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.

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.