It's official - Paso Robles Art Festival = Painting larger!

Sunny Bug

6x6

Oil on linen on canvasboard

Click here to bid

This past year I've been painting a lot of little 6x6s, like the one above and it has been a great way to finish a painting in one sitting so to speak, to learn and move on.

I'm very excited however, to announce that I will be painting bigger sized paintings in the near future! It was one of my goals for this year and I'm so happy to have been invited to participate in the  

Plein Air Quick-Draw at the Paso Robles Festival of Arts 2013 

The Quick-Draw takes place on May 25th, and I will also have a few paintings included in the Plein Air Masters Exhibit at Studios on the Park from May 23rd to June 30th.  This will be my first plein air event ever...woohoo!...a little nerve wrecking:), but mostly...

It's a thrill to have this opportunity to paint in the company of some extremely talented and experienced artists whose work I've admired for years, and it's all thanks to my good friend Daggi Wallace!!  Daggi is an amazing pastel artist and on a painting trip up north last month she introduced me to Anne Laddon at Studios on the park in Paso Robles.

Anne is the founder of Studios on the Park and when she saw my work, she invited me to be part of the quick draw, not realizing it would be my first...  I'm excited to be her wild card!

In preparation I'm now moving from 6x6s to 12x12s... and here's my first attempt at finishing a painting that size within 2 hours. 

This was painted in the afternoon at Broad Beach with Daggi last week. 

 Afternoon Stroll

12x12

Oil on Linen on canvas panel

 I'm happy to say I did finish it within 2 hours, except for the sea-gull which I added later.

I'll keep you posted as to my progress.

Happy Painting!

Dancing Blooms

8x8

Oil on  Canvasboard

To bid on this painting

I went to paint at King Gilette's Ranch today with Pam and Barbara, and the last of the blossoms in the pink and white trees were hanging on for dear life as the wind blew off and on around us.

I'm working really hard on integrating the concept that:

 "I'm not just painting what I see, but my impression of what I see" 

and hopefully(:-) it's also an improved version of what is actually there, not just a copy. 

Sound weird? 

  I've spent a lot of time trying to capture the right colors, getting the drawing right etc. as I'm working on improving my technical skills and in doing that it's easy to forget that as an artist I have the artistic license and permission to paint my version of what is there, that's sort of the point I believe.  I can exaggerate what it is that drew me in, by cropping things so that I create a division of space on the canvas that I find interesting, playing up colors so that they sing in combination with other colors or add abstraction by focusing on shapes/patterns and lines .   My painting is my interpretation of life around me and I want to continue creating paintings that simplify and cut to the essence of what I see and the story they tell without spelling everything out..

It's a journey and today was one step further on that road...:-)

Happy Tail

6x6

Oil on hardboard

SOLD

This was painted on a surface that I'm really enjoying.   A very slick gessoed hardboard that takes the paint differently than both canvas and regular gessoboard.  It let's me push the paint around, which is a lot of fun.   And of course I love an opportunity to paint a back-lit scene, this one of our happy mutt Theo!  

A Casualty of Christmas Chew

"A Casualty of Christmas Chew"

8x8

Oil on Gessoboard
To Purchase

It feels like it's been forever since I last posted.   After a month busy with Birthday boy's celebration, being sick with the flu for 2 weeks and generally down for the count, I feel like I'm finally back to enjoying myself in the studio again.

Picking some familiar still life subjects, seemed to do the trick.
I was happy with this set-up, looking down from above with a light coming in from the side, casting some shadows on some very colorful characters.
Don't know if the title gives it away:-)  Curious to find out if it makes sense to anyone.
If not I'll give some clues tomorrow.

Art and Painting after 30 in 30

The "30 Paintings in 30 Days" Challenge is over and I have to admit that I felt a little lost after it was all over.   The crash after being on such a high for a month?!..:-)  I was looking forward to working on larger work, which now just seems more difficult, because there's not that immediate sense of accomplishment I feel when I can finish something in a day.  

One thing that helped was having Leslie Saeta come and demo at my local Art Guild on the Tuesday after the end of the challenge.  I asked her about a year ago and continued to bug her...so I was so glad that she was able to fit it into her more than busy schedule.   What an amazing treat!   It was so great to hear Leslie share her her personal successes and funny stories as she was mixing and painting away.   We were all intrigued by the palette knife painting, motivated to take chances with marketing our art, and inspired by her experiences and accomplishments.

In the week since I have done some painting, but nothing that I've posted so far and I've been catching up on life and spending some time with the kids!

This is one little painting I've been working on, but haven't finished as of yet.

 I love the color combination, but it's a lot of color?!!:-) and I might need to tone it down in some areas to enhance the focal point.

Got to see Ignat Ignatov paint Rich Brimer's portrait at the Kwan Fong Gallery at Cal Lutheran last Monday as well.

He's so talented, and it was interesting to see his process and how he starts out really loose to be able to stay that way.  First thing he did was an underpainting that captures the intense back lighting he uses on his model and then he works on adding the features and refining everything with these great whispy brush strokes intertwining different colors still keeping the looseness he started with.

See the finished portrait here

Morning Shadows - Day 30!!!!!

8x10

Oil on Linen on Panel

Painted on location at Paramount Ranch

Day 30 of

30 Paintings in 30 Days

Taking stock of this challenge and what it has done for me

I feel that the biggest thing painting

                                                30 paintings in 30 days has given me is:

To build my confidence!

