Angel's Landing

Some good and some bad on this painting.  Lets start with the good.

I was gonna do a dark sky, or at least darker, but when I saw how this one turned out after only one layer of paint, I liked it so much I stopped.  And knowing what the sky looks like in Zion most of the time, there are no clouds anyway, so the sky seems about right.  The next thing that is really good, I think, are the mountains in the background.  They really do look like they are far away.  Just enough detail so you can see a few crevasses in the rocks, but not too much detail that its out of place.  I really like them.

Now for the not so good.  I don't think i got quite the right shape of this hill.  It is, in general, dome-ish, which I got, but somehow its not quite right.  I might go back and see if I cant make the far side of the path fall off just a bit, maybe that will help it look like it is rounder.

I might go back and pencil in some chains like on the real pathway, but I don't have time to do it today, but wanted to get this picture up.  If I make changes, I'll repost.  Hope you all enjoy.

steps

Well, I went back to the arboretum today.  It was really nice.  Yesterday there was a group of people at the gazebo and they were making a bunch of noise.  Today there was nobody but me.  I sat in the same chair, but instead of looking down the hill I move the chair into the walkway, and faced it up the hill.  You can see some crazy plants at the top of the stairs, and there was a huge terra cotta pot on the left hand side.

I chose this because I like the rocks so much from yesterdays paintings that I had to do some more.  I don't think I quite got the contrast in the rocks that I wanted, but I think i got a fair representation of the rocks on the path.  I didn't have enough time to do all the shading that I wanted to.  I might go back and put some in later.  I might, also, to make the individual stones and rocks stand out a bit more, outline these in black pen.  I havent really decided yet.

I purposely left a lot of white in this painting.  There was mortar between the stones that make up the stairs, but I thought it might be a little better to leave those spaces white.  I'll bet yo that until you read that last sentence and looked at the picture again, you didn't notice it the white spaces.

I painted this whole painting with one brush.  Usually, I use two or three.  My travel set came with a very small pure sable brush.  I had never tried it before, but it has the benefit of being small and easy to carry (I know, all brushes are small and easy to carry).  Having tried it, I can definitely see why so many people love sable brushes.  Not only could I do thin lines with it, i could so a larger wash and every thing came out pretty good.  I might have to invest in one, or in a set soon.  I'll keep you informed.  In the mean time, hope you enjoy the paintings.

little plants

Well I took another trip to the arboretum today.  I found a nice place in the shade where there was a seat and a table and I sat down and drew and painted this.  This planter was on the side of the pathway and looked like a good subject to start with.  Start to finish was just about 1/2 an hour.    Thats pretty good.  With something like this, I want to work a little quickly.  What i hope is that working fast will make me be less literal in my interpretation of the subject and force me to focus on getting color on the paper.  I have to say, to some extent I think it really worked.

Looking at the top of the planter, it really does look like the plants in front are closer than those in back.  Also, the rocks look like they have some depth to them.  Wonderful!!  The bowl of the panter is a little flat.  I could have fixed that with a little richer color, but I guess that is what I learned from this lesson.  Hope you enjoy.

Seaside Path

Ahhhh.  A nice leisurely walk along the seaside.  Some nice cypress pines along the way.  Well, the picture didn't turn out quite like I thought, but its not half bad either.

And, looking at the pic, it looks like I forgot to put in the chain between the posts.  Hmmmm, well, nothing I cant put in later.  Enjoy