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.

Monday Lunch

Two pictures today at lunch.  They are part of my effort to paint a little more quickly.  From blank paper to two finished paintings in under 1 hour.  I think that is not too bad.

The top picture i think is a little better than the bottom.  I'm trying to work on perspective.  Not all the lines are exactly right on the picture, but I'm getting there.

On the bottom picture, i started painting and then thought to myself, the whole picture is awfully grey.  Then I had to figure out what to do to remedy it.  I don't know that this is my best effort.

Expect to see more doorways posted here.  I've tried to paint some before, and feel like I need to paint some more now.  Probably will be working on it for the next week or so.