Martice

Martice
Oil on panel, 11x14

This young lady was simply a delight to paint today!  She is just as sweet as can be, and was so patient as we constantly tried to talk her into ignoring her breaks.  Today's focus was temperature, so I kept this in mind as I worked.  Her hair was amazing - with cool light and cooler light reflecting from two separate sources, one more blue, the other pushing lavender.  The skin was truly a challenge.  I found myself seeing one color, looking more intently to see the others.  So much of the life of the painting is accurately seeing all the colors.  With each day, I am seeing more color temperature variations.  Just as with plein air painting outdoors, I can see many more colors when painting from life than I could from a photo.  It never ceases to amaze me.  I am really having fun with this workshop, really trying to push myself to explore the figure and portrait work, and paint more sensitively.  I brought this one home and worked on it a bit more, wanting to capture her sweet, gentle spirit with the oils.  The color is a bit off due to the nighttime lighting, so I'll try to take a better photo tomorrow. Painting number 423 in as many days :)

I can hardly believe that I have been selected as a featured artist in an article by the Missouri Arts Council titled Snapshots of the Missouri Arts Blogosphere!  This is SO exciting!  What an honor it is to mentioned with such amazing artists across the state!  Please go check out the article - there are some wonderful artists and their blogs mentioned.  You just might find a new favorite blog to follow!

Kaleigh

Kaleigh
Oil on panel, 11x14

This is my second workshop day and my first figure painting from life!  I liked the angles of the full pose, so I jumped right into painting the whole figure.  I thought to myself, "This is going to be a piece of cake.  By painting the whole figure, I will be putting less detail into all of the masses - so this will go quickly!"  Silly me!  What was I thinking?  By doing the whole shabang, I opened myself up to ALL those masses - and all those values within each mass.  The focus of the day was values, so I worked more diligently at marking the darkest darks and lightest lights.  I felt I was much stronger at the values in all masses except the skin, and I had to push myself when it came to the darks!  So, tomorrow, I am going to consciously lay in the darks of the skin much more effectively from the get-go!  Another challenge for today was the actual mapping of the figure.  There is so much more measuring with a whole figure than a head and shoulder.  I normally just start at the top and draw down from there.  But today, I marked the top, bottom and right edges where I wanted the composition to sit, and worked all measurements out from there.  I love being challenged, and feel like I really learned something today!  This is painting number 421 in as many days.

Tending the Flowers

Tending the Flowers
Oil on panel, 12x16
Old Missouri Town

I have wanted to paint this scene ever since I took the photo on a school field trip to Old Missouri Town.  This lovely woman was gently tending her flowers while the children ran from one building to the next.  This place is full of many vintage landscapes to paint.  I love the 1855 feel of the town, it is like stepping back in time for just a little while.  The morning light cast a warming glow as it burned through a bit of haze - a perfect light for this subject in her garden.  I meant to under paint this one in acrylics, but I only remembered once the panel was already half covered!  This was one of those days of starts and stops.  Three different times I had to leave this painting, only to return hours later.  Finally finishing up, this is my 179th painting in as many days.  It just gets harder and harder to get a painting done each day in the summer!  The kids are home, we have so many family and sports activities, and I am constantly searching for that tiny painting window - normally in tiny segments!  Oh how I hope this gets easier soon!