Painting with friends......

Friday afternoon I had the opportunity to share time with two fellow artists, Marybeth Heikes and Deb Baughman.  Yes,.....this is a big deal for me .....because.....we all are working artists with days almost always booked full with meetings, commission work, creating for shows, MUST "TO DO" LISTS.......you get the picture.

So, it's ALWAYS a treat for me to spend time with any of my painting friends and share our passion  for creating artful things.   (the conversations can be interesting too)   Here a few pics I took yesterday, along with the finished oil study I worked on.  Wish I'd taken more close ups of what we all were doing.....I'm making a BIG "post it" note  to remind myself to do that next time.

 Enjoy!

Here's Marybeth working on pencil outline sketches.  Since this is her studio, she planned to leave the bottles in place .....  adding watercolor to what she's working on here.

Deb  looking serious here....just an amazing watercolorist.  (She also paints with acrylics, & oils)

I love how she can take a "gray day" winter scene photo and make it brilliant with color and life.

....and here shows the view of bottles where I was standing and working with oil paints.

The finished work.....

"Bottle Study #1"  10"x 8"  Oil on canvas board

Toned background Experiment.....

~Click on image to enlarge~

both - 8"x10"  Oil on gessoed matboard

Here are two examples of the "toned" colors I use instead of painting on white canvas.  The gray here (on right) appears a bit darker then it actually is.

In the past, I've used the color Red Light to tone canvas for landscape and figure painting.  It gives a "glow" around objects and makes blues and greens read differently then just on a white surface.

The interesting thing is, the red background (on left) is in the same "VALUE" range as painting on WHITE.

The Gray on the right is what I'm used to using for almost ALL the pastel work I do. It "reads" as being a "MIDDLE VALUE"  .....so, on a scale 1 to 10.....it's definitely a 5.

After attending artist John Preston's Plein Air Workshop , I've been applying a clear primer 

(Art Spectrum's Colourfix Multi-media Fine Tooth Primer found at Dick Blick) to the panels I use that are brown.....the same color as cardboard.  The"VALUE" range is the same as using the Gray.(Yep...#5)  

In ALL my workshops, I tend to be a Drill Sargent....always repeating about the importance of breaking everything down into  5 basic values.....Light / Light-Medium / Medium / Medium-Dark / Dark.  (with the most repeated being "Light/Medium/Dark".)   Any 2 Dimensional work MUST have these to create the illusion of form. 

So, I thought it would be interesting to show here, how different an object can seem based on the value range it is painted on. (I used the same color mixes for both paintings). 

  

Summer 2014

Just finished this oil Christmas present.  It was shown to the owner, but I needed to do some adjusting to the figure and brought out more of the sand area in for foreground.

24"x 48" Oil on stretched canvas

Here's the finished piece. The model?.....my Grandson Nevan!  He spent several weeks in Florida with his Grandpa Tom this past Summer.  A real treat to experience the ocean.

A Father's Love

15.5"x 22"  Soft Pastel on Wallis paper

Here's a bond that is sooooooo precious!  When my daughter shared with me the photo taken of Clint and my new grandson Aden, I knew right away that I wanted to paint this moment using pastels.

Aden is only a few days old here.  I'm pretty sure this picture was taken while they were still at the hospital.....probably getting ready to go home.  He's 7 months old now and just a bundle of Joy!

I've been blessed with kids that embrace the electronic age......have GREAT camera/phones and get that "kodak" moment when I'm not around.  Thankfully, then share them either on Facebook or by gifting me with photobooks.  I'm a happy camper :D

"Phoebe"

click image to enlarge

Oil - 48"x 24"

I really had fun with this piece.  Colors are actually brighter then what is shown here.  This was the best I could do with the photo I took before delivering this to my son & daughter-in-law tonight.  I applied the last few strokes of paint this afternoon.  Talk about a last minute Christmas gift. (it was actually started  a month ago.)

Just for a change, I decided to not cover the entire area of toned canvas and let it be the "background" in this work.  The only exception was to add a few strokes showing the shadow play on the sidewalk where Phoebe was standing.  I intentionally left detail out of her hands, dress, and feet as well.   I guess this would be called....a "sketch" instead of a finished painting.

'tis the season.......

Here are 4 individual 3"x3" stretched canvases painted with acrylics.  It seems every year I create mini paintings by either using oils or acrylics and give as gifts or sell as stocking stuffers.

I have a collection of snowmen and they've been my models over and over the past 2 years.  

This year, I've added magnet strips to the back of these paintings.  New title.."Refrigerator Art"!

Enjoy!

Painting at the Parlor Art Studio

Here's an overview of how the studio looked today while Jessica, Connie, and I painted at the Herman Greef House.  This is the parlor room transformed! 

The paintings on the walls are original to the home.  The girl portrait was a recent donation to the Bentonsport Improvement Association and is of a family member of the last postmaster of Bentonsport.  

The studio is a "work-in-progress" in that easels will change and I'm building a small platform to put the winged back chair on for days we have a model to sit for us.  The platform will be something easy to dismantle for storage when not in use.

For workshop/classes where we all do a small still life study, I'll have a folding 6ft. table that can be set up in the center of the room.  This should allow for up to 5 people to sit and work comfortably on projects.

Here's the first oil study for the day......and.......

here's the second oil I worked on this afternoon.

Practice! Practice! Practice!