Lemons

Ahhh, well it has been quite a while since I made a blog post here. I know I always promise to do better but it really is hard with all the things I have going on. I’ve continued to paint, its just that not all the paintings have made it here.

This painting was done in Strathmore 400 series Multi Media paper. I will admit that I have used this paper befor and dont remember having such trouble. Perhaps that it was that I was much more the beginner. Right now, I have to say that if I never paint on this paper again, it will be too soon.

Having said that, I really enjoyed painting these lemons. I accepted the challenge of the paper and tried to make these look as great as possible. I think i really accomplished this.

The biggest drawback for me is the leaves. I don’t know if I had too much water or too little or maybe a bit of both, but I think they came out a bit wonky. Well, here they are anyway. I hope you enjoy them. I had a great time painting them. Hope you enjoy viewing them.

If you want to watch how I painted these, follow this link

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.

Sparrow

I don't think I'll ever be able to get all the way away from painting birds, and I don't think I want to.  Like most areas of the country, I've got plenty of sparrows flying around my house.  I thought it might be nice to paint one.  I think I did one years ago, but they are nice birds and I always enjoy watching them at the feeder and flitting about too and fro.

This isn't any particular sparrow, but one of many that could be around my house.  He's just sitting there on a little branch looking for his friends to play with.

He was great fun to paint.  If you want to see a video of how I did it, check out the video below.

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.

Practice Agapanthus

This is an agapanthus.  We have them all over here in California.  I was asked to attempt to paint these.  This is a first attempt.  It's ok, i suppose, but it dind't quite turn out how I wanted.  I think my paper was too wet, and got too much run in my colors.  I'm gonna revisit this and see if I can't do something a bit better.

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......

A Couple of Coneflowers

Ok, for some reason, I can't seem to get away from flowers.  Here I have two different cone flowers.

I don't know what it is I like about these, but since I saw the first pictures of coneflowers, I've had a thing about painting them.  I must have painted a dozen coneflower or more (some of which have made this blog.)

I apologize for not having a good story to tell about painting these paintings.  Its been a long day, its late at night, and I'm about to go to bed.  So, since I don't have a lot to say.....   Hope you enjoy these paintings.

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

More Practice

Just a little bit of sketching from last night.  I really do think that I am mastering the roses.  Now I just need to master the leaves.  And a few more poppies.

Hope you like them.

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.

Solitary Cone Flower

So I had a little time while I was waiting for my paint to dry on different painting and I thought I would just get a little more wet int wet practice.

A really simple, but somehow nice coneflower.  I know its nothing special, but somehow being simple makes it nice.

Bouquets of Roses

Another bunch of roses.  I'm still trying to get them right, whatever right is.  I definitely think I'm on the right track.  With the single rose, I tried putting in a loose stem and leaf.   On one of the groups of three I tried to let the undercoat show through to represent some leaves, and on the other group of three just some dark shading under the bottom of the petals.

I am thinking that I can make these a little better if I let the darker color reach all the way to the outside of the petals in at lease a couple of areas.  I might try that tonight.  I guess that's why they call it practice.    

I'm not sold on having a full green background around the roses.  It really does make the flowers pop off the paper, but it seems to take away from the rose a bit.  It's like its just floating in a sea of green.  With no definition.  I think I'm kinda on the track with allowing a base layer to show through in leave.  If I overlay several leaves it might provide enough interest that I'll like it a lot.  More practice and trials are called for.  

These are all painted on the back side of old paintings.  I've kept all my painting for the past 5 years (the entire time I've been painting).  I've got a huge stack of old paintings that aren't really good, that nobody but me would like.  So on the sheets that can be used on both sides, I'm using the back.  If I decide to sell a few of these, whomever gets them is gonna get two pieces of art for the price of one.  

Also, I'm toying with the idea of putting together a video or two to show people how I paint.  I like this new style so much, I want to pass it along.  Any ideas on how I should go about it?  I'm accepting ideas.  

Thanks for the view and the advice.   Hope you enjoyed this post.  

I've got so many flowers I ought to be a florist

Some more quick loose flowers.  Still trying to get coneflowers right (don't ask me why).  And working on roses.  I like the way my roses turn out.  From a distance they look really good, and as I keep at this method, they should continue to get better.   The coneflower is interesting.  I keep adding layers, and it keeps looking better.  I start with the outside petals, and then the inside and finally the ones in the back.  seems like it works, but I still have a little way to to to get it right (whatever that is).

At any rate, I'm having fun painting the flowers.  Hope yo enjoy looking at them.

