Boob, Boobs, Boobies

Ok, the title is a little misleading.  I kinda did that on purpose.  Every time I put a title like that I get a massive amount of hits to that posting.  I am sure the same will happen to this one.

But what I actually have is a Blue Footed Boobie.  Fantasticly weird bird.   He was fun to paint, and fun to research, I'm gonna keep going with painting odd, different things that most people wouldn't paint.  This one is a start.   Anyway, he's fun and funny.

I struggled with two things on this painting, and if I had to do it again I would change a few things.  First, I would put some green in the lower half of the sky.  Make it look like very far away hills.  His right foot just gets lost.  I don't really like that at all.  Secondly, I would barely tap in the shadow that is under him.  I got a bit carried away with it in this painting.

I might just have to paint this guy again just to make those changes, or maybe I should do a whole series of paintings of boobies.    I'll think about it.  At any rate,  there is a video that goes along with this one.  You can check it out below.  Thanks of the quick read, and the view.

Poppies

This is a fun painting I did for the coming of spring.  It's Poppies!!   The state flower of California.  I've got these growing wild everywhere around my house.  They add a beautiful splash of color.  

Many poppies have a dark center.  This variety instead has a bright vibrant yellow center.  I thought they would make the perfect subject to paint.

Oh and as for the background.... Well, I wanted to play a little and let these have some fun.  So a half wash and some splatter were just what the doctor ordered.

I painted this picture with a very limited color palette, and was delighted to see that even with that you can paint a beautiful paintings.  I really hope you enjoy it.

Oh, and if you are curios about a video of this painting, I've got just the thing for you.  I did make one and posted not long ago.  (yes, I've been delinquent about posting to this blog).  Anyway, you can find the video below.

Mocking Bird

A friend of mine recently moved to Texas.  I asked her what the state bird was, and she tole me it was a mocking bird (never looked it up to verify, but I believe her).  I felt a wave of bird painting coming on and thought it might be fun to paint.  Here is what I came up with.

Its a classic bird shape.  Maybe the tail is a little longer than some, but for the most part it follows suit for songbirds in North America.

I looked through a number of pictures of mocking birds before settling on drawing this one.  Most of the mocking birds are a light grey to a brown in color.  A few, however, had a slight blue tint to them.  I don't know if they were juveniles, or if at a certain time of year the feathers look a bit different or what.   No matter, I chose to paint mine with a blue-ish tint.   I made the eye extra dark.  I want the viewer to notice it right away, and looking back at the painting, I think I made the right choice.

Like so many of my painting recently, it is accompanied by a video.  So if you want to see how I painted it, check out the video below.  Thanks for the quick read.  Drop me a line and let me know if you like it or not, or if you'd like to see me paint something specifis.

Oriole

I must be on some kind of bird painting kick.  Here, I've painted an Oriole.  He is sitting on what appears to be a broken branch.

This bird was really fun to paint.  The vibrant orange color is made from a couple of different reds, and a couple of different yellows.  I did use a pre-mixed grey (payne's grey) but I augmented it myself.  I don't usually use the grey right out of the tube.  It's mot a bad color, just a little bit flat.

I've given the bird just a few indications of feathers.  Just enough to enhance the shape of the bird.

He sits on a  stick that has obviously seen better days.  Its got some pitting and dents in it.

The background was originally going to be a bit more mottled, but I think I forgot to mix another color into it.  As it is, the colors are phthalo blue and ultramarine blue.  The green parts are windsor green and viridian.  The blue behind the orange really makes this bird pop off the page.

Well, I hope you enjoyed the painting and the quick read.  If you want to see how I painted it, check out the following video.

Thank you.

Betta Fish

   

So, I went fishing and didn't catch anything.  As a consolation, I painted this fish.  Ok, thats not actually how the story goes.  I did go fishing.  I didn't catch anything.  I did have fun fishing with my children.  That fishing trip had nothing to do with this painting.

I've been meaning to paint a betta for quite some time.  My friends over at Doodlewash painted one about the time I was getting started.  I didn't want to post mine close to the time that that one was painted.   So I waited.  Finally, I was kicking around the studio the other day when I came across the reference photo for this.  Finally, I had to paint it.  I will admit that the background needs a bit of work.  I wanted a really mottled background that had a lot of interest.  What I ended up with it s a background that is rather plain.    I will admit that I am a bit disappointed with it.  But no mind.  It is what it is.  I enjoyed the experience painting it.  You can too by viewing the video below.

Thanks for the view.  Hope you enjoy.

If you want to see the video in less than half the time, there is a speed painting of it too.

Hot Blueberry Muffins

Mmmmm, just like grandma use to make.  Delicious blueberry muffins.  These happen to be sitting on the table, but you can't have them they are mine.

