Sitting Pretty

9x12 Pastel on Canson

This is one of the one hour sketches finished. The sketch itself looked like a puppy and considering I was suppose to drawing an adult, I went back in and fixed it. Another 1 hour to do that.  Generally the lower jaw was too small.  Lots of other little things.

Here is the one hour sketch

RIley smiling

8x10 pastel on canson

My 2nd offering today for the one hour sketches that I would like to get done daily. This is Riley as a big boy, I went over by 5mins again for a touch up.

Casie on Red Stripped Towel

8x10 Pastel on Canson- smooth side

Another 1 hour study from yesterday I didn't get the photo because the battery died. This is Casie our tinest cat in the house. She stays mainly upstairs, not liking company or the dog. I have a little timer that I set for an hour, but I noticed that I forgot whiskers and her nose looked strange. So I need to add on another 5 minutes.

I'm going to try to get atleast 1 one hour sketch out a day before I start in on other paintings.

RIley Pup

9x12 Pastel on canson

I had a little time today to do a 1 hour sketch. I really should be doing them more often, but its been ignored lately. I'm glad I did because it, the sketch reminds of the its importance Getting the quick broad gestures down, cuts all the tiny mark making and really plays a big importance in understanding value. You have to block in your values and then layer. This is my pup Riley looking all innocent and stuff.

Icy Barn

 

11x14

Pastel

colorfixed primed matboard

 A different painting while I try to decide what to put into the House on the Hill painting.

I haven't done many snow/winter scenes, so here is another go at it.  An Amish farm down in Pennsylvania.

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).

2 cows grazing more

Another update to the cow painting. Trying to add further darks into the painting. Adding more warms into the foreground again.

Hoping that this is the finish. I increased the lights on the cows and played around with the shadows on them. Darkened the grass with greens, blues and oranges.

2 Cows Grazing in Field

12X16" on mat board coated with colorfix primer

A new painting this week. I needed to do some more landscapes and wanted to give the cross-hatching a break. I started off with nupastel for the under painting and began to ruff in the mountains and sky first. I hated the mountain color and decided that the house and barn were much too large for its placement. I like the cows though :)


I decided to wash it off thanks to the colorfix primer. You have to really look, but I changed the house barn to an intirely new one with the side facing into the sun...and smaller. Not much else besides ruffing in the irrigation stream.


I then changed the mountain to a purple pink and got bored with the regular type of strokes with the side of the pastel. So I started cross-hatching again. The house looks much better and shows more atmosphere now.


Added more green to the front trying to get warms in front and cools in the back. I added more greens to the tree line toning it down somewhat.



This last one had more darks added to it to increase the value range in the painting. Larger strokes in the forefront, smaller as it goes back. I lightly suggested a path going opposite direction of the water/weeds hoping to create a zigzag effect.

I'm going to sit on this for a bit and decide if I need to add something else.

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.

lil egg washer

Things have calmed down so I had time to start another painting from the old photos I have. This one is in the National Archives under the depression era. A simple blocking of shapes and values at the moment. I'm trying to keep the back of the neck and legs so they appear to glow, the main light source being behind her and a small light above. So she will aslo have a halo around the hair. Hopefully the dress will appear a bit translucent around the thigh area.

Bathtime

I decided it was time to try and paint a portrait using the cross-hatching stroke technique. I was searching in the National Archives and found a beautiful black and white photo with this woman and her baby and couldn't resist. This is the first blocking in stage of the painting, using pan pastel burgundy and light blue in the negative space around the subject.

24x16" on Canson paper smooth side

Pastels

Next stage I worked on the mom's face and clothes more and started on the baby. I decided that he needed a fatter face to go with the chubby body, so I brushed that off and started again.

Here I worked on the far wall with the curtains and faint light coming threw. Pulled the chair and table with vase to sit in front of the curtain. Worked on her white apron and the towels on her lap and behind the baby.

I decided it was too dark overall especially with the extra light coming from outside as well as the left side indoor lighting, and lightened up a few areas.

Here is a closeup of the baby and moms apron. I had a good time with this trying create different colors by stroking mix combination's over each other without blending the traditional ways. On too another portrait as I usually need to go through a series of at least 3 before moving on to a different subject.

Thanks for looking as always!

Mamma and her baby

12x9" pastel on canson smooth side

I have been sick this season like alot of people I know, so I haven't done alot of painting. So here is another study done a few weeks ago. I am still enjoying playing around with the cross hatching type strokes.

Baby Calf

11x14 on canson the bumpy side nupastels and rembrandts
On a roll, I needed to have a go at another. Babies are so cute.

lil piggies

11x14 on canson nupastels
I thought I would try a different subject using the cross hatching strokes, and this is what I came up with. It was about an hour and I had a great time doing it.

Vermont Stream

14x11"
This is the 2nd real attempt at using cross-hatching through the whole painting. Alot, Alot of strokes were used. To tone an area down I used complimentary colors in the same values. Such as the big spruce on the right has reds under the blue and greens. And to liven up an area the colors stayed to those next to each other on the colorwheel.
Some areas needed to lay down flat so I used horizontal strokes such as those in the water, and vertical strokes in the grass around the area of interest. Doing this allows the my eye to focus on the areas I choose to be the center of interest.

This is a closeup of the strokes I used.

I have been mulling over how to do a portrait using these stroking techniques...I may or may not succeed but will have fun trying.

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.

Pond At Macks Apples Plein Air

pastel 11x14
Plein Aire
Painted with the Plein Aire Society Of New Hampshire today. They were actually in Londonderry where I live and had several different spots around town. This one is across from Macks Apple stand, a small pond with apple trees in the background. I painted this with a different approach than I usually do, its a broken color tech., where you keep applying color crossing each other to allow it to mix visually with your eyes. I am finding it hard to get my colors as bright as I would in the studio, another lesson to be learned.

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.

Rickers Pond VT plein aire

11X14"
This weekend we went camping during Labor day Vacation in Vermont. Beautiful little state campground on Rickers Pond. It had nice sandy beach edges, except for the ground nesting bees's it would have been perfect. The rangers came and sprayed the nest and the next day we were in business to swim and get on our canoe and kayak. This is looking down into the next camping site which had a pop up camper behind the clump of trees to the right, which I left out naturally. The birch trees were all leaning in towards the water, very pretty. I took a photo with my camera to compare what I painted. What a difference, between the two. If I had painted this from the photo I think it would be completely different and lost alot of the distance feeling to it. I wouldn't have even seen the Birches in the back.

Sunflowers Abstract Plein Aire

Another Plein Aire from last week. 11x14" on matboard with colorfix primer.
The sunflowers are in a fenched in areia in our backyard, behind them is our chicken coop to which i orginally had in this but it had too many line horizontally so i mushed it out. Needed something to let the flowers come forward so i just blocked them in....so an abstract quality to it. 1 hour.