A rose by any other name

Having gone through a poppy phase over the last two weeks, I might be going into a rose phase.  Here are a few I sketched out.  Some good, some bad.  Hope you like them.

simple coneflowers

So I was doing some doodling again last night.  Thought it would be fun to paint some coneflowers.  Before you begin, let me say that I didn't really look at any pictures of coneflowers to know if I've done it right.  And I know they have many more petals than these have.  And I know that the stems here are just green lines.  Blah Blah Blah.

Yes I should have done at least a tiny bit of research to know what I was painting, but these were kind of a throw in at the end of my painting session.  For what they are, I think they are pretty good.  I'll have to check to make sure these are actually colors that cone flowers come in, and probably change my color palette for my next attempt.  Also, I'll have to find what the stems and leaves look like.  Oh, and the heads too.  Whew, that seems like a lot of work all of a sudden.  Oh, well, for a quick painting at the end of the night, I think they turned out pretty good.   Thanks for taking the time to look.

Roses Redux

Ok, so here is my first finished work of roses.  I kinda like the way it came out.  I've pasted it on my office wall and already gotten several compliments.  

So I obviously  have a little work to do on my petals.  I think on some they should be closer together, and then outer layer should be pretty wide.  Since I'm still trying to figure it out, I'm not gonna be very hard on myself for an mistakes.

And I suppose you are wondering why a drip is going horizontally.  I'll explain that:  I just thought it would be fun.  That's all, no good reason.

I'm still considering not leaving the highlights on the inside of the flower, and moving some to the outside petals.  Actually, I'm not sure how much it matters.  Your eye ends up seeing the way it wants anyway, but I'll probably  try it just to see.

I definitely think that after a few more attempts I'll get roses down.  Errr, well, thats the hope anyway.


Hope you all enjoyed these.  Thanks for the view and for taking the time to read this blog.

More Lanterns

I had a lot of fun with the previous painting of Chinese Lanterns that I did.  I thought I would see if I could recreate what I did.

Again, like last time this was a quick painting, trying to let the paint do whatever it wanted to do on the paper, and as little as possible on the palette.

It had been a few days since I picked up the brush and I wanted to make sure I don't forget to do that.  So, today, like many days, I substituted lunch with painting.  This is what I came up with.  I like it, hope you do to. Thank you.

One Great Tit

Ah Hah!  Gotcha.  I posted a picture of a bird.  I don't think that's what you were expecting.  I love doing that.  Last year I posted a picture of some cantaloupe  melons.  I titled my post something like a great pair of melons.  I got more hits on that than I had on my site total to that point.

Well, as I have said so many times, I love painting birds.  Something about them makes me happy.  I always like to make up stories about them as I am painting.  And they all seem to have individual moods.

Usually when I paint, I paint from black an white pictures.  I did that with this one.  It really helps me see contrast.  But where I am able to see a lot of contrast, I often get my colors a little wrong.  On this guy, I should have had a grey tail.  He originally had a beautiful yellow tail, but once I finally looked at a color picture, I realized I should have given him a grey tail. I quickly tried to make an adjustment, but.....  

Ok, now let's talk about a little of the good for a second.  I basically painted this in about 4 layers.  I tried hard to leave his chest a little lighter and his belly a little darker.  I think I got it on the yellow.  And I was worried that his head wouldn't come out quite right when I started, but i really like how it turned out.

Well, hope you like this one.  Thank you.

Old Truck in Front of Barn

Ok, first of all, let me say that this is still a work in progress.  Secondly, let me tell you a little story about this.

A colleague of mine, knowing my propensity for all things rusty and wheeled, sent me a picture he took of this truck.  I couldn't help but attempt a painting of it.  I drew it, and painted it.  It looked horrible.  I couldn't stand it.  Even my colleague looked at it and asked if I had regressed in my painting.

I literally started pouring on the water and rubbed most of the paint off the truck.  Having done that, I was left with a painting that still had color, but which was infused with tiny white dots where the paint had been taken off.  It still looked horrible.  So, here is what I decided to do.

I admitted to myself that I'd wasted a sheet of paper and used it for some practice.  I stood, instead of sitting, and started swabbing on paint, not worrying about color or exact placement of paint.  In short, painting more loosely.  You can see I got some red on the roof of the bar,  a big swab of blue on the side of the barn, some green for trees, and yellows, reds and greens for grass.  While still wet, I just flicked in a few weeds.  I touched up the paint on the truck, and POW, a huge difference. I couldn't believe the transformation of this picture. It went from something that was totally drab and blasé to something in which the truck actually stands out in the picture.

I know that I still have a little bit of work to do painting but I couldn't believe how much better it look when I stopped trying to paint so tightly.

I hope you all enjoy it I am going to be posting the finished painting soon. Thank you.