Working on This Weekend- 7/10/16

This is the painting I spent the most time on this weekend, and it's finally cooperating. I had a lot of doubts about whether or not I could make the sand look good, and the first few tries didn't go so well. Sand hasn't been easy for me in other paintings, it has a funny texture and more colors than it should. So to try to trick myself into finishing this painting I decided to do the background first, and save the flowers for last. That seems to have worked, now it's close to done, just needs another layer or two, to detail the sand and make the flowers pop.

White Beach Flowers, oil on panel, 5x7 inches, unfinished.

This painting is coming along smoothly, it's a Celestial flower with a tiny spider. These flowers are fragile and only last for a few hours, and the spider hanging out was a lucky find. Once I got close to the flower to start taking pictures the spider put his legs up like he was trying to scare me off. I'm happy with how deep the background looks, and how the bright grasses stand out. One thing left to fix is that the values of the lights and darks are too far apart on the flower head. That makes the light looks like harsh afternoon sunlight, not the last evening light it actually was. So I'll probably try a faint blue glaze all over it, to even out the values and match the color a little better.

Celestial and Spider, oil on panel, 5x7 inches, unfinished.

Ducks! This is a silly drawing I've been slowly working on for a while. Duckies are surprisingly easy to draw.

Ducks! sketch and White Beach Flowers, both in progress.

My latest little hobby has been making wire wrapped rings. Here's one made with 20 and 26 gauge coated copper wire, and twisted strands of electrical wire in the middle, it's about a size 6. These will be for sale on my Etsy store soon.

Copper wire wrapped ring.

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-9/1/2014

Finally done with the big Hill Country painting I've been working on for months now, you can see it here on it's own blog: http://hillcountrypainting.blogspot.com/. So now I have a ton of other paintings and drawings to get back into.

Little 5x7 paintings, all unfinished, one is a picture my mom took in Arizona, one is of some tiny seashells from Port Aransas, and blue bonnets from a family reunion a few springs ago. 

Color sketch, practice before I start the bigger painting.

Some pretty pink roses from the San Antonio Botanical Garden, this is the pencil drawing I'll paint over.

My very messy desk.

Beach Quickies

Little 5x7 oil paintings done a few months ago, before and during a trip to Port Aransas. All done in less than two hours.

Clouds and Seaweed, 5x7 oil on canvas panel, finished, 2014.

Pelicans, 5x7 oil on canvas panel, finished, 2014.

Morning Color Sketch, 5x7 oil on canvas panel, finished, 2014.

Night Clouds, 5x7 oil on canvas panel, finished, 2014.

Working on This Weekend-9/8/2013

Spent most of the weekend varnishing completed paintings and getting ready for a show. I did spend Sunday morning painting though, and got one small painting finished and another one started.

Port Aransas Dunes, 5x7 oil painting, finished. 

Port A Sunset-Try and Try Again..

This beach scene was my first successful try at painting wet on wet instead of letting the paint dry between each layer. But I can't remember what colors I used, and I didn't take notes, so I wanted to try again.

Port A Sunset I, oil on canvas 5x7 inches, finished, 4/2013.
On the second try I decided to raise the horizon line, to make a better composition by following the Thirds Rule. For whatever reason I think it looks better than the first version. The colors used were: Titanium white, French ultramarine, Cadmium yellow light, Indian red, Alizarin crimson, Cobalt blue hue, Torrit grey 2012, Prussian blue, and a tad of Cadmium red medium.  

Port A Sunset II, oil on canvas 5x7 inches, finished, 7/2013

Whole painting took about four hours, in two layers. First layer was to get the hard line between the sky and the ocean, and the second session was every thing in front.

Port A Sunset II, oil on canvas 5x7 inches, finished, 7/2013

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