Hanging on to winter

Fire and Ice

18x18

As I sit in my studio enjoying the air conditioning on a hot, Florida spring day, I'm still enamored with ice. I think I'm trying to hold off the inevitable - VERY hot summer days. This is the third ice painting so far, finished this one yesterday. There's more I want to do in my quest of hanging on to winter but for now I have to set the brushes aside and focus on prepping for a colored pencil portrait workshop I'm doing in Live Oak next week and then I have several portrait commissions to work on. It's good to be busy!

I love to see what other artists are doing. While I've been working at the easel I have my laptop open on the table so I can watch/listen to stuff while I paint. This week I've been re-watching the Work of Art reality show from Bravo. I found them on YouTube. I saw them when they were first aired but it's been a while. I loved watching the process of the artists. My only wish is that Bravo would make more seasons. It's very sad that they stopped after season 2.

So 2 questions for you..... What are you working on? (feel free to share pics) and Do you know of any good documentaries on art- preferably something on contemporary artists?

Back to work...... 

Have a great weekend!

Done!

Finished the latest ice painting this morning. I'm calling it Frozen, it's 18x18 in size. Next up.... I've been given some photos by one of my students and I can't wait to start the next one. I'm intrigued by these pictures- there are some interesting forms and patterns to play with. We'll see what happens.

Ice Painting

Ice Storm

20x16

Just thought I'd share the work I'm doing at the moment. I've been pretty busy with Painting Party stuff along with some other projects but I had to try something different. I've been looking for some new inspiration and my daughter sent me some photos that she took up in GA this winter. They had an ice storm up there and she got some fabulous pictures of trees and leaves caught in the ice. I wanted to see how this kind of scene would work with my usual technique of texturing the canvas and using a hot red underpainting. The painting above is the first one and the one below is in progress. They're a lot of fun but definitely a challenge, especially when trying to decide how much of the texture to enhance and how much of the red color to let peek through. Getting a smooth, even line on that texture isn't easy either!

Back to it. Hope you've been having a creative week. :)

The stages of Pouty Face

Many times when working on a portrait I post pictures of the piece in progress on my Facebook page. I've found that people really love to see the progression and the layers build up. I've noticed that artists and non-artists alike enjoy seeing how it works so here is the progression of colored pencil layers as I was working on the Pouty Face portrait I shared in the last blog post.

Here I've just got the basic outline in and I'm working out my palette while starting to get some darks blocked in.

You can see that little strip of paper on the side- that's where I test my colors. For this portrait I'm working on a dark blue Canson pastel paper. It's actually darker than it looks in the photos. When I took these pics I was just using my phone at the drawing board. The board is right in front of 2 windows so sometimes the colors shift depending on the time of day I took the picture.

So here I'm beginning to build up skin tones. Any time I'm working on colored paper I cut an extra strip of the same color paper to test the pencils on- especially for skin. On this paper I couldn't use any of my usual portrait colors that have yellow in them. You know what happens when you mix yellow and blue..... he didn't need to have green skin.

I used lots of peachy and orangey tones to work the skin. Surprisingly deco orange got used a lot. I hadn't considered it right away but it really worked.

In this pic the lips look a lot more orange than they really were. They were a bit of a challenge though to get them pink enough without them turning purple on the paper.

He's almost done here- just building up the background colors and the red of his shirt. I went back into the eyes to push the values a little more and then back into the hair to fill it out with more strands.

Pouty Face is done and Pouty Face happens to be my youngest grandson. He is quite the character so I'm sure I'll be doing more portraits with his very expressive self.

What have I been doing?

Boy do I have some updating to do!! I've done a lot of work since posting last so I'll share a few pics...

These are brand new landscapes inspired by aerial photos I took as I was flying into Tampa airport. These pieces are very textured. I used Super Heavy Gesso and many layers of drybrushing. Size wise they're 11x14 and 12x12.

This one is the newest tree piece and the largest one I've done- it's 48x36 and it has tons of texture. I covered the entire canvas with layers of tissue paper.

Then..... there's the colored pencil work. I've been doing some commission work and of course doing portraits of my grandbabies. Pouty Face is the one I just finished this past week and I think it's one of my faves. Harlen is such a character I know I'll be doing more with his beautiful face.

This gorgeous animal is Winston and he was a commission piece for a dear friend of mine. He was a real joy to paint and a real challenge too. That hair!!!

Yep, still partying. Friday Painting Parties are still happening. In fact I'm now doing an afternoon session along with the evening. Last month we did a scene from Tuscawilla Park - Ibis Morning, a line up of birds along the waters edge.

This month we're doing a landscape....

Just one more bit of news for now- a show at Gateway Bank! Check this out. The reception is passed but the show is up until May 26th.

There's a sampling of what I've been up to. Leaving for now but I'll be back! I swear! I'll be adding new work to the pages up at the top and I'll post more of the portrait work including photos of the work as it progresses. See you soon. 

These might end up in a painting someday

A while back I was traveling north on 441 on my way to Gainesville. In McIntosh, on the right hand side, is a great little antique shop that has this out front. Any store that has something like this sitting out front is just screaming at me to stop and see what's on the inside!

What did I find inside? The coolest collection of bottles I've seen anywhere. There's just something about old bottles- the frosty softness of the glass, the way the light filters through and gives them a glow from within, the smooth curve of the glass where so many hands have touched.

Colors bounce back and forth. Blue, gold, lavender, green - all points of the spectrum shine and entice, begging to be shot and captured. Of course the shop owner was smart in the way he displayed the bottles - on shelves in front of mirrors with strings of lights in the just the right places.

What was contained within these shapes? What fragrance, what poison, what remedy? Who belonged to the hands that held the bottle and wished for healing or relief or maybe just a buzz?

Was there a reason for the shape of the bottle? Why do some bottles have ridges and bumps on the outside? I asked the owner of the shop these questions. He told me that some bottles were manufactured with a particular design specifically to protect the consumer from accidentally using the contents in a way that would harm them. Bottles meant to contain poison such as insecticide would have bumps in a pattern or embossing on the outside of the bottle that actually said 'poison'. If you were up in the middle of the night with a stomach ache, it's dark and you're going by feel to find your medicine, you won't make the mistake of drinking something that's not meant to be ingested. Good thinking! If you're interested in more info about the history of bottles, check out this site.

Anyway, learning these little tidbits about the bottles makes them even more interesting. It's not a subject I'm painting right now but I'm hanging on to these pictures because one of these days.... you might see a new series begin. When that happens you'll know where it started.

Popping colors and crumpling paper.

The last week of March and first week of April were some crazy, busy weeks! I had the Friday Painting Party going on and my 2-day acrylic workshop down in the Villages on April 3rd and 4th. They have a great space down there at the Lifelong Learning College classroom at Spanish Springs - lots of tables, good demo area and good munchies. I had a couple of familiar faces from the first workshop I taught there back in the fall, and met some great new people.

We were doing landscapes with texture and complimentary colors. One of the techniques I showed them was how to do the tissue paper texture that I demonstrated in this video. It's one of my faves for doing landscapes. It just lends itself so well to the subject. And of course, adore working with complimentary colors to make the scene pop!

Some of the folks had to leave early and missed the critique time but these lovely ladies stayed and shared their projects. I love this part of doing workshops - when we line up the work and see what everyone accomplished. They did such a great job! Everyone was open and willing to jump out of their comfort zone and do something completely different. Some were really cranking out the work too - one painting after another, amazing.

I'm looking forward to working with the college and doing some more classes and workshops. :D