Day 11 - Foxy Friends

8x8

Oil on Linen on Panel

DPW

It has been a while since I did this - Set up a still-life.    I got this cute fox and his little friend from my husband and the kids for Christmas.  We all seem to like collecting things.  I used to collect owls, but maybe this will be my new thing!  It was interesting to try to capture the reds and pinks together. I put this black high light on the black, not because I necessarily saw it, but because I've seen it work well in other paintings!  I'll have to think about whether it works here?
I also found myself paying attention to what Vadim Zanginian mentioned in his demo the other night - working from cool to warm (and back) - within the same color fields.
Now I have a little catching up to do for the 30 in 30, as my husband and I got to celebrate a belated anniversary in Santa Barbara this weekend.   For those of you with kids, you might be familiar with how rare an occurrence this can be:-)  We consider ourselves really fortunate to have some great friends who made it all possible.   The kids had a blast as we recuperated, relaxed and walked on the beach.

Happy Painting!

Dinner time - Day 27

8x8

Oil on Hardboard

Day 27 of 

30 Paintings in 30 Days

I looked over the list I made for myself on the first day of the challenge and this is what I set out to do, with the results in parenthesis:

As a theme for myself I will be painting

Everything that's been on my list to paint, which means:

At least 5 paintings each of

 cars  (3 so far)

kids (2 so far)

toys (4 so far)

animals (7...)

Cape Cod and urban scenes (2 so far)

and I will plan to paint on location/en plein air at least once or twice a week

plus do some abstract explorations and playing with a palette knife
Painted (5 Plein Air paintings)

So it seems the animal category won out and I have a few more days to fine tune or add to my list.

If you did the challenge - How did you do on reaching your goals?

Hang Ten Stuffy! - Day 24

8x8

Oil on Hardboard

Day 24 of 

30 Paintings in 30 Days

It was quite comical this morning, me trying to talk my 3-year old into letting me bring Stuffy to the studio so I could paint him and my son being adamant that I paint Bolt instead.....after some tears and turning the car around....Sounds crazy I know:-)  He let me bring Stuffy, as long as I promised to paint Bolt and I relented, as long as Bolt was going to cooperate.

....I still have to paint Bolt cause he wasn't quite in the mood?!...

I love the shape of this dragon and the way he naturally leans towards surfing.   Painting on this surface is interesting as it stays on top and it helps if you heap on more paint to get it to stick.

Getting a photograph was a whole other challenge as it rained most of the day, so I might just take another one tomorrow.

I ended up making some adjustments on this piece simply because I realized that the biggest value contrast was down by the leg and tail of the dragon on the lower right and that wasn't exactly the focal point so I changed it so that hopefully the viewer's eye is drawn to his head more than his feet.  Let me know what you think!

Happy Painting!

Shadow and Play - Day 16

8x10

Acrylics on linen on panel

Day 16 of 

30 Paintings in 30 Days

Hmmm....this painting was done in acrylics and I've been working on it off and on during this challenge.... 

I usually paint in oil and the other week I was so excited to get started I didn't even turn my fan on.  Well, what happened was that I developed a cough.    I believe, after inhaling too much of the mineral spirits.   So needless to say, after that I found a way to open the big windows in my studio (which is in a class room in an old elementary school).  I also have a fan blowing on me and crossing my palette to blow the fumes away from me and keeping the air ventilated.   I've been reading up on alternatives to mineral spirits because I think that even though Gamsol is safer than Turpentine, it still affects me.   

One would think that it would be so much easier if I could just work in Acrylics?  Well, one would think, yes.   

But, after sort of fighting with this painting for more than a week, which is not because I had problems with the composition or subject matter so much, but simply because I felt like I was fighting paint drying too quickly, not being able to mix the colors to get the colors I wanted and also not being able to manipulate the paint to do what I wanted it to do.   I'm giving it up:-)

Unless I can figure out a different way to work with acrylics (Golden Open Acrylics) I'm sticking to oils.

I might even try painting this painting again with oils to compare. 

Has anyone else had this experience with mineral spirits?  Or has anyone figured out a better alternative?

Happy Painting!

Shadow Play

 6x6

oil on gesso board

Had a lot of fun today and I was on a roll:-) - Inspired to try some of the DailyPaintWorks Challenges finishing 2 little 6x6s and starting on a 3rd.   A little difficult to get those tiny high lights and I continue to try and simplify which is not as easy from a photo...too much information and detail as well as too little on the actual colors...