Field of Sunflowers

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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.

Sketch Awesome.. Portrait from a Loomis Head

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I have a bad habit of signing up for online classes (Jed Dorsey’s Mini Challenge, Ali Kay’s VIP Fresh Paint class, Sktchy’s 30 Faces in 30 Days, Kara Bullock’s Let’s Face It 2024 (and 2023) and now 2025) and then letting the classes languish. The only good thing is that they’re all “lifetime” (or at least until they go out of biz!)

Anyhow, I suddenly got fired up to draw more portraits, so I went back to Phil Davies’ Sketch Awesome class and looked up week 4 which was about drawing portraits based on the Loomis Method.

Below is the result of doing the head in profile via the Loomis method. I don’t have a credit on the author of the reference photo, which comes with the class.

Artists I Like

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Artists whose work I’ve Purchased

Jed Dorsey – https://www.jeddorseyart.com/

Jim Musil – https://jimmusil.com/originals

Chris Long — https://www.chrislongpainter.com/

Artists whose work I Like (Contemporary)

Hashim Akib — https://www.hashimakib.co.uk/

Phil Davies — https://www.instagram.com/phildaviesartist/

Teddi Parker — https://www.instagram.com/teddiparkerart/

Vicki McGrath — https://www.instagram.com/vickimcgrathart

Favorite Artists

Winslow Homer — in particular his watercolors

https://www.wikiart.org/en/winslow-homer/west-india-divers

https://www.wikiart.org/en/winslow-homer/diamond-shoal

https://www.wikiart.org/en/winslow-homer/hurricane-bahamas-1898

Berthe Morisot

https://www.wikiart.org/en/berthe-morisot/young-woman-at-the-mirror

https://www.wikiart.org/en/berthe-morisot/hide-and-seek

Vincent Van Gogh

https://www.wikiart.org/en/vincent-van-gogh/irises-1889

https://www.wikiart.org/en/vincent-van-gogh/the-starry-night-1889

Doug Clarke

https://www.liquidmethod.com/ — I especially like his figures

Mary Whyte — https://www.marywhyte.com/

Joaquin Sorolla

https://www.wikiart.org/en/joaqu-n-sorolla/my-wife-and-daughters-in-the-garden-1910

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Walk_on_the_Beach

52 Mini Paintings Challenge: Week #26

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This is the week 26 painting for Jed Dorsey’s Mini Painting Challenge at Acrylic University. It’s called “Blue Sky Poppies” and is based on a reference photo by Sergey Schmidt. 6×6 canvas panel, untoned.

I’m not overly happy with this one. I struggled with the flower shapes and the soft focus of the reference photo. The result is that it’s more abstract than I had originally intended. However, I AM (mostly) happy with the colors.