Landscapes

52 Mini Paintings Challenge: Week #12 – REDO in 2026

| cathmary1030

This is a redo of the week 12 painting for Jed Dorsey’s Mini Painting Challenge at Acrylic University, based on my observations of mistakes I made in the original painting. The idea was to get the proportions more accurate, the perspective/distance more accurate, and to convey a better sense of form (namely, that the trees were at the top of and behind a hill).

I painted it on a 5×5 canvas panel. For the sky I used Liquitex Soft Body Light Blue Permanent (PB15, PG7, PW6) and mixed the lower latitudes with more white. The pine trees were painted with Atelier’s Forest Green (PY74, PB15.3, PR101) mixed with Phthalo Green (Blue Shade) and Ultramarine Blue. The darker grass was a mix of Atelier’s Forest Green with Cad-free Yellow Medium by Liquitex, and the lighter grass was a mix of Winsor’s Sap Green (PY74, PG7, PBk7, PW6) and Cad-free Yellow Medium.

Here is a comparison between the original I two years ago, and the one I did today. The newer painting is far from perfect — the trees are still wonky, the paint is gloppy on the trees and I think the grass should be lighter in value — but at least you can tell the trees are on a hill, and the rocks no longer “float”.

Here are some in-process photos of the redo:

Here’s a value comparison between the reference photo [credit: Mark Hadland] and my painting.

What can I learn from Prior Mistakes (#2)?

| cathmary1030

As with week 15 of Jed Dorsey’s Mini Painting Challenge at Acrylic University, many of the same flaws apply for the week 12 “Let’s Go Hiking” painting.

What I see is: 1) a lack of proportion which leads to 2) a lack of perspective. That tree at the right should obviously be smaller as it is farther away, for example. 3) Poor use of brush strokes in conveying form — for the rocks, they should have been vertical rather than horizontal which makes my rocks appear to be “floating” rather than grounded as boulders which comes across in Jed’s painting.

Positioning relative to the picture plane is not ideal in my painting, although in this one — compared to week 15 — my colors are not so saturated and, to my eye, are reasonably close to what Jed used. (Again, I don’t want to copy exactly, necessarily, and I DID go back and make a change to the values as indicated in this post. My first attempt at this painting is here.)

Finally, there is the difference in style between Jed’s and mine, which could just be related to my beginner status. But he has a preference for toning his canvases in black, which I did in this case — and I just can’t stand! I don’t have his painting ability so toning my canvas in black is discombobulating for me. In addition, Jed is gifted at painting the negative spaces, and that is NOT a skill I have at this point.

Also, in so many of these beginner lessons from various different painters I hear about using “big” brushes so that you don’t obsess over detail as many beginners do. I cannot argue with that, but I see in my paintings thus far TOO LITTLE attention to detail! It’s okay to use a smaller brush at times! 🙂

If I were to paint this again, I would stick with a white canvas or one toned a neutral gray, and I would probably trace key lines from his painting to get the proper sense of proportion as well as a sense of the boulders being rooted to the ground and forming the shape of the hill.

What can I learn from Prior Mistakes (#1)?

| cathmary1030

I’ve been browsing through the work I did in 2024, and it occurs to me that, for those times I was doing “master copies” of other artists’ work, I had two methods. One was just a straight copy when all I had to look at was the artist’s painting or drawing. The other was copying via the mini challenges at Acrylic University.

What I’ve realized now, in review, is that for the painting lessons, I would refer to the reference photo and the painting, watch the video, then do my own thing (more or less) so that my work is full of flaws. I would focus on the loose and expressive style, but I didn’t have the fundamentals down!

An example is below — from the week 15 painting for Jed Dorsey’s Mini Painting Challenge at Acrylic University. 

The first thing I see is I do a poor job of conveying form and perspective. Everything is flat and abstract in part because my colors are much too saturated and also because the proportions are all wrong, particularly of the houses.

My painting does not properly reflect perspective; Jed’s alley gets visually narrower in the distance, while mine does not. In addition, his brushstrokes for the alley are vertical relative to the picture plane, which helps move the eye to the end of the alley in the distance. My alley brushtrokes are horizontal which does nothing to convey perspective.

My buildings are out of proportion relative to each other and relative to their roofs, and they do not appear 3-dimensional. In addition, the trash bins near the yellow house appear to float.

Ironically, in my initial sketch on canvas (below), I seemed to have a slightly better sense of proportion, but I didn’t think about using my brushstrokes to convey form and distance. If I were to do this painting again, I might consider tracing the large shapes of Jed’s painting first, just to get the placement right within the 6×6 panel.

Travels Near & Far – Dianna Shyne – Week #3 (mini Painting challenge)

| cathmary1030

This is Week #3 (called “Red Cliffs”) of “Travels Near & Far” — a mini painting challenge at Acrylic University, and the artist is Dianna Shyne who also took the reference photo used. As with the week #1 work, the photo is of Prince Edward Island, Canada.

This was painted on a 6×6 wooden panel, which I had toned with naphthol crimson some time ago. I am liking painting on wood. But I dislike the painting itself; the shadow looks fake, and the rock in the background looks more like a slice of chocolate pie! (LOL).

Trouble is, I don’t care enough about cliffs to repaint it. And I need to stop trying to copy Dianna’s style, and focus on the fundamentals.

(Well, I DID modify it a bit after all. The most current view is on the left. A somewhat better painting of cliffs is here.)


Travels Near & Far – Dianna Shyne – Week #1 (mini Painting challenge)

| cathmary1030

To boost my confidence after not painting for over a year I signed up for another 52-week mini painting challenge at Acrylic University. This one is called “Travels Near & Far” and Dianna Shyne is the artist. I like her paintings almost as much as I like Jed Dorsey’s, so why not?

Week #1 (called “Last Rays”) comes from a reference photo she took on previous visits to Prince Edward Island. I’ve been to PEI myself — couldn’t resist checking out the tourist attractions related to that famous fictional character Anne Shirley (aka Anne of Green Gables) — so I understand the appeal.

This was painted on a 6×6 Claybord panel, toned in pink.


52 Mini Paintings Challenge: Week #38

| cathmary1030

I went the entire 2025 calendar year without painting AT ALL — I was in ICU at the first of the year, and later, dealing with my dad’s metastatic cancer and eventual death. Just wasn’t inclined to pick up a brush.

Back in 2024 I started Jed Dorsey’s mini painting challenge series, but about halfway through the year I got bored of copying someone else’s artwork, so started skipping around with the mini challenge weeks. I only did about half of the 52 so now will do a few more of the remaining — those that most appeal to me.

This is the week 38 painting for Jed Dorsey’s Mini Painting Challenge at Acrylic University. It’s called “Mountain Atmosphere” and is based on a reference photo by Ravi Pinisetti. 6×6 canvas panel, toned in a medium-dark gray.

Field of Sunflowers

| cathmary1030

This painting is on a 6×6 “Claybord” panel with the undertone painting done in gold metallic paint that’s roughly the color of yellow ochre. (Like a rank novice, I wasted decent money on metallic paints and have never figured out a use for them — same with the iridescent paint I bought last year. Anyway, I recently read about an artist named Michele Usibelli who uses gold metallic paint as her undertone in a number of her paintings — bingo! I’m going to try that myself.

Turns out either the metallic paint or the Claybord (or both!) had a slippery sensation that was hard to work with. (But that could be me…)

In any case, these sunflowers come from one of the 7 paintings demonstrated at the 2024 Summer “Challenge” at Acrylic University. Which I didn’t participate in at the time, but am trying my hand at now that I have some more time.