Near Chama (made better)

6 x 8 oil on masonite
$100.00 + $10. s/h
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My last posting was this same painting. But, I kept looking at it and realized that there were several things that needed to be changed. The snow on the shadow bank was too bright and drew the viewer to the back of the painting. While it's fine to look back there, the artist has to create a way for the viewer to keep moving around the painting. This wasn't happening; the too bright snow just made your eyes stop. So, the snow bank is darker and grayer. Also, the side banks were angled down too far. While they must have been that way, (I'm sure I couldn't have painted anything incorrectly!) the river didn't read as flat. It appeared to be going up. So, I made the banks a little more horizontal. And, from my view there was a triangular patch of snow and bank in the bottom right hand corner, I painted it out.

Sometimes we just don't see everything. And, it's ok to go back and make things better. Sounds like what I told our kids when they were little.

Near Chama

6" x 8" oil on masonite

$100.00 + $10. s/h

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On our return trip from Durango, we decided to drive the back way: south to Chama, NM, then north. This was a long way around, but, we're retired, we have the time. The north side of this river canyon was cold and snowy, while the sunny south side was warm and snowless. It was almost like painting two paintings. There was very little traffic, we just pulled right over to the side of the road at this spot.

No Longer A Lake

6 x 8 oil on masonite
$100.00 + $10. s/h
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I am standing on what used to be the bottom of Vallecito Lake. This side of the lake has become a small river. We drove right down to this spot. If we don't get lots of snow the rest of the winter, and more than normal spring rains, there may not even be a little river this summer.

From the Bouquet

SOLD
6 x 6 oil on canvas panel

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We have a beautiful bouquet on our front hall table this week, compliments of my husband. So, I thought painting flowers today was perfect. It's really warm here, but too windy to paint outside. And, there is no sign of spring yet at this altitude. In the painting many of the dark oranges are a greenish color, but that doesn't show up on the photo.

Lake Vallecito

6 x 8 oil on canvas panel
$100.00 + $10. s/h
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Lake Vallecito sits near the base of Engineer Mountain outside of Durango, CO. It's really a reservoir. The road to get to this side of the lake is the top of the dam. The middle strip in the painting of orange/burnt sienna used to be the bottom of the lake. But, with too many dry years in the west, the lake has receded. In some of our reservoirs you can no longer use the docks to unload your boats. The end of the docks now sit on land.

Sunset Over Engineer Mountain

6 x 8 oil on canvas panel
$100.00 + $10.00 s/h
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SOLD

Our son lives in Durango, CO. about a 6 hour drive from here. Durango is in one of the most beautiful areas of the state. This landscape is from our trip to see him in late fall. I loved how the sunset highlighted Engineer Mountain. As soon as the sun starts setting, the temperatures drop quickly and drastically at this altitude. It became so cold in a matter of minutes.

Green Egg and Tans

6 x 6 oil on canvas panel

 $100.00 + $10. s/h SOLD

 Last week we visited my friend Marianne, also a retired art teacher, who has property about 20 miles east of here. They have horses, goats, chickens, and of course dogs. I loved the goats. They're like pets, just walking and staying close to us all the time. Marianne and her husband are raising several different kinds of chickens; who lay different colored eggs. We came home with a dozen eggs of many colors. Due to the matte finish of eggs, even with a light shining right on them, the reflection is softer, not shiny. These were fun to paint. I'm sure they'll taste great, too.

Class Exercise

These are exercises we did in class this week. The idea is from Kevin Macpherson's book Landscape Painting-Inside and Out. The top picture is taken of the still life with a warm light shining on it. The bottom is of the same still life with just natural light. Using a view finder, the little hole punch size ones you find on a gray value scale chart, we matched and labeled 8 color notes. No matter the level of the artist, exercises are always great and really get you thinking, not just jumping right in and painting.

Creamer

6 x 6 oil on canvas panel
$100.00 + $10. s/h
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This is the creamer from our daughter's teaset which was my mother-in-law's. I spent almost as much time setting this up as I did painting it. When I painted one of the teacups (2 weeks ago) I had it on an older green placemat. So, now I wanted it on a different, warmer, background. I thought of what our daughter played with it on...a garage sale plastic table covered in flowered contact paper. That wasn't quite the look that I wanted. I wondered what my mother-in-law would have set her teaset on in 1925. Probably a linen tablecloth or a wooden table or floor. I got out all the old linens, looked through them all, tried the creamer on several, decided I didn't want white on white, and didn't want to iron. I chose the wooden table. It was fun working with the reflection in the wood.

Three Apples

9 x 12 oil on canvas panel
$100.00 + $10. s/h
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In this piece I was really trying to push the color notes.
Today I received a handwritten postcard from the Cushman family, the owners of the HoneyBell Company. If you read my blog last month, I did 5 daily paintings of the oranges we had received for Christmas, and entered them, and myself, in the bib wearing contest. The family loved my art, thanked me for the photos, and will check out my blog. It's not often you get personal notes anymore. Made my day.

More Garlic

6 x 6 oil on canvas
$100.00 + $10. s/h
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I used a different garlic, different light, different time of day, different fabric from yesterdays' painting. These differences created a completely different mood. It really makes a difference!

