Working on This Weekend- 5/17/15

I finished a few little things this week, that's always fun. All three of them are now available in my Etsy store.

Winter Thistle, mixed media drawing on paper, 5x7 inches, finished.

I've been trying to finish up some of the many little drawings that I have floating around, and I started this one quite a while ago. I started the drawing by transferring the pencil outlines, tracing them with pen, and then scrubbing in shading with charcoal. Tracing with pen works nicely, because it doesn't smear or disappear when the charcoal is added over it. After that I refined the dark areas with more pen work, sharp pencils and charcoal, and added in the white highlights with white acrylic paint. 

Beach Shells, oil on panel, 5x7 inches, finished.

This is another picture I gave up on and put away before finishing. But I tried again, and now I think it looks finished. The sand has shape and interest to it, and the shadows on the shells make sense now. 

Dam Sunset, oil on panel, 5x7 inches, finished.

I love the colors in this one, and after a few tries the grasses look good too.

AZ Aspen, oil on canvas panel, 9x12 inches, unfinished.

Still working on this one, I tried another color on the fence, and this time it looks better. The fence and sidewalk at the bottom still need a little more work, but it's close to done.

Working on This Weekend- 5/10/15

 I finished a few things this weekend, trying to clean up a bit so I can start new pictures.

Dry Wash, charcoal drawing on paper, 10x14 inches, finished.

This drawing came from a photo my mom took in the desert a few years ago, of the patterns in a dry creek bed after a rain. It's charcoal on soft paper, with highlights in white pastel and white acrylic paint.

Beach Shells, oil on panel, 5x7 in, finished.

 I started this little painting about a year ago, and then didn't like how it turned out. But I reconsidered abandoning it and worked on the background a little more. Now it's more finished looking, the sand is interesting to look at and has a sense of distance and shape.

Dam on West, oil on canvas panel, 5x7 in, maybe finished.

 This is a little sunset painting I started a few months ago and then didn't know how to finish. I added detail to the grasses in front and worked on the road today, and maybe it might be done now.

AZ Aspen, oil on panel, 9x12 in, unfinished.

 Still tinkering with this one, the clouds were easy, but the tree and the fence in the front have been trickier. And for some reason the colors are hard to photograph, they come out looking strange no matter the settings. 

Winter Deer Skull, oil on panel, 16x20 in, unfinished.

Working on the grasses in the background of this painting now, but there's still a lot to do, just because of the size.

Working on This Weekend- 4/19/2015

Kinishba Ruins, oil on canvas panel, 11x14inches, unfinished.

I started the sky on this painting today. It was an afternoon in the fall when this picture was taken and the sky wasn't really a rich blue, more of a hazy, dirty blue. The pure mix of blue and white was too bright looking, so I ended up adding Yellow Ochre into the mix to get the right color.

Winter Deer Skull, oil on panel, 16x20inches, unfinished.

A little more work on the background here, I added in greys all over the background, trying to tie together all the sections I've been working on separately until now. Overall, it's kind of a mess at this point, but the end is in sight finally.

Little Pen Sketch, 6x8 inches, copic pen on bristol paper.

This is a little pen drawing, just for fun, using some pictures from Yellowstone as reference.

Here's a few photos from this weekend, the weather has been so nice, with lots of rain, and the plants and animals are growing like crazy.

Butterfly on a thistle.

Whitetail deer.

The deer here are ridiculous, this little buck was only a few feet away from me, and basically ignoring me. But it was mostly dark so the picture is a little grainy.

Guara flower, front view.

I knew there were guaras in this spot, but I couldn't find any when I walked by at first. When I went back that way later, after the sun had set, they were everywhere. Since it was too dark for pictures outside I grabbed one stem and took it home for better lighting. These flowers fall apart very quickly, I'm amazed they even manage to get pollinated.

Guara flower, back view.