I started out to paint something just a little different.  You see lot of painting of trees, and flower, and pets and people, but how many do you see of muffins?  I know, I know, your gonna say its just a still life like a bowl of fruit, or something, but is it really?  I really like painting things that not everyone else paints.  From the moment I saw this picture,  I knew I was going to paint it.  I didn't really know how I was going to do it, but I knew I was going to.

What I did was look at what color the muffin tops were, and develop my color palette from there.  The tops were gold, and brown and a really warm earthy yellow.  I decided on transparent orange oxide, yellow ochre, raw umber and van dyke brown.  The brown crusty parts are really just orange oxide.  and the in between parts are mostly yellow ochre.  Their is an under layer of raw umber and yellow ochre.  The muffin cup is mostly raw umber. I needed to make it similar to the top, but different enough that you could tell it was paper.  I tied it all together with a light yellow background and a few blueberries in the foreground.

If you want a more detailed description, you can watch the video below.  Thanks for taking the time to view it, I hope you like it, I had a blast painting it.

Christmas Card - Decorative Glass Balls

So, I have started painting my Christmas or Holiday cards for this year already.  I want to start early.  Last year I got a little behind, and it was hard trying to catch up.  So here is the first one that I am posting.  It is of course some hanging ornaments.

You might wonder how I got the balls so perfectly round.  Well, let me tell you.  Electrical Tape.  It is the perfect size for balls on a 5 x 7 card.

So, I figure I've got about 20 cards to paint.  It seems like a lot, but not a lot.  Between work, family and friends, that could easily be many many more.  I've limited the number to just those that have made the biggest impact in my life over the previous year.

The cards? Well, last year, i bought packs of them at the local hardware store.  This year.... Amazon.  I got a pack of 100 for 30 bucks.  Thats pretty good.  I'm pretty sure that means I get them for 30 cents a piece.

I think this one looks pretty good, and its pretty easy to paint.  If you have an interest in seeing how it did it,  you can watch the video below.

Thank you.

Painting Negative Spaces with Hydrangea

I did a similar painting several months back.  It just kind of happened organically.  I didn't purposely go into thinking I would paint all the negative space around an object, but it kind of worked that way.  In this painting, I specifically set about trying to paint only the negative spaces.  I do with I had mixed in maybe a little purple or magenta with all the blue but I came out pretty neat.

Also, I think, that if I do this again, or maybe I'll go back and do it on this painting, that I'll incorporate some veins into the leaves.  I did put the button in the middle of these flowers, but that was all.  Perhaps a bit of veining will really bring this painting to the next level and give the leaves a little more texture and depth.

Well, regardless of whether I go back and do more or not, I had a great time painting this one.  I hope you enjoy the painting, and if you would like to watch it, I do have a video of how I did it.

 

Truckin' through a field

For some reason, I felt the need to paint another old truck.  I just cant seem to get enough of rust and faded paint.  So here it is, an old Ford sitting in a field.  It looks like its been here for about a dozen years or so.  No wheels at all, so it is never gonna move.

I love the effect of the distant trees in this painting, and I can live with the sky.  I only wish I had painted the truck in my usual way.  One piece of sheet metal at a time.  It usually allows for nice breaks in the painting and I don't have to paint the joints between the panels.

Well, I like this and even the field seems to have a lot of texture to it. Enjoy.

Oh, and by the way, it comes in video too.  Check it out.

The planes are flying high

Continuing with the airplane theme, I give you this navy corsair.  It was, of course, super fun to paint.  I've liked these since the first time I ever saw one as a kid.  I think is must be the crazy bent wings.  At any rate, this is my interpretation of one of these great planes.

Oh, and I made a video of it.  If you care to watch it can be found here.

I didn't intend to do this, but it seems like the whole painting was done with a couple of different shades of blue.  They were ultramarine, pthalo, and cerulean.  Both the plane and the sky are basically nothing but these three colors.  I'm glad I put in a little yellow on the nose and the red in the logo.

I'd love to get some feedback on this.  Let me know what you think either here or on the video link.  Thank you

More Hydrangea

Well, I wanted to paint hydrangea again.  I don't know why I like it so much.  Maybe it has to do with the huge hydrangea at the end of my driveway at the house I grew up in.  My brother and a I made a fort inside it, and we were able to stand up without obstruction.  That just shows how big it was.  Like I said, huge.

For this painting, I decided to embrace hard edges.  I've painted hydrangea before and kind of muddled all the edges and made it all soft.  I've been trying to accept that I cant always stop hard edges, so I jumped in and went for all the hard edges I could get.

After drawing my little clump of flowers, I thought it would be cool to paint all at the top level and make the paint drip.  Then walk away so that it dries.  Coming back when it was totally dry, I started on the next set of petals.  Painting right over the drips from the layer above, I didn't even try to erase the lines.  I just kept repeating that until I got to the bottom.

