And the Road Goes Here

6"x6" oil Price $100

This young man on the right is giving engineering layouts to his patient dad while little brother gets to work on his part of the castle.

Sand Play

6"x6" oil Price $100

Thank you Lowell Klock for having such a cute grandson!

Washed Up

8"x10" oil 

First some complaining...I had a really hard time getting good photos today as everything has a glare.  I am re-doing, fixing up, or repainting some things I have previously done.  Although I don't necessarily solve all the problems, I am learning a ton from the exercise and am much happier with the results.  Some artists just stop when it isn't working and start a new painting, but I tend to prefer to work on it until I apply enough of what I know to make it work out satisfactorily, at least to my current standards.  Hopefully the bar will go up in my expectations over time.  This is from one of our gorgeous lakes in a state park and now I don't think it is all washed up! 

Sand Play

6"x6" oil

I do love the simplicity of this. I didn't fuss at all and kept the value areas clean.  I call it a success.

Waiting

6"x6" oil

Waiting for the wave to crash!

Work of Play

6"x6" oil

When watching kids at the beach, it is easy to be drawn in by their wild enthusiasm. But, it is hard work having that much fun.  There is the digging and the pulling and the riding of the body board and the fighting with the waves to regain air.....so much work of play.

Pink and Green

6"x6" oil

Can you hear the music of the waves?

30-30 17&18

each 2"x4.5"

I went nautical for these too and I am so excited to say I have caught up!  I am amazed at how much I have learned, how much fun I am having, and how cute a tiny painting can be!

At the beach

SOLD

What are you doing today?  Hope you are having as much fun as we are!

 

This incredible painting is by Fongwei Liu who is one of the best contemporary figure painters in the US.

A Method and "On Leave"

"On Leave"  7"x9" oil  this is for my nephew who is a Marine and great dad!

I thought I would talk about a method I have been experimenting with in painting.
These are the reasons I like it:
1.  It is a method, therefore, I know what to do first and can get started right off.
2.  By drawing out the image, I get to practice my drawing skills, and it helps me to get the drawing part accurate.

3. By adding in a very thin and very quick layer of local colors, I can paint over the drawing, and diminish it, so I am not so picky and finicky about painting the drawing.
4.  I  get to evaluate it after each step which makes me take a brain-refreshing break (and I hoola-hoop for a couple of minutes).
5.  I can see if the design and basic values work.
6.  By doing the local colors, I quickly cover the whole area making it all much less intimidating.
7.  Since I don't add any subtle highlights, smaller values, warm and cool colors and variations at this stage, I can think through those things before I actually do them.

8.  I like it because it slows me down, yet I can still paint fast.
9.  There is instant gratification, which I always crave.
10.  I still get to apply all those wonderful teaching tips I've learned from other artists.

What I don't like about it:
It takes longer....and I end up fussing anyway!

Peace

We are getting ready for our annual trek to the beach.  I am hoping for sunny warm weather, but it is beautiful regardless.  Looking forward to lots of future beach paintings as well.  My favorite part of this is his right arm...that is what I wanted to paint!  Notice there is no one else in sight!  now that is the image of peace!

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Together Alone

If you think this looks a lot like the painting I posted yesterday, you would be right!  This is a larger version I did as a demo for a class.  I also did two of these for a (dated) challenge for Daily Paintworks to do two paintings that are the same but different.  This one I painted in acrylic first very quickly to lay down the local colors, then I applied oil alla prima.  Which one do you like better?  I haven't decided what I am going to do with this painting yet.
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Here are the two paintings side by side.  The first one is actually 1/2 the size of the second.