April Flowers

Last week I went for a walk after work, and on a whim I decided to take a picture of every flower I could find. Unsurprisingly, I ran out of daylight before I ran out of flowers. But then again I like the tiny, barely noticed flowers too, and there are tons of those. So here are some of the flowers I found that evening,  mostly identified.

Something Labiatae

Straggler Daisy. All over the place, once you start looking for it, but not very pretty.

Pink Evening Primrose

Prairie Verbena

Oroja de Perro, maybe, tiny fuzzy white thing, and ....

Celestials... I walked by these first, and on the way back they were already wilting away.

Fluttermill

teeny, tiny flowers, less than 1 mm each.

Crow Poison

Huisache, my favorite tree.

Still not sure what this is, I had never seen it before.

Might be Greenthread.

Maybe Yellow Flax, not really sure.

Some kind of Guara, ridiculously fragile flowers

... totally ugly, but actually a flower.

Vetch

Vervain

Prickly Poppy, with one deformed petal.

Maybe a Lazy Daisy.

Maybe a Lazy Daisy... and a nice grass flower.

itty bitty flower

Blue-Eyed Grass

Snapdragon Vine, looks like the Joker smiling to me.

Bluebonnet. A rather wimpy example of the state flower, but it is growing in a pretty terrible spot.

I'm guessing "Slender Stem Bitterweed".

Working on This Weekend-3/16/15

I got a lot of painting done this weekend, and started a few new pieces too. Mostly I was trying to avoid working on the deer skull, it's at a tedious place, working on the background. So I started a few new things on Saturday and worked mostly on the deer skull on Sunday.

Horse drawing with Copic pen, 5x7 on Bristol paper, unfinished.

Little drawing of a horse I started a while ago and worked on a bit this week.

AZ Aspen, 9x12, oil on canvas panel, unfinished.

This will be a painting of an aspen with yellow leaves, from northern Arizona last fall.  The sky was such a deep blue that day, and I think I got pretty close to the right color. I tried a few colors from Williamsburg oil paints, and their Sevres Blue has been very useful, especially for skies, because it lightens dark blues without looking washed out.

Kinishba Ruins, 11x14 in, oil on canvas panel, not quite started yet.

Another picture I took on my last trip to Arizona, at the Fort Apache Indian Reservation. These are the Kinishba Ruins, a Mogollon and Anasazi great house site from the 1200s, that are sadly in pretty bad shape. The ruins have been partially restored a few times, some walls propped up and such, but still need a lot of work. I just picked the colors here, and tok some notes. I need to lay out a drawing on the panel before I start painting, since there's a few things that will look wrong if I'm not careful about drawing them.

Texas Spring Flowers, oil on panel, 8x10 inches, unfinished.

This will be a little spring wildflower painting, from a picture my mom took a few years ago. I used a panel by a brand I'd never tried before and the surface was very slippery. So I just tried to get a first layer down to add some tooth, hopefully adding the next paint layer will be easier.

Winter Deer Skull, oil on panel, unfinished.

The deer skull picture slowly continues, I'm working on the background right now. About the bottom two-thirds have a dark layer done, and I'll finish the top third, then add the highlight and bright grasses on top. I think there will be a lot of adjusting lights vs. darks once the background is closer to done, to keep it from competing with the skull too much.

Three Pink Roses

Here's the finished painting of pink roses from the San Antonio Botanical Gardens, in front of the Auld House. The Auld house is a historic farm house built in the 1880's that was donated to the San Antonio Botanical Garden, it was moved from the original location and rebuilt in the garden. 

Three Pink Roses, oil on panel, 8x10 inches, finished,

Three Pink Roses, detail, oil on panel, 8x10 inches, finished,

Three Pink Roses, detail, oil on panel, 8x10 inches, finished,

Three Pink Roses, progression, oil on panel, 8x10 inches, finished,

For sale here: https://www.etsy.com/listing/224530506/three-pink-roses-original-oil-painting?