Garlic Pressed

I recently came up with an easy way to hold my daily painting small canvases. As you see above,
I've taken a 9 x 12 cardboard panel (I used the back panel of a canvas pad) and taped a strip of 1/2 " wide foam board across the bottom. Then I set the canvas on that ledge and put another 1/2 " foam board strip across the top of the panel. I clip the strip at both edges with heavy clips. Because of the cushiony foam inside of the foam board, you push down a little before clipping, and it really holds the canvas well. It's then easy to carry outside to photograph. I've put vertical strips of masking tape at the edges where a 6 x 6 and a 6 x 8 canvas would hit. This just protects the back panel a little. These are easy to set on my easel. I've tried using push pins and duct tape, and like this method. I now have several of these, so I can leave the painting on until it's dry.

6" x 6" oil on canvas panel

$100.00 + $10. s/h

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I wanted to work with reflective light on white. I have a blue fabric on the right side and a pinkish one on the top-left side. It really exaggerates the reflections. And I wanted to work with a light subject on a light background. I usually go for more contrast.

More Bloomers

6" x 9" oil on canvas on board
$100.00 + $10. s/h
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This is another yucca painting from a morning out last summer with my plein-air group. I think next summer I'll take pictures of the outdoor locations where we are painting and include those with the post. Another great thing about blogging is seeing all the different landscapes, flowers, etc from all the different geographic locations of online artists.

Yucca Bloom

6" x 9" oil on canvas on board
$100.00 + $10. s/h
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This is a daily painting from last summer before I was blogging. There is about a 2 week period in late June (usually) when the yucca are in bloom. For those of you who don't know, these yucca are blooming. My plein-aire group went twice to the yucca field to paint good blooms. The first time was just a bit before the blooms. So, we tried again. There are hundreds of yucca plants covering the top of a mesa, it's pretty spectacular.

Rose Shadow

6 x 8 oil on masonite
$100.00 + $10. s/h
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I had planned on painting this rose on a 6 x 6 panel. But when I turned on the light the shadow was as interesting as the rose. So, plan B happened without planning. It's interesting to me that the center of the shadow was so dark. I wasn't expecting that.

Three To Get Ready

6 x 8 oil on masonite
$100.00 + $10. s/h
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Mushrooms are a funny little food. They're kind of funny looking. Because of all the tints and shades of white, they're fun to paint. Can there be a tint of white? If a tint is a color plus white, there must be only shades of white. I'll have to think about this for awhile.

Color Studies

I mentioned last week that I should do some color studies of my extended palette. These are color studies that I've done in the past using my typical palette plus white. In the above study I started with cad red then mixed it 50/50% with each of the colors going across: cad yellow pale, cad yellow deep, yellow ochre, terra rosa, aliz. crimson, burnt sienna, veridean, cerulean, cobalt, ultramarine blue. Then, I mixed each of those paint piles with white and created tints going down. I probably could have mixed a little more white each time. That would have gotten me all the way to white at the bottom. But, I almost get there.

This chart shows Terra Rosa mixed 50/50 with each color going across then tinted with white going down. Terra Rosa is a wonderful color for landscape paintings. Again, had I mixed a little more white each time, I would have gotten all the way to white at the bottom.

This chart shows the same colors mixed with Cad Yellow Pale.

I don't look at these charts all the time. But, sometimes I'm standing at the easel, looking at the set-up, or a shadow, and I just don't know what colors to mix. These really help. I've also done many of these color value scales just mixing colors, not adding white.

White Rock

9 x 12 oil on canvas panel
$100.00 + $10. s/h
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In the middle of Colorado Springs is an almost 1400 acre park called Garden of the Gods. 2009 is the 100th anniversary of the park. The original owner left it to the city in 1909. One of his friends wanted him to turn it into a beer garden. Luckily, that didn't happen. The park is filled with towering sandstone rock formations and sits just below Pikes Peak. It's pretty spectacular. No matter how many times I visit the park, I'm always amazed. The rocks, the light and color, the shadows; they're always changing. The formations and spires all have names. The one in the front here is aptly named "White Rock".

Still Life with White

12" x 16"

oil on canvas

I painted this still life last summer. I read Susan Sarback's book Capturing Radiant Colors in Oil, and did many of the color studies, even painting blocks to match those in the book to really see where she was coming from with her colors. She has a lot of knowledge and great thoughts. My block studies looked good. But, I found that sometimes my paintings looked muddy when layering. Must be my brush technique. In this still life, I got all the colors of the major masses blocked in, and then got side tracked by life, ie: I didn't get any further than the block-in layer. The objects sat in the studio, and several weeks later, when I got back to this setup, of course the block ins were dry. There was no muddy affect when I painted the next layer. I like the scumbling; it was really easy to allow the first layer of paint to show through. But, we don't always have that kind of time to let something sit.

Flamenco Dancer

6" x 6" oil on canvas panel
$100.00 + $10. s/h
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My husband and I went to Sevilla, Spain last year to visit our daughter during her semester abroad. It is one of the most beautiful cities I've ever seen. Flamenco dancing originated in Sevilla. The Flamenco Museum was well worth the visit. This (and a scarf) were the only gift items we purchased. In case you are wondering...there used to be a dancer on the mug. I noticed after about 3-4 times in the dishwasher that the dancer was disappearing. So, I had my choice, use it and watch her wash away. Or, not use the mug and let it sit around. I decided to just use it. And, now I have a plain white mug: still good for my morning coffee and now great for painting white.