I learned a few interesting thing.  First and foremost, when you want your paint to run, you almost can't do it. secondly, the addition of water at just the right time will lighten just enough of your painting to give some cool effects.  Of course you might want to sop up the extra instead of forcing a run.

I was also hoping to limit my palette.  Something I am always trying to do.  In the effort,  I made it look awfully monotone.  I did actually find a way to use two colors.

Hope you enjoy it,   I sure did.  Thanks for the view.

Red Head

Still not quite done with this but I suppose it is near enough.  All I have to do is throw on some king of mottled background and voila.

Faces seem to be really hard, and I don't know why.  Scratch that, I do know why.  We all know what faces should look like.  We all know where eyes go, and noses and mouths, ears, etc.  And we also know exactly how they should be positioned on the head.  We see faces every day, and so, if one object that makes up a face isn't quite right, it makes the whole face entirely wrong.  

Well, I got this afce probably as close as any other face I've painted.  I think I got a bit stripey with the dark in the hair, but I needed to do something to it.  With just strands of red, there wasn't enough depth to it.  the stripes really help bring it out.  Well, it is practice.

Painting on Photo Paper

This picture may look a bit of a mess.  And I guess it is a bit of a mess, but there is a very good reason.  I tried to do an experiment with this.  The painting is on photo paper.  I had some extra ink jet photo paper left over from a printer that I don't even have any more.  I thought it would  be a good experiment to see if I could paint on it.  

I found that it was really difficult to paint on.  since it was made for an inkjet printer, the paper really soaks up the water, and doesn't give you any time to move paint around or let it mix much. And then when the paper gets too wet, it just sits on top for a looooooooong time.

Well, it was an interesting experiment, but I don't think I'll follow up on it, unless......

More Hydrangea

In a quick painting session I had with my daughter, I painted a few hydrangea.  I didn't have long, as her attention span yesterday seemed to last only about 5 minutes on any one thing.

I actually got about 10 minutes out of her, but I was the one who had about 5 after getting paint, paper, water, and towel to paint with, then cleaning up after she was done.

Well, we did have a good time while it lasted.  Too bad it was such a short amount of time.

Quick Flowers

Well, I have been able to get back to the studio a bit lately.  I'm working on a few larger projects, but I still have been able to do a few quick sketches.  Some are good, some, not so much.  It doesn't matter, they are all fun to paint.  Hope you like them.

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.

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.

A Bit of Hydrangea

Here is a painting I was having fun with last night.  Its a bit of Hydrangea.  It looks similar to my other flower paintings with one real difference.  The petals on the top of this painting are painted in positive.  Then, I began to work my way down the paper and the petals on the bottom are completely in negative.

It's an interesting way to paint, and I think I'll keep trying this.

Also I was kinda painting this from memory, knowing that hydrangea are just 4 diamond shaped petals.  I didn't really know what the center of the flower looked like, so I dropped a little yellow in the middle.  Now I know that there is a little button in the middle of the 4 petals.  Hmmmm, well, I guess I have something to work on tonight.

Please feel free to leave a comment and let me know what you think, and thanks for taking the time to look.

Hydrangea and Cherry Blossom at lunch

Spring has definitely sprung in my little part of California.  Everything is green, everything is growing, most things are in bloom.  It hit 80 here today!

Continuing on with my new fun painting style, I decided to revisit my cherry blossoms, and add a hydrangea.  I chose a simple cherry blossom.  Simple rounded petals, 5 to each bloom.  As for the Hydrangea:  4 petals, each diamond shaped.  Simple, right?  What could go wrong.  As it turns out, quite a lot.  But since I am trying to loosen up, I made an attempt to let mistakes go by the wayside and incorporate them into the final painting.  I don't know if you will even be able to pick them out.  I think probably I can pick them out because I painted them.  And if I hadn't mentioned it you wouldn't even know there were any mistakes.

Glad you could stop by to take a look at the pictures.  Hope you enjoyed the.  I thoroughly enjoyed painting them.

Oh, and sorry the pictures have a slight blue tint.  I don't have my scanner with me right now, and am sorely missing it.

Morning Glories

Ok, so in a past post you all found out that Morning Glories are one of my favorite flowers.  I love the way the just keep going.  Water them, they grown, neglect them, they grow.  Forget about the, they come back the following year.  And each year they have all these wonderful flowers on the.  They are survivors.

I don't know if these flowers turned out exactly as I had planned, but I like morning glories so much I just had to post the.

I was hoping to get a nice dark green around some of the flowers to indicate some leaves or greenery behind the flower.  I don't think I quite got that right, but it does make for a bit of a different look.   I think I need to work a little orange into the picture to really make the flowers pop off the page.

Well, at any rate I had a blast painting them, hope you enjoy them too.