paint, I just keep bringing them.

Not sure I totally got the top of this, where the petals open up.  But  I'm not sure it really distracts from the overall painting too much.   There is just enough going on to make you a little distracted.

Actually, I bet you look right at the middle of the painting more than anywhere else.  I put in just a bit of yellow to warm up the painting in the very center.  It really does make your eyes kind of hang out there.

Anyone else notice this?

Water Lily

For any of you who don't know, I moderate a Google+ Community.  We all paint the same pictures so we can see the many different styles in which everyone paints.  A few weeks ago, the challenge was water lilies and lily pads.  I didn't like how mine turned out at all.

Last night, as I was painting away on other stuff, I thought I just might take another crack at this water lily.  The results, while not astounding, are much better than my initial attempt, and much more in the "Michael" style.

Just a quick post to let you all know I'm still here.   Thanks for the view and I hope you enjoy the artwork.

Iris

Two quick iris tonight.  The first one on top is a 5 minute study.  Don't give yourself time to overthink what you are doing.  Just get your work on paper.   It makes me try to get to the essence of what I am painting very quickly.  There are some things I really like about this.  The yellow petals stand out quite a lot.  It's easy to see how defined they are, and the red/orange petals morph from the yellow.  I like the transition.  But..... Ugh!  that pencil line.  hmmm, well, it was a quick study,  I guess I shouldn't be too hard on myself.

The second one, i really like with one glaring exception.  The yellow is so muted next to the red and the petals have almost no definition.  Ooops I guess that was two thing.  But I like the composition, and the flow in the second one.  I wanted the two flowers to almost meld into one across the painting and that is exactly what happened.  I drew a few veins in the petals, just enough that your eye will pick them up.  And look, no pencil lines.  I drew the petals with yellow and red watercolor pencils, and the stems and buds very lightly with a green one.  They washed away as soon as water went over them, but left enough for me to know what I was doing.

Wait, did I just say I knew what I was doing?  Ha, what a joke,  What I meant to say what that I did what I intended to do.  Which is distinctly different from knowing what to do.

Well at any rate, hope you all like them, and thanks for the read.  Enjoy

Goldfish

So I attempted a few fish a week or so ago.  I didn't like the way they came out.  Not that they were bad, but they were kind of stylized and not really like real goldfish.  So, I decided to take another crack at these fish.

The ones I painted here are much more realistic, still with a little Michael style thrown in, but a much better goldfish effort.  The three of them together look like they could be swimming around a fish bowl right now.

I won't tell you the problems I ran into while painting them.   They were fun to paint.  I love painting things like this that as long as you have a basic fish shape, your eye will tell you that they are goldfish and you won't even think about it.  Oh, and I apologize for the yellow in the photo.  I obviously had a really warm light on the paper when I took the picture.  If it were a little harsher, more white, it might look a little more like it does in real life.

Well, anyway, enjoy, I did.

Back to the Chicken Shack

Once again, i've ben playing with chickens.  They really are fun to paint.  These ones might get a little grass under their feet soon.

I'm trying to get a little addition by subtraction, and not painting everything on the chicken, but enough detail that one's mind will  fill in all the missing bits.  I think I got (or got close to that) with the body of the chickens, but I lost it a little bit in the tails.  They are just a little too busy.

I also picked a couple of pictures that weren't totally in profile.  Not sure how I did with that, but.... Well, they are done.

Hope you enjoy them.

simple fish

Just a few simple goldfish.  Had a great idea of how to paint the fins.  Wanted to be sure to get some big sweeping lines.  Didn't quite make it, but not a bad first attempt.  Oh, and I needed to make background more dramatic.

Rose Madder

It's been a little while since I made a post and I don't want it to go too long without putting one up.  I've been somewhat tired, and somewhat working on different projects (damn life getting in the way of my painting).  I did manage to get up a little gumption tonight and paint a few flowers for you all.

I'm constantly told that I do a really good job painting my flowers.  I think it is because I really enjoy painting them.  Flowers don't have a right or wrong.  They are roundish and if you give an indication of petals, people believe they are flowers.  It is true that some look more realistic, and some less, but everyone agrees that they look like what I paint.  In this case its a few roses.  Maybe they look like other flowers too, but because you've read that these are roses, they will always look like roses to you.

Well, anyway, enjoy the roses, and thanks for taking a minute to read this blog.