beginner

Field of Daffodils… After Dianna Shyne

| cathmary1030

One of the perks of Acrylic University membership is weekly classes/workshops livestreamed on YouTube. Last Friday, the instructor Dianna Shyne led a workshop on the “Colors of Spring”, which included her painting four small studies of flowering trees and spring flowers. One was of a field of daffodils, and since daffs are my favorite flower, I tried my own version of the reference photo she used.

This was done on an 8×10 stretched canvas, and the yellow used is (mostly) Liquitex Cad-Free Yellow Light (Lemon), with some Cad-Free Yellow Medium in the foreground. All the various shades of green were mixed from Cad-Free Yellow Light and Mars Black.

Cups of Coffee.. After Teddi Parker

| cathmary1030

I discovered Teddi Parker after listening to a podcast at Learn to Paint Podcast. And then I found her Instagram, and her website. In looking at her work, I was struck by one with 4 cups of coffee: black and bubbly, mildly creamy and one quite milky. I believe hers was done using acrylic house paint. In any case, I wanted to copy her different coffee colors, the bubbles, the shadows in the mugs, and the highlights.

This was done strictly as a study, on an 8×8 canvas.

52 Mini Paintings Challenge: Week #14

| cathmary1030

This is the week 14 painting for Jed Dorsey’s Mini Painting Challenge at Acrylic University. It’s from a reference painting by an artist named Bruno; a large lone pine is silhouetted against an evening sky. Dorsey’s process involved painting the tree and foreground first, and then the sky. I did the opposite, painting the sky in its entirety, and then painting the tree and foreground in a chromatic black (burnt sienna & ultramarine blue).

The reference photo did not really speak to me; I think this is reflected in my painting. Oh, and I started with a 6×6 canvas panel I had already painted in a diarylide yellow.

52 Mini Paintings Challenge: Week #13

| cathmary1030

This is the week 13 painting for Jed Dorsey’s Mini Painting Challenge at Acrylic University. I’m not certain where the reference photo was taken; it’s not one of Dorsey’s. The painting he did in the paint-along is called “Big Clouds” and he uses a magenta red underpainting. To be honest, his version of this painting is one of the reasons I signed up for this challenge. I’m not over-crazy about my own version; it’s just another study of clouds. I need more practice.

My First Nocturne

| cathmary1030

I’ve had an 8×10 canvas lying around for months which I had toned with anthraquinone blue (PB60), and I had seen some nocturnes done by students in Acrylic University. So, inspired, I went through my own photos and found one I took in my backyard early in the Covid lockdown. It’s not the best reference, but it is certainly a nocturne!

I used dioxazine purple for the dark-shadowed house, and Liquitex Basics gray-blue with some black for the lighter wall. The sky is the anthraquinone blue, but also a mix of phthalo blue/ultramarine blue and white in varying shades around the moon.

52 Mini Paintings Challenge: Week #12 – Value Adjustment

| cathmary1030

After I completed the week 12 painting for Jed Dorsey’s Mini Painting Challenge at Acrylic University, and compared it to a grayscale of the reference image, I realized the values were off. So I’ve lightened the trees and the grass.

Here’s the value comparison between the reference image and the original painting, and then the reference and this updated version. The updated pic is, obviously, on the left. My trees and my grass were much too dark in my first attempt.