Working On-Weekend of 7/21/2013

I've really been wanting to start a new painting, but there are too many unfinished ones cluttering up the studio. So I spent the weekend working on the pieces I already had started, before I let myself work on the new horse painting.

First up is a little flower portrait, still not sure what kind of flower this is though, it doesn't seem to be in the field guides that I have. Still haven't touched the flower itself, but the background greenery was fun to paint wet on wet. This is the second layer you see here. The first layer of the background was terrible looking, because Claybord tends to absorb the first few layers like sandpaper and make blending impossible. So I oiled it out between layers and made sure the paint was nice and loose.

Little White Flower, oil on Claybord, 5x7 inches, unfinished.

Dried Tulip is pretty much finished, just put a final layer of Galkyd on the edges. Now I just have to wait a few weeks til it's fully dry so it can be varnished.  

Dried Tulip, oil on canvas, 12x12 inches, mostly finished.

 This is my second attempt to paint this scene, a lovely sunset view off the Port Aransas Beach Lodge. Painted in two settings, with a month in between. Firstly, the time in between was to let the first layer dry so I couldn't mess it up, and secondly because I didn't feel like working on it... The first session was spent covering the sky and water, and the second few hours covered all the foreground. I'm much happier with this than the first version, even though the first was the best quick painting I've ever done.

Port A Sunset II, Oil on canvas panel, 5x7 inches, finished. 

I started this painting like two years ago, and I just can't put it up now, even though its annoying and I'm sick of it. My cousin snapped this picture of a butterfly floating in the Guadalupe river a few summers ago. I wanted to do a full black and white version and then add color on top of it,  but that has proven more difficult than I expected. Galkyd is a good medium for doing layers and glazes, but it becomes tacky and unworkable very quickly. In addition to that problem, because the painting is so old the surface is dry and slick, blending is tedious. I've got some ideas how to solve those problems, and today's session was mostly finding the right colors to use.

Butterfly, oil on panel, 11x14 inches, unfinished

Here's the studio/dining room after this weekend. You can see the paintings in progress, my color chart, and lots of junk and pictures I like hanging up there.

Studio-7-21-2013