House on the hill

10.5x14" on watercolor paper coated with burgundy colorfix primer

A new painting started from yesterday. I started from the sky which I don't normally due and I'm working my way down to the foreground. Although last night at about midnight I wanted to ruff in the value, hues and intensity before I forgot what I was thinking. So alot of patchy stuff at the bottom.

The house in the distance was horrible to work with! I continually messed up straight lines on the roof, thereby having to re due sky area, to which I didn't want to fool with. It was originally a different type of house with the windows set halfway into the roof line..without dormers and two stories. It had a strange addition off to the left side that I just couldn't make "real looking". So off with that house and onto a more"New England" type of house. Buildings are my nemesis. I also added New England type trees, where the photo was all pasture.

Originally there is a sheep on the left side, the untouched spot (red section). It is quite big and staring into the camera. Now I'm not sure if I want to put him there...maybe a few grazing ones further into the painting.

Lets hope I don't mess it up, since I have decided to post this as WIP(work in progress).

Lil Egg Washer

I worked more on the egg girl today. I think I'm at the stopping point, but will put it aside to see if anything needs adjusting later on.
I put more greens here and there. Finished up all the overlay on the background door. Put some greenery outside the window and tightened up the area between here face and hand/egg. I overlayed the cabinet with green so that she becomes more the focus.

Here is a crop that I like, showing the details of the focus area.

Egg Washer 2nd stage

I have finally had time and energy to update my recent progress on this painting. I really don't like the cold...

I have been working on the background mostly, trying to push it back to allow the girl to come forward in space. I really need to work on pulling the front corner of the sink towards us. I have been fiddling with her dress trying to get it to appear translucent around the hem line leg/thigh area. I think I will add some red around the same value in a diagonal opposite of the blue in those areas to bring it back to... Red Dress.

vermont farm

An update for today. I added some darks, finished up the leaves on the right hand tree. And pulled some of the highlights back in. I also added in the gate, I think it helps to direct your eye to the left and down the path. Now I'm just looking to decide if its done.

vermont farm

Here is a close up crop of Clara. I think as a whole the painting needs so more intense colors.

Vermont Farm

An update to my farm painting. I decided give another try at cross-hatching and thought that the farm I had started would be a good base. Since I already had the basic value and hues I found it easier to work in the hatching. So the next one I will take the good advice from my pals on WetCanvas.com and use an under painting. Although the photo I took did not have the hens in it, I think it needed something to anchor it into a life situation. So the hens are mine, good thing a had some photos because none of them would stay put yesterday. I am thinking about putting in a rooster and chicks, I think it still needs a story.
I will put a crop in the next post so you can see the strokes.

Vermont Farm

Pastel 11"x14"
This is from SugarBush Farms in Vermont, they make really great cheese from a collective of farmers in the area. This is looking down into the side yard. I decided to paint this without an underpainting on watercolor paper primed with colorfix primer. Next stage is to include some of red metal gates and a small post fence off the barn to the left. Fill in leaves and work on the trunk of the right hand tree.

Beautiful Bloosom

Ahhh Im finally back and painting again. This is Bloosom one of our egg layers, she has a twin Daisy they always seem to get into trouble. Thier eggs are a pale peachy/tan and are Xlarge. Fat, they are fat chickens! Guess they need to be to lay such big eggs.
This is 13.5x10.5" on watercolor paper covered with clear colorfix primer. The underpainting was an old watercolor of a rooster I did many years ago that was pretty messed up in proportion sizes. I think next I will address the ground a bit more and add to the background some sky blues. She needs some highlights on feathers here and there and on her eye.

Buttrick Road Pasture 3

Here is the 3rd phase, highlights were added the sky was lightend at the horizon line and more skylights were added into the trees. The left side was cropped a bit to further move the focal tree from being to close to the center. Now I'm considering changing or removing the diagonal road in the front, I will have to think on that. Plant a new field or maybe change the road into a path in a different direction.

Nosy Gala WIP finish

Finished finally! Here is my crazy big headed (on purpose) painting of Gala. In real life its much better than the photo, correcting digital camera photos is not an extact science. I was hoping to achieve just a fun piece, cartoonish, to bring some personality to a simple dog painting.

Nosy Gala

Another installment of Nosy Gala. Things have been busy at home this week. I shrunk the ball down to increase the feeling of a really big head. Added more lights and darks into the trees. Worked more on her nose that was off. Generally added more medium and darks thoughout her face. Now I need to bring in highlights to show the where the sun is shinning on her more. Then decided on whether grass will come in with strokes.

Nosy Gala WIP

Here I am at todays stopping point.....really crazy looking! Gotta fix things but this is generally the color scheme.

Rolling MountainsWIP

I'm finished with this landscape. I added a field of flowers and worked on the trees. Some touches up here and there on the mountains and deleted one mountain in the far back almost center for a more interest.

Nosy Gala WIP

Another doggie painting from a photo supplied by a friend. This is Kim's dog Gala a beauty, and a halarious photo of her that I just couldn't pass up.
Watercolor paper primed with clear colorfix primer with a watercolor underpainting. It got alittle crazy as I dropped red paint by mistake onto my yellow background, and being an artist started playing around forgetting that it was an underpainting.
13.5x10.5"

Rolling Mountains WIP

This is where I'm at this morning. I work on it more after puppy trainging classes.

Rolling Mountains WIP

Started a challange painting from Wetcanvas Pastel Challanges. This is done on watercolor paper primed with colorfix Rose Grey. No watercolor underpainting this time as the Rose Grey gave an all over underlining dirt feeling to it. It is 10.5x13.5" and this is the intial layer of hard pastels.

Jackson WIP

Here I am at the fine tuning stage...trying to get a true color digital to load up this is from under studio lights at night, so the colors pop a bit more.

Jackson NH WIP

Here I am all the areas have had something dealt with them. The original photo has alot of trees in but I'm paring them down. Fussy branches need to be dealt with a bit more and things tweaked.

Jackson NH WIP

Here is the intial layers of pastel to bring it to local colors. I started off with the sky and mountains to set the tone of the painting and will work down from there.

Jackson WIP

Hi Thanks for looking in! I'm going for a landscape this time. My underpainting mostly in warms to create a pop when i put greens ontop as that area will be the focal area.
watercolor underpainting on colorfixed primed watercolor paper
10.5x13.5