Several times I've been told that..."to get better, all you need is to just paint everyday"...And now I see, now I feel that I know from experience why they say that:)

It's a numbers game!
Not every painting is a winner and having to move on, (because I have another painting to paint
tomorrow), means:

I'm working faster.
I don't have the luxury of time to second guess my every move and get stuck on details as much.
I've had to leave good enough alone and move on.
I've put down a few more strokes and then left them alone.
I've been more willing to wipe things off, not as attached to every piece.
I've given up on "getting it right" and have followed my instincts more.
I've listened within and have gotten more in touch with what I like and what I'm drawn to paint.
I've found a few of my own personal shortcuts that work for me to get the drawing right and figure out angles etc.  (turning my reference and my painting up-side down is one of my favorites)

Simply said, if one out of 5 is a winner....I'm more likely to have 5 winners after 30, than 5 winners after 5, and hopefully improve that much faster:)

I just realized that in 2012 I had 34 blogposts the whole year and now I will have nearly as many (30) tomorrow, after only 1 month in 2013 woooohoooo!

I want to thank Leslie for getting me and all the other artists jump-started in this way.
I'm ready to tackle bigger paintings and new ideas with momentum.
I've connected with some great artists that I didn't know before, even one painting as close as 50 feet away from me!!
I now proudly have 14 followers as opposed to 3 before (little by little:)
I've gotten great feedback - and comments, - wow what's that?!!
I've even been told that I've inspired some other artists to paint more.

HAPPY PAINTING EVERYONE!

The Colors of Rain - Day 29

6x6

Oil on Linen on Panel

Day 29 of 

30 Paintings in 30 Days

Yellow Watchers - Day 28

8x8

Oil on Linen on Panel

Day 29 of 

30 Paintings in 30 Days

Caught the last rays of sun, at the last car show of the year and I was happily snapping away.   Wanted to paint this on in the square format which meant a lot of ground which I'm still wondering if I kept it simple and abstract enough...
I loved the shadows of the people casting on the VW...Can you find me?

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?

Lookout Crew - Day 26

6x6

Oil on Gessoboard

Day 26 of

30 Paintings in 30 Days

Painted this little sketch of goats this afternoon.  I was drawn to the way they were standing, touching and twisting, and how the shadow was falling, creating a nice abstract shape.   The left goat fell into place, but I struggled a little more with the black one.  It helped turning my reference photo upside down.  It's a bit of a weird angle looking down on them and my brain was telling me that "oh no, the feet couldn't go this way"   It seems to help to detach from what we know sometimes, especially painting perspective and angles.  Measuring and looking thru a mirror helps .

It feels nice to be caught up.  

A big thank you to all of you that have stopped by my blog, who've made thoughtful and encouraging comments and signed up to follow me during this challenge with Leslie Saeta!!  It's been a great way to connect.   Hearing the feedback has been invaluable; checking out everyone's work has been inspiring and being part of a community of artists who love painting just like me is just great and I hope these connections will go on as we continue on our journey making art!

Late Light - Day 25

8x8

Oil on Hardboard

Day 25 of

30 Paintings in 30 Days

This is the light I saw in the parking-lot of a Panda Express that we stopped at on the way home from a trip.  I grabbed my trusted paint-stained camera and got a few shots.   I wanted to get a little more experimental, simplified and more messy with this one...not sure I didn't get more complicated than intended, but it's a step in the process.   I liked the way the light from the sun passed thru the car's window.

This one is a day behind...now there's only a few more days to go....it's kind of weird to think the challenge is almost done.

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!

Summer fun Beach run - Day 23

8x8

Oil on Linen on Panel

Day 23 of

30 Paintings in 30 Days

 

This is from another photo I took last summer on Cape Cod.   I would drive around and be mesmerized by all the quaint houses, the light and the feel of summer.   I wanted to work on paint application with this one and started out with a little palette knife, but then I wasn't able to get the result I wanted so I went back to brushes.  I enjoyed playing around and got what I wanted in some areas:-)

 

Check out Catherine Kehoe for some great still life paintings with great abstract shapes and bold colors.   A direction I'm working on going towards.

Violet and succulents - Day 22

6x6

oil on linen on panel

Day 22 of 

30 Paintings in 30 Days

THis was the first painting I did on location yesterday.   I was drawn to the color combination of the warm violet in the background and the cool succulents in the foreground...a little opposite of how things work with atmospheric perspective most of the time so it provided a nice challenge.  I still feel like I need to do something with the warm pillar moving into the background, but looking at it now I do like the tree.  How it reads with all the color and reflective light.   I always learn something new.

Happy Painting!

Historical Victorian - Day 21

8x10

Oil on Linen on Panel

Day 21 of

30 Paintings in 30 Days

It was nice to be outdoors painting again today after feeling a little burnt out this weekend.   There's something restorative about being outside and making observations from life.   This was painted in Oxnard at Heritage Square.

Pretty Bird....? - Day 20

6x6

Oil on Gessoboard

Day 20 of

30 Paintings in 30 Days

Thinking Duck - Day 19

6x6

Oil on Gessoboard

Day 19 of

30 Paintings in 30 Days

Had a tough time painting flowers today so I moved on to painting this Ducky.  

Reaching High - Day 18

8x10

Oil on Linen on Panel

Day 18 of

30 Paintings in 30 Days

This is probably the first time I've focused on clouds.   I did one where I started with the darkest value and then this second one where I started with the lightest value.   Good practice and I could use some more when it comes to the edges.

Happy Painting!

Couples' Counseling - Day 17

8x8

Oil on Gessoboard
 Purchase info

Day 17 of
30 Paintings in 30 Days

These birds inspired me today as a visual of the not always easy feat of communicating and moving closer.    I like it when life inspires 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!